Chapter 23
ANNE
"We're going to win both games in Colorado," Liam said Tuesday morning. "Come home tied. Then finish them at home."
I taped his shoulder in his hotel room before the bus left.
The kinesiology tape went on in careful strips — supporting the AC joint without restricting range of motion. I'd done this hundreds of times. This felt different. This was the difference between him playing and sitting out, and we both knew it.
"Rotate for me," I said.
He did. Full rotation, overhead reach, mock slap-shot wind-up. His face gave nothing away but I was watching the shoulder, not his face.
"How does it feel?"
"Stable. I can feel the support without the restriction."
"Good. Any sharp pain on the wind-up?"
"No."
"Tell me during the first intermission. Not after the game. During."
"I will."
"Promise me."
He caught my face in his hands. "I promise. Now tape the other side so it's even and let me go win a hockey game."
Game 3 was everything the first two hadn't been.
We came out desperate and fast and entirely committed, and Colorado — maybe sensing something had shifted — took a period to find their footing.
We scored first. They tied it. Second period we went ahead on a power play, Liam winding up from the half-wall exactly the way I'd watched him drill it all week, and I held my breath from the stands until the puck hit the back of the net and the red light went.
He didn't look up at me this time. Just skated back to center ice with his jaw set and more work to do.
The tape held. The shoulder held. He played the full game and came to me at the first intermission the way he'd promised, and I checked the joint quickly in the corridor and sent him back out.
St. Louis won 4-2.
Series: 1-2.
One game at a time.
Game 4 was harder.
Colorado had adjusted — tighter on Liam, collapsing the lane, taking away the half-wall look that had hurt them in Game 3. He spent most of the night creating space for others instead of shooting himself, which was the right play and also clearly cost him something to do.
Tied going to the third.
Carter scored with eight minutes left on a scramble in front — not pretty, entirely necessary — and we held on.
Final: 3-2.
Series: 2-2.
We were going home.
On the flight back I sat with the medical staff and caught Liam's eye exactly once across the aisle.
He was already half asleep, head back, the particular deflated exhaustion of someone who had left everything on the ice two nights in a row.
He looked across at me and something in his expression said we did it and I looked back and thought yes, we did and that was the whole conversation.
Dr. Harrison leaned over. "Shoulder's holding remarkably well. Whatever you're doing, keep doing it."
"KT tape and daily treatment. Managing the inflammation before it sets."
"Good. I need him functional through the close-out."
"He will be."
When we landed I had just enough time to get to the airport and make my flight to Chicago.
Liam walked me to the departures entrance, took my bag off my shoulder, set it down, and kissed me in the middle of the sidewalk without caring about the team bus idling thirty feet behind us.
"Bring them back tomorrow," he said.
"We'll be there by dinner."
"Finn gets the guest room. You're with me."
"I know." I kissed him once more. "Go sleep. Your shoulder needs rest more than anything else right now."
"Yes ma'am."
"Don't yes ma'am me."
He smiled — tired and genuine and completely his — and I picked up my bag and went inside.
Friday night I sat on the edge of Finn's bed while he slept and thought about packing.
Not for a week. For longer than a week.
My mom appeared in the doorway. She looked at the open suitcase, at the way I was folding things, at the bear and the LEGOs already set aside in a pile.
"You're not coming back," she said. It wasn't an accusation.
"I'm coming back. I just don't know when."
"Anne."
"I'm waiting on a call. From Rachel. If she says yes to the St. Louis office?—"
"And if she says no?"
I looked at my sleeping son. Dark hair, long lashes, completely peaceful.
"Then I figure out something else." I looked up. "But I'm not staying here, Mom. Not like this. Half in, half out."
She crossed the room and sat beside me. Put her arm around me the way she had when I was small and scared of things I couldn't name.
"I know," she said. "I just wanted to hear you say it."
"I love him. I love the life we're building. Finn is already—" I stopped. "Did you see him this week? With Liam? With the team?"
"I saw him."
"He's different. He's been different since Chicago."
"He has." She pressed her lips to my hair. "Go. Build your life. I'll be there every chance I get."
Liam picked us up the next afternoon.
Finn saw him from thirty feet away and ran.
That was how it always was now — Finn saw Liam and ran, like the distance between them was something to be closed as fast as possible.
Liam caught him, swung him up, walked the rest of the way to me with Finn on his hip chattering about the flight and the cockpit and a boy named Eli who had also gotten pilot wings and they'd compared collections.
"He's going to have more wings than actual miles," Liam said.
"Absolutely," I agreed.
At the apartment, Finn took one look at the guest room and immediately started planning where the LEGO castle would go. Liam stood in the doorway watching him with an expression I'd stopped trying to describe to myself because the words were never quite right.
"My parents land tomorrow morning," he said quietly. "Coming straight here."
I had known this was coming. I had been telling myself for three days that I was ready for it.
"Okay," I said.
He looked at me. "You're terrified."
"I kept their grandson from them for five years, Liam."
"And my mom is going to hug you. I'm telling you right now."
"You can't know that."
"I've known my mother my whole life. She's going to hug you."
