31. Griffin
31
GRIFFIN
B ill wanted us to rest before the big game. I’ve done anything but.
I stayed with Jack all night on Thursday, doing whatever I could to make him feel better after the fight with his dad. Despite hating Ted Gross, it was hard to watch as a father. I can’t imagine Annabelle and June saying they hated me, that they don’t love me. Jack has a valid reason, and Ted is no saint, but it was still hard to watch. I felt bad for both of them.
I checked on Jack on Friday after work, and he was still torn up about what happened. All of the good juju we had accrued leading up the game couldn’t turn his spirits around. He even mentioned skipping the game altogether. I talked him out of that, thank goodness. But how can a player go into a game with an attitude like that?
My juju was fading, too. Guilt ravaged me over Thursday night. While I know that Jack and Ted have major problems that go back years, I hate knowing that I was the one who came between them and broke the relationship permanently.
I wake up Sunday morning determined to have a good game. This is the Sourwood Cup. There’s going to be an arena full of people watching the Comebacks do their thing. We’ve been working so hard for it. I didn’t want to let my team down, and I didn’t want Jack to let his down either.
My teammates and I are meeting up for a pregame breakfast at Caroline’s. The guys erupt in cheers when I walk into the joint. The sharp smell of freshly brewed coffee and eggs sizzling on the skillet welcome me. There’s no scent better than a diner during breakfast.
Two tables have been put together to fit all of us. Despite it being a huge game with tons of eyes on us, the guys are lively and shooting the shit like it’s any old Sunday morning.
“Get this guy some coffee!” Bill yells when I sit down. I’m not used to seeing him in such good spirits. He seems happy, an odd look for him. “How are you feeling, buddy?”
“I feel great,” I say.
“I’m nervous,” Hank says.
“Don’t say that,” Des says, easily the best dressed of the team. His T-shirt and sweatpants look freshly pressed. “When you get nervous, you get gassy.”
The guys break out in laughter. Hockey players are closer with their teammates than their spouses.
“Save it for the Blades. That can be a secret weapon,” says Bill. “What do you want to order?”
I look at the menu and see chicken noodle soup. My heart dips.
“I’ll just have some oatmeal,” I say.
“You sure?” Tanner asks. “You should have something more filling.”
“The man knows his own appetite. You can turn off dad mode, Chancey,” Des tells him.
“You don’t want to eat just before a game. You could get sick,” he says back.
“Once I folded a pancake and stuck it in my sock during a game.” Hank shrugs.
“Well, if you didn’t have an appetite already, that’ll definitely kill it,” says Des.
“I’m still thinking.” I scan the menu, but the letters jumble together. I can’t enjoy this moment because my mind is elsewhere. And I realize it’s going to stay elsewhere.
The guys all turn to me when I stand up and put on my jacket.
“Where are you going?” Bill asks.
“I gotta do something before the game.” I push my chair in. “I’ll see you at the rink.”
* * *
According to Ferguson’s, it’s the heart of summer. Outdoor furniture displays and grills are showcased at the front of the store, even though it’s cold and gray outside. Seeing it makes warm weather seem even farther away.
Something that isn’t farther away is the man who blinded me in my left eye. I find Ted Gross showing a young couple a washer and dryer set. The husband opens and closes the dryer door multiple times in a row as if checking for…something. Ted is just as confused as I am.
He looks up and catches me observing the scene. He fights like hell to maintain his polite salesman grin, but the laser-focused hate radiates from his eyes.
The husband doesn’t find what he’s looking for and continues down the row of appliances, his search unfulfilled. His wife thanks Ted and shoots him an apologetic look before catching up to her spouse.
Ted flings one last glare in my direction and heads to the row of refrigerators, putting a wall of massive kitchen appliances between us.
“Ted,” I call after him.
The kitchen department of Ferguson’s is one big maze, and I am a rat going after my cheese. I chase after Ted through paths of fridges and stoves that lead to walkthrough kitchen design models. I enter a kitchen model in the back of the department with sleek marble countertops and top-of-the-line cabinetry, neither of which I could ever afford.
Ted stands at the end, next to the kitchen island, blocking my path. He crosses his arms. No polite salesman grin for me.
“What do you want?” he mutters.
“I want to talk.” I hold up my hands to show I’m serious.
“Fine. Talk.” He doesn’t relax his stance one bit.
“We can’t keep trying to beat the shit out of each other. We’re too fucking old.” My back still hurts from where he slammed me into Jack’s kitchen island. The corner of his forehead is puffy and red from where I got him. “We need to end this.”
