Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
Every bone in my body screams panic, but all I can do is wait.
I’m not the only Comet to become a free agent this year.
Contract extensions take time as general managers figure out a team’s salary cap space by shuffling players around.
This is my first experience with an NHL contract renewal. Maybe it just takes this long?
With too many intangible variables, I try not to hover around my phone, and I follow Eric’s advice about avoiding social media (well-aware it will be full of nothing but aimless speculation about signings).
Panicking won’t serve me well. Panicking will only cause me to miss out on the promise of happy moments in front of me.
Around the house, Eric keeps me busy. I move into his bedroom, properly combining my belongings with his, making our relationship more official. I never thought getting ready for bed next to someone, sharing a counter and mirror could bring so much joy.
Sometimes we spend the day lazy in bed, reading together.
Eric continues with the fantasy series I told him about months ago at All-Star Weekend while I dive into my dad’s poetry collection at last, long overdue.
The poems are his reflections on grief, healing, family, and love.
Some of them are difficult to read, often bringing tears to my eyes and requiring comfort from Eric to help process the words on the page.
There’s echoes of my father’s relationship to my mom, messages to her I’ll never understand but can appreciate in my own way.
After reading a particularly moving poem that I have a feeling is about me, I stop and call my father, needing to hear him explain the deeper meaning himself.
I’m not an expert on the craft, so some of the nuance and artistic choices are beyond me, but my father, always a teacher, takes no offense to explaining his decisions.
Those calls make me feel connected to my dad in a way I haven’t experienced since childhood.
Whenever Eric and I do get up and actively start our day, long workout sessions in his home gym help us maintain our goalie conditioning and physique.
We take turns spotting each other with the equipment, and I notice the way Eric looks at me, his green eyes full of determination, drive, and desire.
Training with him pushes me to perform my best, serving as a reminder of what drew me to Eric in the first place.
When we finish our routines, we cool down with stretches and meditation, something Eric swears by.
Yoga’s something I’m well-versed with to stay limber, but whenever I’ve tried the meditative aspect in the past, it’s never helped.
I always found myself fidgeting and opening my eyes instead of keeping them closed.
My thoughts race in the silence. I’m self-conscious, too hyper-critical of my own flawed technique, too hyper-aware of my body and surroundings to surrender myself to a tranquil state.
Meditation and mindfulness work for Eric, in contrast. He falls into what I can only describe as a trance: calm, still, focused.
So while Eric meditates, I continue my own stretches, focusing on what I’m able to accomplish.
When we’re finished, we take a shower to clean up. Inside the stall, our eyes meet. A hand wanders. Sometimes it's mine, sometimes it's his. We make out and tease each other with harmless touches until one of us—usually Eric—decides it’s time to leave and continue on with our day.
In the kitchen, I help Eric, acquainting myself with where he keeps everything.
I’m not an undiscovered five-star chef like Eric, but my parents taught me the basics.
Even when Eric insists on handling a meal on his own, the least I can do is make it easy for him with the cleanup.
When we go grocery shopping together in town, it’s an extension of our domesticity.
You can learn so much about a person through what they’ll add to their cart at the store.
The meals he enjoys and looks forward to, the guilty pleasures he tells himself he won’t buy but somehow always end up in the cart before checkout.
For Eric, cooking is as much about taking care of the spirit as it is about maintaining his physique.
After one of our shopping trips, I make dinner for Eric, insisting to be the one to treat him for a change.
Shrimp alfredo was my mom’s favorite homemade dish, and she eventually taught me how to cook it.
So I’m kind of an expert, well-trained in the way of the shellfish.
I even prepared his outdoor dining table for the special night: a white tablecloth, place settings, candles, flowers I picked out from the store, and a playlist of our favorite synthwave music.
While I cook, Eric selects a wine to pair with our meal from his small collection, and he pours each of us a glass.
After serving two hearty plates of shrimp and pasta, I stare at him across the candlelight and hold my breath as he takes a bite.
“James… Wow. This is delicious.”
“You like it?” I ask, blushing.
Eric nods, grinning. “Yeah, I haven’t had something like this in a long time. Chardonnay was a great choice, too.”
“Thanks. I tried my best.”
I’m transfixed by Eric, ignoring my own dinner to watch him enjoy his plate.
My stomach’s full of happy butterflies, and as much as I try to hide my wide smile behind my wineglass, it’s impossible.
Is this how Eric feels whenever he watches someone devour one of his homemade meals? Sweet, savory satisfaction.
After, when we’re both full of pasta, shrimp, and wine, Eric nudges my leg under the table with his foot and flashes me a smile. “Where’d you get this recipe?”
“This was…” I swallow hard and stare down at my empty plate. “This was my mom’s favorite dish. She used to make it before every big game until eventually she taught me how to make it myself. I started cooking it for Mother’s Day. It was the least I could do for everything she’d done for me.”
“I’m sure she enjoyed it every time.”
While I lived at home, dad would keep her out of the house while I cooked dinner for Mother’s Day.
She would pretend to be clueless, as if she wasn’t sure what my dad and I had planned for her each year, but she would go along with the surprise.
