Chapter 49 Tristan
TRISTAN
The alarm rips me out of sleep. I stumble into the bathroom, splash water on my face, and brush my teeth mechanically. My game day routine includes this and some stretches before heading out for breakfast.
Today is no ordinary game day.
The Stanley Cup is in the arena because we are at the brink of winning the championship.
In the best-of-seven series, a fourth victory wins the entire season.
This is it. I never thought I’d find myself in this position again, so close to getting my name on the best trophy in sports.
Just the thought makes my veins flood with electricity and my entire body ready to pounce on the ice.
Ligaya should be awake, since she’s three hours ahead. She’s always my first call of the day, even if she occasionally answers groggy and annoyed. Unfortunately, I’m sent to voicemail.
There’s a missed call but it’s from my mother. My thumb hovers over the voicemail. Before I can check, the phone rings. It’s Mom again, uncharacteristically persistent.
I swipe to answer. “Hi. Is everything OK?”
“Tristan, hello.” Her voice wobbles. “Didn’t you get my voicemail?”
My gut tightens. “I didn’t get a chance. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she bursts loudly. “I want to emphasize that Everything. Is. Stable.”
Jesus, is there a more terrifying reassurance? Why is she talking like that? “Stable?” My stomach flips. “Are you talking about Ligaya? What happened? She hasn’t been answering her phone.”
“They’re monitoring her in the hospital. The babies were lethargic and—”
“What?”
“I said they are monitoring her—”
“I heard that. What were you saying about the babies.” I interrupted because my mind is spinning, and I can’t quite see straight.
“They were lethargic last night. The doctor kept her overnight for monitoring.”
“Shit, I’m coming home.” My chest caves in on itself. “Tell her to answer her phone. I’m leaving right now.”
I hang up before Mom confirms my instructions, shove my feet into sneakers, and sprint down the hall to pound on my coach’s hotel room door. No answer. I hit it harder, so loud that half the floor wakes up.
“What’s wrong?” Gordon appears across the hall, hair sticking up.
“Ligaya’s in the hospital. I’m catching the first plane out.”
“Oh, shit.” That’s Lance, sticking his head out of another room. “We’ll let coach know. Go!”
I hurry back to my room, ripping clothes off hangers and stuffing whatever I can grab into a bag. Wallet and phone and . . . what else do I need? My hand tremors so badly, I drop my charger twice.
The door bursts open. It’s Dexter with half the team crowded behind him.
“Grab the basics. We’ll pack up the rest and track down the coaching staff for you. Tristan, are you hearing me?”
Dazed, I manage, “Yeah. Thanks.”
My voice sounds far away, like it belongs to someone else.
My surroundings are a blur of hotel doors, a lobby, cabs at the curb, and the airport emerging at a distance behind a shroud of mist and rain.
I check the announcement board and beeline to the airline counter with the soonest flight.
It doesn’t depart for another four hours, which at the moment feels like a fucking lifetime.
I call Ligaya again. Sent to voicemail again. Dread claws up my throat. I stab at Mom’s number instead.
“Tristan,” she answers before the second ring.
“I’m on my way. I’m sorry I hung up. It’s—”
“Don’t apologize. I told her you’re working your way back.”
“Tell me honestly. Is she OK?” My eyes sting, and every part of me hurts. My scalp, my skin, my heart most of all.
“Ligaya is in good hands,” Mom says firmly. “And she isn’t dilated, so this isn’t about rushing for the birth. She’s here to monitor the babies.”
“Can she talk?”
“They have her in another room for tests. I’ll tell her you called.”
“Do you promise she’s going to be OK?” I sound like a pathetic kid begging for comfort.
It’s not a role I’ve played in a very long time, if ever.
Even as a child, I tried to be the stoic older brother who didn’t take attention away from Olive.
But right now, I crave the reassurance like my world depends on it.
“Please, Mom. Tell me.” I brace myself.
“I promise you, Tristan.” And then, after a pause, she continues. “I . . . I haven’t been someone you can trust for a while now—”
“Mom, stop. That’s not it.”