“We can’t change the past.”
“We can’t live in it either.” In that moment, it hits me just how tired I am of looking in the rearview mirror. I lost my shot at a pro hockey career. I can’t keep holding onto that anger and resentment. I can’t keep viewing myself as a loser unworthy of good things in life because of one bad game.
“This isn’t how my life was supposed to go,” he grumbles.
“Same. Life doesn’t always give us what we want, and at some point, we need to move on,” I tell him, but I’m speaking to both of us. It takes two to brawl.
“You never apologized to me.”
I bite my tongue, holding back the guffaw of anger surging up my throat. “You should be the one apologizing to me.” I point to my eye patch.
“I can do that, too.” He mockingly points to his shoulder. “Permanently fucked up thanks to you barreling into me like an asshole.”
“You came at me with your stick pointing like a spear!”
I feel us begin to go in circles. I can recite our arguments verbatim by this point. Round and round we go. This is not the way.
I take a breath and muster all of my strength to utter two words.
“I’m sorry.”
Ted seems flustered by my apology. He blinks a few times, trying to process.
To my surprise, I find that I don’t want to throw up in my mouth after saying I’m sorry. I feel a lightness inside me, like the weight of this rivalry can finally lift off my shoulders.
“I’m sorry, Ted.” Heavy chunks of anger break off me and float away into the wind. “I’m sorry about your shoulder and your career. I’m sorry this happened to both of us.”
Our collision on the ice appears in my memory as fragments of a puzzle that can never be fully put together. “I remember you and your stick coming at my head, but I don’t remember much else. I might’ve charged at you. I honestly don’t remember.”
Ted drops his crossed arms, perhaps a similar weight breaking off him, too. “I remember the panic I felt as we were colliding. Neither of us could stop. I thought you were going to smash into my shoulder first, but you turned your head at the last second.”
“Why did I do that?”
He shrugs, just as clueless about my teenage self as I am. “Why did I hold up my stick?”
“It was our fight or flight response, I guess.”
“My arm jammed back when my stick made contact with your face. It tore my rotator cuff.”
We’re trying to make sense of the past, a fool’s errand.
“I wasn’t trying to take you out,” I say. “Not consciously, at least. I wanted to win. I wanted to impress the scouts in the stands.”
“Me, too.” Ted leans against the model kitchen counter and rubs his bald head. “One moment changed everything, didn’t it?”
“Why didn’t you come to the hospital to see me?”
“Because I was an asshole.” His eyes, blue like Jack’s, shine under the harsh light of the store. “I thought if I went, it meant I was admitting it was my fault. I’m sorry, Griffin.”
My soul lifts at those two little words. I didn’t realize how badly I wanted to hear them. But now that he apologized, I quickly want to move on. Holding onto this anger did nothing for either of us.
“How’s your eye?” he asks.
“Completely non-functional, but aside from that, totally fine.”
We break into a soft chuckle, a chip at the thawing ice.
“I really wanted to go pro. I really fucking wanted it,” Ted says, a curdled wistfulness enveloping him.
“Me too.”
“I thought if I could get Jack there, then it’d mean that…”
“That you didn’t fail.”
“Guess that didn’t work.” He pulls at his purple apron. He looks my way, a suspicious glint in his eye. “Are you serious about my son?”
I gulp back a lump in my throat. I wasn’t ready for this to become a meet the parents situation.
“I am.”
“What’s he like?” There’s a genuine curiosity to his voice that breaks my heart a little. As parents, there will always be a side of our kids that we’ll never see.
“He’s funny, inquisitive. He’s a damn good hockey player. He’s lost, but he’s finding his way. He’s cocky as shit.”
Ted snorts a laugh.
“Our game is at noon. I think you should go and watch your son.”
“Did Jack send you here?”
“No. Father to father, I think it’d mean a lot to him.”
Ted considers it for a second before shaking his head no. “My shift goes until three.”
“Can’t you switch with someone?”
He shoves his hands in his pockets. “You heard him the other night. Jack wants nothing to do with me. I don’t want to mess up his game by showing up.”
“I think he’d appreciate it.”
Ted tips his head, seeing right through my tenuous statement. “I’ve intruded enough on his life. I should probably stay back.” He gives me a smile that I can only describe as sad. He’s made his bed, and now he must lie in it.
“Okay.” I hold out my hand. Ted gives it a hard shake.
