Epilogue
Asher
If you’d asked me five years ago if I’d ever willingly go back to Tacoma, I’d have said sure, right after I finish my pro career and/or invent a time machine to go murder my old self.
But here I am, the ink still drying on a championship ring and the scab on my chin only barely peeled off by Darius’s stubble, standing on the porch of my mother’s house with a bottle of cheap Manischewitz in my left hand and the best goalie on the planet in my right.
My palm is sweating so bad I think I might drop him.
“You nervous?” Darius says, low enough that the neighborhood raccoon probably can’t hear it, but loud enough that it bores through my skull and hits the part of me that still remembers being twelve and getting sent home from Hebrew school for fighting with a kid who said my nose was too big.
“Nah,” I say, because lying is the only way I know how to keep my organs from shutting down. “Just excited to see if my mom’s brisket can take you out faster than the Titans’ power play.”
He grins, and it’s the real one, the one that crinkles the edges of his eyes and makes my knees go a little soft.
He’s in a button-down shirt and actual slacks, and it’s so clean-cut I almost don’t recognize him, except the collar doesn’t quite fit and there’s a scar above his right eyebrow that never fully healed.
“Brisket’s got nothing on me,” he says. “But kugel, that’s a different story.”
He squeezes my hand, just once, and I remember every reason I’m doing this.
The door opens before we even knock. Maya is in the doorway, hair longer than I remember, one hand on her hip and the other already pulling me inside.
“You’re late,” she says, in the tone of someone who has been waiting exactly three minutes and is going to milk it for at least the rest of the night.
“Traffic,” I say. “Seattle’s a nightmare.”
“Bullshit,” she shoots back, then gives me a hug so intense my ribs click. She releases me, then turns to Darius.
“Hey, D,” she says, and she’s not faking it, she really is happy to see him. “Welcome to the House of Rosen. You want a drink? My mom made punch.”
He blinks, maybe thrown by the lack of ceremony, but recovers with a “Sure. Thanks, Maya.” He follows her inside, and for a second I watch him go, just to make sure he doesn’t bail.
My mom is at the table, already setting places, hair up in a bun, cardigan on over a faded “Washington Huskies” tee that I’m pretty sure belonged to my dad.
She looks up, and her face goes so soft it’s like someone let the air out of a balloon.
She gets up and, for a second, just stares at Darius, like she's confirming something she's known for a long time.
Then she closes the space and wraps him in a hug so fierce it looks like she's been saving it for years. She has.
She says, "I'm so glad you're here," and the words come out half-laugh, half-sob.
He hugs back, but careful, like he doesn’t want to break her. He’s six-three and she’s five-four on a good day, so it’s more like a bear hugging a pigeon, but she holds on until he actually laughs, and then lets go.
“Thank you for having me, Mrs. Rosen,” he says, all formal.
“Deborah,” she says. “You can call me Deborah. Or Mom, if you want, but only if it’s not weird.”
He says, “Deborah, then,” but I see the way the word hangs in his mouth, like maybe he’s thinking about it for later.
I set the wine down, and Maya is already pouring a glass for herself and topping off Darius’s with what looks suspiciously like the good stuff. She winks at me, and I realize this is a setup.
The food is already on the table, and I can smell the brisket from the doorway.
There’s kugel with that perfect browned crust, challah from her own bakery, the one she's run for twenty years, each loaf braided by hand because she says machines "don't understand bread", green beans with slivered almonds, and a weird salad that Maya made and will insist we all eat.
The tablecloth is blue and white, and the candlesticks are lit even though we’re not doing the prayers yet.
Neil is at the end of the table, already seated, wearing a flannel that matches the tablecloth and glasses that make him look like he’s grading finals even when he’s off-duty. He nods at me, then at Darius, and says, “Ash says you’re a hell of a goalie.”
Darius grins, shrugs. “Ash is a hell of a left wing.”
The approval is subtle, Dad just smiles, then offers a handshake so firm it’s like he’s making sure Darius’s hand is real. “Good to have you, son.”
I catch Maya’s eye, and she is grinning like she orchestrated the whole thing.
The first few minutes are chaos.
Maya yells at me for not bringing flowers, my mom asks Darius how his parents are doing, and Neil just drinks his wine and makes small talk about the Mariners.
The food gets passed, Darius takes more than anyone except maybe Maya, and I’m so tense I can barely swallow.
