Chapter 27
ANNE
St. Louis had Stanley Cup fever.
I'd lived in Chicago long enough to know what a championship city looked like.
But this was something else entirely. Every coffee shop, every grocery store, every gas station — Blaze jerseys everywhere, strangers high-fiving on sidewalks, radio stations playing goal horns between songs.
People who had never watched a hockey game in their lives were suddenly fluent in power plays and defensive zone coverage.
The city had decided this was happening.
I was starting to believe them.
Game 2 was Friday night. We lost 4-3. The Thunder had adjusted — tighter on Liam, collapsing the lane, taking away the half-wall look that had hurt them in Game 1. They were a good team and they weren't going to roll over.
Series: 1-1.
The morning after, I woke up to a text from Jess.
Carter took us to that breakfast place. It was really good.
Just breakfast? I wrote back.
He also took us to the Gateway Arch afterwards.
He's really funny, Anne.
I know.
And tall.
I know that too.
Stop.
I haven't said anything.
You're thinking very loudly.
I put my phone down smiling.
Games 3 and 4 were in Carolina.
I flew with the team. Jess stayed in St. Louis with both boys — a decision that had required approximately forty-five minutes of negotiation with Finn, who felt strongly that he should come everywhere always.
"Two days," I told him at the airport. "Then I'm back. And you and Jess are going to the Magic House."
"We already went to the Magic House."
"Then the City Museum."
"We already went?—"
"Finn."
He crossed his arms. "Fine. But you have to tell me about every goal."
"Every goal," I promised.
He considered this. "And every penalty."
"And every penalty."
He uncrossed his arms. "Okay. Love you, Mommy."
"Love you, baby.
Game 3 in Carolina was a battle.
Their arena, their fans, everything hostile and loud and designed to make visiting teams feel unwelcome. The Thunder came out the way home teams did when they'd just tied a series — hungry, physical, playing like they'd already decided.
First period: 1-1.
Second period: they pulled ahead twice, we clawed one back. 3-2 them going to the third.
Liam scored midway through the third — a wrist shot from the slot that he'd been setting up for two periods, reading their defensive rotation and waiting for the moment they overcommitted. It cut it to 3-3 and for eight minutes we thought we had them.
They scored with two minutes left.
4-3 final.
Series: 2-1 Carolina.
In the corridor after I found Liam and checked his shoulder without saying anything about the game. He let me work in silence for a few minutes.
"We had them," he said finally.
"I know."
"We had them and we let them off."
"You'll get them next game.”
He looked at me. "We have to. I want to close this out at home. I want Finn there when we win it."
“I know you’ll win.”
He exhaled. "Yeah."
"Shoulder feels good," I said. "Full range, no compensation. You're fine."
“Yeah, I know, I feel fine."
"I'm telling as your PT.”
The corner of his mouth moved. "Thank you."
"Go sleep. You need it more than you need my opinion on the game."
Game 4.
Win and we went home up 3-1, one game from the Cup.
Lose and we came home tied, all the pressure on a Game 5.
I sat with the other families in the visiting section and watched Liam play with the kind of focused attention I'd developed over months — reading him, reading the shoulder, reading the way he was moving in the third period when the fatigue was real and every shift cost something.
He was good. He was more than good.
With ten minutes left and the game tied 1-1, he got the puck at center ice, drove wide on their defenseman, cut to the net, and roofed a backhand over the goalie's glove.
2-1.
I was on my feet.
We held on.
Final buzzer.
2-1 Blaze. Series: 3-1.
One win from the Stanley Cup.
And we were bringing it home.
The flight back to St. Louis was the best kind of quiet — the contained, electric quiet of a group of people who understood exactly what was in front of them and didn't need to say it out loud.
I sat with the medical staff and Jess so she could tell Finn all the details.
We won. Liam scored the winning goal.
The response came back in seconds, which meant Jess had let him stay up.
HE KNOWS.. WE WATCHED ON TV. HE SCORED AND WE SCREAMED SO LOUD! THE BOYS WERE JUMPING UP AND DOWN!
Did you wake up the neighbors?
Maybe.
Landing soon.
I put my phone down and leaned my head back and thought about Monday night. Game 5. Home ice. The whole city.
Finn in the stands.
One win.
Back in St. Louis, the boys were inseparable.
Jess had apparently spent the two days running them through every remaining attraction in the city, and they'd come back from each one with full reports and strong opinions.
The Gateway Arch tram was "too small but worth it.
" The Science Center was "almost as good as the Magic House but not quite.
" The Ted Drewes frozen custard was, by unanimous agreement, the greatest food either of them had ever consumed.
Carter had been texting Jess throughout.
I knew because she showed me exactly none of the texts, which told me everything.
"How's breakfast?" I asked one morning.
"We've had breakfast twice more," she said. "And lunch once."
"And?"
"And nothing. We're just — talking."
"Jess."
"He's careful," she said. "He's not rushing anything. He asks about Justin. He remembers things I said three days ago." She paused. "He's not what I expected a hockey player to be."
"No," I agreed. "He's not."
She was quiet for a moment. "I think I really like him."
"I know."
"That's terrifying."
"I know that too." I put my hand over hers. "Let it be terrifying. Do it anyway."
She looked at me. "Is that what you did?"
"Eventually." I smiled. "It took me longer than it should have."
The night before Game 5, after Finn was in bed and the apartment was quiet, Liam and I sat on the couch.
He was still. Not the restless, processing stillness of the nights before big games but something deeper — a man who had reached the edge of something enormous and was taking a moment to feel the weight of it.
"Talk to me," I said.
"I keep thinking about tomorrow." He looked at the window. "Every scenario. Every situation. What we do on the power play if their penalty killers cheat to the strong side. What happens if their top line gets going early. Whether I need to be more patient with the puck or more aggressive."
"And?"
"And none of it matters until we're actually out there." He turned to look at me. "I've been preparing for this moment my whole life. I know how to do this. I just can't turn off the part of my brain that keeps running it."
"That part is why you're as good as you are."
"Maybe. Tonight it's just exhausting."
I shifted to face him. "Okay. Stop thinking about the game."
"Anne—"
"I mean it. Just for tonight. The game will be there tomorrow. Right now I need you to be here."
He looked at me.
"Here," he said.
"Here."
Something in him released — I could see it, the slight drop of his shoulders, the breath that went all the way out.
He reached for me.
We made our way to the bedroom and closed the door, and I let him take his time — all the nervous energy finding somewhere to go that wasn't the game, all the contained focus turning toward me instead.
He was tender in a way that felt different from other nights. More deliberate. Like he was memorizing something.
Afterward, in the dark, he held me close.
"Thank you," he said quietly.
"For what?"
"For knowing what I needed."
I pressed my lips to his shoulder. "Get some sleep."
"Yeah."
"Liam?"
"Mm."
"Tomorrow you're going to go out there and play the best game of your life."
He was quiet for a moment.
"How do you know?"
"Because I've been watching you all season. And because Finn is going to be in the stands, and you have never once not shown up when it mattered."
He didn't answer.
But his arm tightened around me, and a minute later his breathing slowed.
I lay in the dark and listened to the city outside — still buzzing, still alive, still waiting.
Tomorrow.
One game.
One win.
The Stanley Cup.
I closed my eyes.
Somewhere across the city, eighteen thousand people were setting their alarms and laying out their jerseys and believing with everything they had.
So was I.