Chapter 6
Rocky Ride
The Icehawks’ season comes down to one game—tonight.
It’s simple. Beat Vancouver, and they’re in the playoffs.
Lose, and they can start making summer vacation plans.
The team has had a rocky week since their win against Colorado several days ago.
They’ve lost two in a row, thanks in part to Drakos Lenkov.
Lucky for them, so has Vancouver. This is an all-or-nothing game.
Hang on to your seats. It’s going to be a wild ride. —Aria at All Hockey News
~~Aria~~
It’s been over a week since the incident in the arena parking garage.
Tonight the Icehawks play their last regular season game. If they win, they make the playoffs. The stakes are high, and coming off two straight losses doesn’t necessarily inspire confidence.
The few times I’ve seen Drakos since our little hugfest, one of us has gone the other way.
We’re both good at avoidance, for which I’m thrilled.
I can’t explain my lapse in judgment, and I’d rather not try.
I’m angry I turned to him in a moment of weakness.
It will not happen again, no matter how good it felt.
Noah’s at school. I’ve finished my work for the day, and my neighbor will pick him up after school and bring him home. She’ll also watch him while I’m at the game. I’m not looking forward to going there. I’ve always been the bold, fearless type, but this time, I don’t feel so bold.
Bored, I look through the stack of mail on the counter and open up an envelope addressed to my sister. It’s a bill for a mailbox I didn’t know she had at the place on the corner. I stare at it long and hard.
It’s time to dig deeper into my sister’s life.
I’ve been putting it off for too long. I guess I held out hope my parents would step up and handle her estate and leave me out of it.
They didn’t. I understand she owns a large house in Vegas and has investments.
All of which should go to Noah and be used for his future.
This secret mailbox is one more piece of a puzzle I haven’t started putting together yet. It’s past time. Three months have gone by, and it’s time to figure things out. The pain of losing Anna is still strong, and I think of her every day, but I have to do this for Noah.
Gathering up a few things, I slip out the door and drive the two blocks to the mailbox store. I enter and go to the counter. A woman studies me with suspicion. I’m guessing that’s her normal approach to anyone.
I present her with the bill and my sister’s death certificate along with my ID, then explain my situation. She listens with a degree of skepticism before answering. “Are you going to pay for her mailbox? It’s past due.”
“Yes, how much?”
“Two hundred and thirty-six fifty.”
I choke, shocked at the price.
“She had a large mailbox.”
“Okay.” I pay the bill, and she produces a box of mail along with a key. “Her mail’s been stacking up, and the mailbox is full.”
“I can imagine.”
I fill another box with what’s crammed in the mailbox, load them in my car, and hurry home where I begin to sort through one box.
The vast majority is junk mail but not all.
I find an overdue notice for a storage unit along with multiple Visa bills with my name on them but her mailbox address.
I stare at one of the envelopes for a long time, confused and perhaps dreading what I might find.
Anna had money. She was a well-respected teacher and researcher at the University of Nevada in Vegas with a doctorate in quantitative biology and bioinformatics, whatever that is.
She’d taken a six-month sabbatical, needing some downtime, and had come to Portland to hang with me.
If only she’d stayed in Vegas, she’d have never gotten in that accident.
Things could’ve been so different for her and Noah and me.
And now she’s gone. Our parents’ pride and joy. Ms. Perfect who never screws up, not like baby sister who’s one disaster after another.
Okay, she screwed up once. Drakos. But even her screwups have good outcomes because Noah came out of it.
Taking a deep breath, I tear open the envelope and pull out the contents.
“Past due” is stamped on the statement in dark red along with a letter threatening collection, and it’s addressed to me, not Anna.
I stare at the balance on the account in horror.
Thirty-five thousand dollars and twenty-six cents.
It can’t be. There has to be a mistake. Someone stole my identity and did this, and that someone cannot be my sister.
I look back at the list of charges. All of them were before her death and at places she frequented.
I recall her shopping sprees but thought nothing of it.
After all, Anna was wealthy, or so I thought.