Then my mom clears her throat.
“We usually say something before dinner,” she says, “but tonight I just want to say I’m proud of you, Ash. Not because you won, not because of what’s happened this year. Because you brought someone home you care about. That takes guts. And I want you to know it means everything to me.”
I’m about to say something snarky, but the lump in my throat is too big. Darius squeezes my knee under the table, and I manage to nod.
Maya raises her glass. “To Ash. And to Darius, for surviving the Rosen family hazing.”
Everyone laughs, even Neil, and we clink glasses. The wine is awful, but I don’t care.
Dinner is loud, messy, and exactly like every family dinner I grew up with. Maya tells a story about how she once broke my nose with a plastic hockey stick, and Mom one-ups her with a story about me getting stitches in my eyebrow after trying to jump off the garage roof.
Neil asks Darius about Oakland, about his parents, about whether he misses California.
Darius answers, careful at first, but as the conversation warms up he starts telling stories about his mom’s cooking, his dad’s obsession with VC funding, and the time he got suspended from school for fighting with a kid who called him “Darius the Virus.”
The food is incredible.
I eat until I can barely move, then eat more. Maya tries to get Darius to explain goalie strategy, and he does, drawing plays on a napkin while Mom watches like she’s seeing the Mona Lisa get painted live.
By dessert, I feel something shift. Not in the room, but in me. Like the tension has finally burned off and there’s just the warmth left. Mom brings out the kugel, still hot, and it’s so good Darius actually moans out loud.
Maya makes fun of him, but I can tell she’s already adopted him.
After, Neil takes out his phone and pulls up YouTube. He finds a video from my peewee days, me at age ten, helmet too big, jersey too long, scoring a wraparound and wiping out into the boards.
Everyone laughs.
I want to crawl under the table and die, but Darius is watching the screen with this look on his face, soft, private, like he's seeing something nobody else can.
He catches me staring and mouths, "You were adorable." I mouth back, "I will end you." He grins, and I know, with absolute certainty, that he's in love with me.
The ten-year-old version, the bloody-faced version, and whatever version is sitting here turning the color of borscht.
Mom looks at me, then at Darius, and says, “We’re lucky to have you.”
He smiles, but there’s something in his eyes, surprise, maybe. Or relief.
We stay at the table for a long time, talking about nothing, about everything. Eventually, Maya starts clearing plates, and Mom puts on the kettle for tea.
When nobody’s looking, I slide my hand under the table and lace my fingers with Darius’s. He doesn’t let go.
For the first time in my life, I feel like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.
———
We drive back to Seattle late, the car heavy with leftovers and the ghost of a hundred stories.
I look at Darius, his hands on the wheel, face lit by the dashboard. I want to say something, something real, but instead I just reach over and squeeze his knee.
He grins, and for the rest of the ride, it’s just us.
I don’t even miss Tacoma anymore.
Not one fucking bit.
———
Darius
Oakland looks the way I remember, except maybe a little shinier, like the city got a fresh coat of lacquer for the express purpose of making me look like a liar in front of my boyfriend.
Ash is the first to notice.
He leans out the window, squinting at the pale, perfect sky, then glances back at me. “You sure we’re in the right place? There’s not even one guy pissing on the sidewalk.”
I shake my head, grinning in spite of myself. “It’s early. They take Sundays off.”
He doesn’t laugh, just grins, too, and I can tell he’s running the same calculus as I am, which version of ourselves are we about to walk into, and do we need to warn anyone before impact.
The house is a two-story craftsman, shingled and smug, set back from the street by a yard that my father paid a guy named José to manicure every other week, even though he could do it himself in two hours.
The porch swing is new, but the windchimes by the door are the same, and they rattle as we climb the steps, Ash trailing behind like he’s waiting for the building inspector to show up and say it’s a trap.
I raise my fist to knock, but before I make contact the door opens and my father is already there, like he’s been watching the driveway from the den and needed to make sure we got the real welcome.
“Son,” he says, and for a second, I’m eight again, knee bleeding, trying not to cry in front of the neighbors. He hugs me, arms tight and all business, then steps back and zeroes in on Ash.
Roland Webb does not shake hands so much as measure them.
He sizes Ash up, one eyebrow raised, then takes his hand in a grip that could crush a shot glass.
Ash doesn’t flinch. He holds on, and when my father finally lets go, there’s a faint smudge of blue ink on the edge of his palm.