“Let me finish. I have not been a great mother, and heaven knows I don’t deserve your trust, but I would never hide anything so important from you. I promise you Ligaya is OK. Try to stay calm and get here safely.”
Her voice is shaky. It’s as if she’s not used to speaking in such a direct and confident tone.
But her words are like a blanket around my shoulders, warding off the chill of dread threatening to sink into me permanently.
It’s not until right now that I realize I had been spiraling toward a full-on panic attack.
“Thank you, Mom. Are her parents with her?”
“Of course. She’s surrounded by people who care and love her, Tristan.”
“Why are you there?” The question slips out before I realize how rude it is. I begin to apologize. She cuts me off.
“For you. I’m here for you.”
The whispered words do something to me. Like she spoke to a need more profound than my current unravelling.
More than anyone, my mother knows what a hospital represents for a family.
The patient is the focus because, of course.
Yet hours of cold hallways and futile blame and desperate uncertainty await the family members.
That’s how it was with my father around, screaming at the doctors and calling me weak for crying.
The past is not the present. I know that. Yet my mother intuited I needed this extra reassurance. Cathy and Orlando are there for Ligaya, but my mother is an on-site eyewitness for me.
“Thank you, Mom.”
Simple words I’ve said in passing dozens of times through the years, but today it comes from my heart.
She might not have been the perfect mother, but her trauma was as real as mine.
I can’t even imagine the grief of a mother losing a child.
So even if we weren’t there for each other through the sorrows of the past, there seems to be a future in which a different relationship is possible.
“Tristan!” she yells excitedly, pulling me from my ruminations. “She’s getting wheeled back into the room right now! I’m handing her my phone.”
There’s muffled movement, a shuffle of sheets, and then—
“Hey!”
Ligaya’s cheerful voice cracks me wide open, sunlight burning off the fog of panic.
“Ligaya! The soonest I can get there is about seven, maybe eight hours. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have been so far.”
“You’re flying back? But why?”
“You’re in the hospital. What do you mean why?”
“Everything is fine, Tristan. I promised you I wouldn’t risk anything. The babies weren’t moving much, so I got myself here to be safe.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? Or answer your phone?”
She sighs. “I wasn’t about to give birth, so I figured why complicate things for you. You’re about to win the Stanley Cup! The Mavericks could bring home the championship tonight. There was no reason for you to miss the game.”
“Fuck the game. I couldn’t live with myself if I missed the birth of our children. We’re in this together, Ligaya. That’s what matters.”
My phone pings. Coach. I ignore the call.
“What was that?”
“That’s my coach,” I mutter. “Don’t worry about it. How are you feeling?”
“Take the call,” she instructs.
“He can wait. I need to hear you’re OK.”
“I’m more than OK. I’m hanging up now. We’ll talk after.”
Her confident reassurance loosens my chest enough to take in oxygen. I swipe to answer.
“Hey, Coach, I tried your room this morning. I’m sorry I’m leaving, but there’s no way I can be in Seattle while Ligaya’s in the hospital. She’s not to term, and I’m—”
“That’s not why I’m calling,” Coach Zach cuts in, voice stern.
Irritation burns through my nervous system. My voice is steady, though the words fuck you tickle my throat.
“Look, Coach, if you want to kick me off the team because I can’t make the game tonight, that’s your prerogative. I’m not getting scolded for being present for the woman I love.”
I’m about to hang up, but then he laughs.
“Slow down, Thorne. No one’s kicking you off the team. I’m calling because the Mavericks’ plane is being fueled up and cleared for takeoff.”
“Why?”
“For you! I’ll send instructions for the right terminal. Be there in twenty minutes.”
My brain stutters. “But how will the team get back tonight?”
“They volunteered to go back home tomorrow. Everyone voted to wait. Go home, and we’ll see you in Columbus.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything, son. Be with your family.”
He hangs up. Seconds later, instructions buzz onto my screen.
I sprint through the terminal with an adrenaline-fueled body and hyper-focused intent. I will be with Ligaya in a few hours. That’s all I care about. There aren’t enough trophies in the world to keep me from her and our babies.