After a call to Visa, I’m even more confused and disturbed. Why would my sister do this? Reluctantly, I call my mother. She answers on the sixth ring, just as I’m about to give up.
“Hi, Aria.” Her tone is cold and laced with annoyance at being interrupted. Nothing new here.
“Hi, Mom. I—I have something odd I want to talk to you about.” I rush on, quickly telling her about the secret mailbox and the maxed-out credit card in my name. She doesn’t respond for a long time.
“Aria, why do you feel the need to slander your sister’s name?”
“I’m not.”
“There’s a reasonable explanation for this, but Anna certainly didn’t steal your identity. Why would she? She had plenty of assets of her own. Way more than you. You’ve obviously been careless with your identity, and now you’re blaming your dead sister who can’t defend herself. Shame on you.”
“But Mom—” Arguing is pointless, but I try anyway.
“Is that all you need? I’m not interested in your crusade to sully your sister’s good name just because you’re jealous.”
“I’m not. I’m—”
“Aria, I have to go.” She ends the call before I can say another word. I should’ve predicted her reaction. Anna could do no wrong in our mother’s eyes, and my dad is even worse.
I don’t have time to examine the remaining contents of both boxes before Noah bursts in the door. He’s so excited he can’t calm down long enough to tell me why he’s bouncing off the walls. I wait him out until he composes himself as best as a six-year-old can.
I’m smiling, as I haven’t seen him joyful like this in a long time. Finally, he flops into a chair.
“Ryder and Rowen invited me to the game tonight. Can I go? Please?”
I stutter as I try to come up with a reasonable excuse for why he can’t. It’s bad enough his new best friends are sons of Drakos’s teammate, but it’s even worse if that friendship exposes him to the man who threw him away.
“Does Gardenia know about this?” I’m interrupted by my phone ringing. A quick glance at the screen reveals it’s the very subject of my question as we exchanged numbers recently. “It’s her.”
Noah bites his lip in anticipation and manages to keep his mouth shut, but he can’t control his patience and taps his foot on the floor repeatedly. I sigh and accept the call.
“Hi.”
“Hi, Aria, this is Gardenia.”
“I know.”
“I’m guessing Noah has told you about tonight?”
“He was starting to.”
“I’m probably as caught off guard as you are, but it’s all okay. He can stay the night with the boys, and I’ll bring him home in the morning. I also have an extra ticket if you’d be so kind as to help me control the hellions.”
Going to a game with an Icehawk WAG is the last thing I should be doing. “Thanks for the offer, but I have a press pass.”
“Oh, of course you do. But why not sit on the glass with me? I’ll need adult company.”
“Are you sure you’re comfortable being seen at a game with me? I’m not popular with the team.”
“I don’t care about that. Just promise whatever we say is between us.”
“You trust me?” I know I sound incredulous, and I am.
“Shouldn’t I?”
“No one else affiliated with the team would.”
“I’m not like the rest. I actually like you.”
Gardenia’s been kind to me, and it’s changed my perspective on the Icehawks themselves.
The pressure from my boss to constantly unearth dirt and spread unsubstantiated gossip wears old at times, but the money is good, and I need that money more than ever.
Raising a kid is way more expensive than I could’ve ever imagined, and a kid in hockey is even more outrageously expensive.
I won’t deny Noah anything, though. If hockey makes him happy, I’ll sell my body if I have to.
Nor can I deny him an opportunity to attend a game. I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t taken him to one game, even though I attend the majority of them for my job.
This last regular season game is the most important game the Icehawks have played to date.
If they win, they’re in the playoffs. If they lose, then their summer vacation starts tomorrow.
On a personal note, even though a loss means more time with Noah until next season and a scaled-down workload in the off-season, deep down I still want the Icehawks to win.
“Thank you. We’d love to go,” I hear myself saying, and look around as if I expect that response to have come from someone else.
Gardenia’s reply is drowned out by Noah racing around the room, fists pumping, as he screams at the top of his lungs.
I’ve never seen him this animated, and I have to smile.
His joy warms my heart, and it’s worth any sacrifice I have to make.