I looked at Finn arranging LEGOs on the guest bed with the focused intensity of a city planner.
"Okay," I said again. "I believe you."
They arrived the next morning.
Susan O'Connell — blonde, warm, exactly as I remembered from the one time I'd met her at Cornell — walked through the door and stopped when she saw Finn.
She made a sound I didn't have a name for.
Liam crouched beside Finn. "Hey buddy. There are some people I want you to meet. This is my mom and dad. Your grandma and grandpa."
Finn looked at them with Liam's eyes and Liam's chin and five years of being loved by one family and now having more.
"Hi," he said carefully.
Susan knelt down right there in the hallway. "Hi, Finn. We've been waiting so long to meet you."
"You have?"
"We have. Your daddy told us everything. About the LEGOs and the hockey stick and the pilot wings."
Finn's face opened up completely. "I have a whole collection."
"I'd love to see it."
Robert O'Connell — tall, quiet, Liam in thirty years — stood back and watched his wife meet his grandson with tears running openly down his face and made no attempt to hide them.
Then Susan stood and looked at me.
I opened my mouth.
She pulled me into a hug before I got a word out.
"Thank you," she said quietly, into my hair. "For taking care of him. For raising him to be exactly who he is."
I fell apart completely.
"I'm so sorry," I managed. "For all the time you missed. I'm so?—"
"Shh." She held on. "Not today. Today we're just here."
Robert hugged me next, briefly and solidly, the way fathers hugged people they'd already decided to accept. "Good to meet you properly, Anne. Liam's told us everything. We're glad you're all together."
Liam caught my eye over his father's shoulder.
Told you, his expression said.
I pressed my lips together and nodded.
We spent the afternoon in the living room.
Finn showed them the castle, the hockey stick, the pilot wings arranged in order of acquisition. Susan asked questions with the focused attention of someone making up for lost time. Robert watched Finn move around the room and kept reaching up to wipe his face when he thought nobody was looking.
Liam sat beside me on the couch, his hand in mine, not saying much.
At dinner Finn ended up between his grandparents at the table, completely at ease, telling them about Mikey and Justin and school and the City Museum and Grandma getting stuck in the tunnel, which my mom would be horrified to know had become a cornerstone story of his social repertoire.
After he went to sleep — Susan and Robert reading to him together, Finn in absolute heaven — we sat in the living room in the quiet.
"He's perfect," Susan said. "He's absolutely perfect."
"He is," I agreed.
She looked at me with the particular directness of a woman who said what she meant. "Are you staying? In St. Louis?"
"I'm working on it. There's a business piece that needs to fall into place."
"And if it doesn't?"
"Then something else will. But we're not going back to the way it was."
She nodded, satisfied.
Robert looked at Liam. "Game 5 tomorrow. We're staying for it."
"Finn will love having you there."
"We'll love being there." He paused. "You going to close this out?"
Liam leaned back. "That's the plan."
Game 5, the whole family behind the bench.
Finn between his grandparents, Blaze jersey, puck in his lap, the same expression of absolute concentration he got when something mattered.
St. Louis won 3-1.
Series: 3-2. One win from Round 3.
The building was loud and loose on the way out, the particular energy of a team that had come back from 0-2 and could now smell the close.
Liam's parents said their goodbyes at the arena — early flight, promises to FaceTime Finn every week, Susan hugging me a second time like it was something she planned to keep doing.
"Take care of his shoulder," she told me.
"Always."
"And take care of him. The rest of him too."
"That too."
They left, and it was just us — Liam, Finn asleep on his shoulder, me beside them, walking to the car through the emptying parking lot.
Finn stirred slightly when Liam buckled him in.
"Did we win?" he murmured without opening his eyes.
"We won, buddy."
"Good." He was asleep again before the word finished.
Liam stood up and looked at me across the roof of the car.
"One more," he said.
"One more," I agreed.
We drove home in the comfortable quiet of people who didn't need to fill every silence, Finn breathing softly in the backseat, the city going dark around us.
I was thinking about Rachel. About the week that had passed since I'd made the call. About the fact that my phone had been quiet in a way that felt like either good news being prepared carefully or bad news being delayed kindly.
At the apartment, after Finn was in bed and the lights were low, Liam pulled me close on the couch.
"You're somewhere else," he said.
"I'm here."
"Part of you is somewhere else." He studied me. "Rachel?"
"She said a week. It's been a week."
He pulled me closer. "Whatever she says, we figure it out. You know that, right?"
"I know."
"If it's yes, we move forward. If it's no, we find another way. But either way — " he pressed his lips to my hair — "you and Finn are here. That part's already decided."
I exhaled slowly. "I know. I just want it to be yes."
"I know you do."
He held me tighter and I closed my eyes and told myself he was right.
Then my phone buzzed on the coffee table.
I looked at the screen.
Rachel Torres.
I sat up.
Liam looked at the phone. At me.
"Answer it," he said quietly.
I picked it up.
"Rachel—"
"Anne." Her voice was warm and direct and gave nothing away. "I hope it's not too late to call. Do you have a few minutes?"
I looked at Liam.
He nodded once.
"Yes," I said. "I have a few minutes."