“When you’re on the ice today, make sure to give my son hell. That way, when he kicks your ass, the victory will taste that much sweeter.”
* * *
The parking lot at Summers Rink is fuller than I’ve ever seen it. It’s transformed into a full-blown tailgate. People mill about, going from car to car, some decorated with signage to support the Comebacks or the Blades. Music blasts from phones plugged into stereo speakers. Small grills and coolers are set out, the sizzle of hamburgers and hot dogs swirling through the air. It’s nothing compared to what you’d see for a professional game or even a collegiate game. But for smalltown Sourwood, it’s quite a showing.
Above the front entrance to Summers Rink is a big painted sign that says “First Annual Sourwood Cup” with a gold trophy as exclamation point.
Seeing the crowd and the sign makes the adrenaline rise in my system. I signed up for a fun beer league with old friends, and now we’re front and center, less than an hour from having the whole town watch us. The last time I played hockey for a full, roaring crowd, I lost an eye.
I press my fingertips to my eye patch, proud of my scars. No matter what happens today, I remind myself that I came back. I gave hockey a second chance. I gave myself a second chance. And I can play a damn good game with one eye.
In the locker room, there’s a nervous energy among my teammates. We’re not rambunctious. Hank isn’t cracking jokes. Tanner isn’t whistling his lucky song.
Bill paces up and down the aisle of lockers, the first one dressed.
“Are you trying to hit ten thousand steps?” Des asks him. “Thinking of new ways to bang your assistant?”
Bill flips him the bird.
“Guys! Come in.” Bill motions us to join in the middle of the room. His face is stone cold serious. He was built for moments like these. “Whatever happens out there, I’m proud of every guy on this team. Nobody thought a bunch of fortysomething guys could keep up with guys half their age. We’re about to prove they’re all wrong. There’s a reason we’re the Comebacks. Life might’ve kicked our asses at one point or another. Cancer, divorce, death, bad accidents.” Bill glances at me for a second. “But we didn’t let it keep us down. We got back up and said, ‘Is that all you got?’”
The guys and I cheer and pound at the lockers. I think about how much time I wasted hiding after the incident, retreating. This team and Jack have shown me there’s no safety in shrinking away. Life is about taking chances.
“These Blades want to tussle. So let’s fucking tussle!” Bill yells, eliciting more cheers from us. He squashes each of our nerves. We are revved and ready to go.
Bill cranks the music. The pump-up song from our South Rock days, classic ‘90s jam “Let Me Clear My Throat” fills the locker room.
I keep thinking about Jack and how he’s doing. I texted him good luck this morning, and he sent back a heart emoji. Sweet, but it still has me a little worried. I hope all this stuff with his dad doesn’t get in his head.
“Hey Griff!” Marcy yells from the hall before barging into the locker room. Her big hair could be its own padding.
“Marcy, this is the men's locker room,” Bill says.
“Eh, you don’t have anything that I haven’t already seen.” She turns to me. “You have visitors who want to wish you luck.”
“Visitors?” I arch an eyebrow. “Who are they?”
“I’m not your receptionist. Go out and see for yourself.”
I know better than to disobey Marcy Summers. I follow her back to the hall, and fireworks immediately go off in my chest at the sight of Annabelle and June.
“Daddy!” they yell.
I can feel the smile take over the full bottom half of my face as I squat down and pull them into a hug.
“Your costume is really puffy,” June remarks, pushing at the padding.
“It’s a uniform, Junie,” Carmen says above me. She gives me a supportive nod.
“I wear all this padding because it keeps me safe.”
“Is hockey dangerous?” Annabelle asks, and I swear she’s staring at my eye patch.
“Not this game. In this game, we’re not allowed to hit each other, just like at home. And if a player does hit someone, they have to go into time-out,” I say.
“There’s a time-out?” June asks.
“There is. It’s a box they have to sit in.”
June laughs, a little too intrigued at a penalty box for my comfort. If she ever plays hockey when she’s older, the other girls better watch out.
“If it looks scary, just remember that we’re all friends in the end. We’re playing. Having fun. Kind of like you girls will roughhouse on the couch, we’re roughhousing here.”
“Okay, Daddy has to go onto the ice,” Carmen says.
I mouth thank you to her. She gives me a wink.
“Can I get one more good luck hug?”
I squeeze the girls tight in my arms, wondering if any part of the game can come close to this moment.
“Daddy,” Annabelle says. “Kick some butt!”