When they eventually came back home, the meal would be finished, the dining table would be set with fresh flowers, and a pair of cards would be waiting for her atop her place setting.
“I wish you could have met her.”
Eric covers my hand with his own atop the table. It’s a simple act of connection, but it takes my breath away. “In some ways, I have, thanks to this.”
He rises from the table and comes to my side, offering his hand. When I take it, he pulls me out of my chair and moves us to the outdoor couch to snuggle under the glow of the lights and stars.
“Do you have a picture of your parents?”
All this time, and yeah, I haven’t actually shown Eric a picture of them.
I pull out my phone to navigate to the app.
I swipe through the album, moving past pictures of the camping trip, the playoffs, photos Eric and I exchanged over texting, All-Star Weekend, and then…
and then there’s a significant gap in time between photos, going all the way back to May of last year.
There’s nothing from last summer because mom had moved into hospice care, and she told me she didn’t want me to have any pictures of her in that state.
She wanted the last picture I had of her to be from before those last few months.
And that picture is from just after the playoffs last year.
Mom and dad came out to Chicago to cheer me up after the season ended, and we went to a few tourist sites around the city, including the Art Institute and Millenium Park.
In the photo, the three of us are together underneath “The Bean”, a sculpture made of reflective stainless steel plates.
From my smile, you wouldn’t believe the Comets were coming off a second round exit from the playoffs.
At the time, I was just grateful my parents were there, especially my mom.
In hindsight, it was one of the last times we were happy as a family.
Life was still normal, even when it wasn’t normal underneath the surface.
I was clueless over how the rest of my summer would unfold.
I tilt my phone towards Eric, show him the picture, and then before I can say anything, I burst into tears, unable to hold back.
Eric holds me close, pressing me into his side, his hand rubbing my shoulder.
There’s no awkwardness from Eric, no attempt to segue to another topic, no shying away from the gnawing hole in my chest. He waits, he listens, stoic and stalwart, as I ugly sob into his chest.
When there’s nothing more to give, when the tears dry up and the hurt numbs once more, Eric brushes the hair out of my face and presses a kiss to my forehead.
“Do you want to tell me more about her?”
I lean away from Eric, my brows furrowed. “You really want to know?”
“Yes, absolutely,” he insists without an ounce of doubt or fear.
“She was…” I wipe my eyes and take a deep breath.
“She was a force of nature in our household and community. When she wasn’t raising me and making sure I’d follow in her footsteps as a goalie, she was a coach.
She hosted classes to teach others how to skate and play hockey.
On top of all that, she was big on gardening during spring and summer. ”
“That’s quite the busy schedule.”
“She always joked about not being busy enough, which always made my dad and I roll our eyes because if you saw her calendar, it was jam packed with activities.”
“It sounds like she loved her job.”
“She loved teaching others about skating and hockey. It was like she was put on this planet to spread the good word. She was always suggesting to other parents they should consider enrolling their kids into skating classes. She thought participating in sports was important for youth development.”
“Which it is.”
“You would have liked her. She never gave up on anyone who was determined to try.”
Whether it was students interested in skating as a hobby or those hoping to pursue their hockey dreams, she found a way to push everyone who enrolled to be their best self.
“Mom made time for me and dad, though. She always enjoyed my dad reading his poems to her, even the ones he decided not to publish.”
And no doubt my dad misses reading them to her.
“Honestly, I think she would’ve been thrilled to see me with another goalie.”
Some parents hope their children will marry a doctor or a lawyer, but my mom would have been over the moon to learn I had fallen for another goalie, especially one as confident and decorated as Eric.
The Seadogs weren’t her team to follow season after season, but she was familiar with Eric and his presence in the league.
“She wouldn’t have preferred a flashy, high-scoring forward?”
“What?” I snort. “No way! I wouldn’t dare bring one home as a date.”
Just imagining the look of disappointment on my mom’s face makes my nose wrinkle, and I can’t help laugh.
She probably would’ve given me a stern talking to.
How could you be with one of them? she might have asked, the question rhetorical.
All they want to do is score on you. And she would probably be right.
When the laughter passes, I’m struck by how lighter I feel, to laugh and talk about my mom in the same breath without feeling weighed down by my grief.
This is all I’ve wanted for the past year: to share her memory with someone else, someone other than my dad (though there’s still so much we need to discuss).
My mom’s light touched so many people, and here it is reaching Eric, too.
This was the gentle nudge I needed.
“Thanks,” I mumble into his chest, hoping the one word will somehow capture the entire breadth of my feelings. Eric says nothing, but his barest touch speaks volumes: I’m here for you.
How can he always set my heart at ease? How can he always find a way to open me up and reveal what I’ve been unable to confront, even with myself?
With each passing day, the desire to admit being in love with Eric grows, threatening to come out before I’m ready.
I tell myself over and over I’ll confess after I have answers about my fate in the league.
It’s a bold choice against the universe, but it’s one of the only ways I can hold fast to hope.
Trust the process, my mom always said in the face of life’s challenges. Trust the process and everything will turn out alright.