Chapter 16
16
JONAS
The journal turns up while I'm helping Lukas clean his room. Not my idea—his coach suggested some off-ice structure might help get him back to hockey. But right now my kid is mostly just shoving stuff under his bed. I don’t have the energy to argue.
"What about this?" I pull out a cardboard box filled with crayon and marker drawings.
"That's my art collection," he says seriously, like he's not four and currently wearing his shirt backwards.
Under his "collection," I find it. Genny's old journal, the one she wrote in every night. The leather's worn at the corners from being carried everywhere—she used to joke it was her backup brain.
“Where did you get this?” I ask.
He half-shrugs. “Found it in your room. It was Mommy’s.”
Okay. My kid’s a klepto.
I open the journal and run my fingers over Genny’s messy handwriting. She always joked she had the penmanship of a serial killer.
“Why’d you take it? Why didn’t you show it to me?” I ask.
Another half-shrug. “I was afraid you were going to throw it out like you did all her other stuff.”
Jesus Christ. Is that what he thinks?
I sit him on the edge of the bed and pull him close. “Buddy, I gave some of your mom’s dresses to Aunt Sarah. But I never threw anything away.”
He looks up at me with big eyes. His mother’s eyes. And my stomach goes into a twist, the same twist I thought I’d live with for the rest of my life after Genny died.
“Well, did you read it?” I ask.
He scrunches his face at me like I’m clueless. “No. I’m only four, Dad.”
Right. Guess I am clueless.
He edges closer to the journal, curious but cautious. We don't usually dig into Genny's stuff together. Maybe that's been my fault—trying too hard to preserve everything exactly as it was.
"Will you read it to me, Dad?"
I hesitate. Not because I'm worried about what's in it—Genny wasn’t one for keeping secrets. But I guess I want to hold onto this, like it will bring me closer to her if I don’t share it with anyone.
Which is a stupid thought.
"Sure. Go get your sister."
Jace appears in record time, probably glad for an excuse to abandon her own room-cleaning project, which pretty much consists of moving her piles of dolls from one corner of the room to the other. They both settle in like it's story time, even though it's the middle of the day and we're sitting on Lukas's bed holding a connection to my deceased wife and their mother, like it’s the treasure that it is.
“What is that?” Jace asks, pointing.
“It’s Mommy’s book. I was hiding it. But then Dad found it,” Lukas says.
What do you say to that?
“Okay, let’s take a look,” I say, flipping pages to something appropriate for a three- and four-year-old. "Here's one from when you were little. Your mom wrote about how Lukas tried to teach Jace how to crawl out of her crib."
"Did it work?" Lukas perks up.
We both look at Jace, who nods with enthusiasm.
Okay then.
We flip through more pages. Genny documented everything—first steps, first words, first temper tantrums. But it's the later entries that catch my eye. The ones near the end.
"'Love isn't about fear,'" I read out loud, more to myself than the kids. "'It's about being brave enough to choose joy. To risk hurt. To let your heart stay open.'"
"Ooooh,” Luke murmurs.
“Do you know what that means, buddy?” I ask.
He shrugs. “No.”
That’s what I thought.
We spend a few minutes flipping more pages. Not the serious parts—they don't need that. But the parts where Genny wrote about her hopes for them. Her dreams. Her last few notes about how proud she was of them. And me. And the family.
After they're in bed, I tackle the photos. They're everywhere—on walls, on shelves, watching our lives like some kind of shrine. Gloria gave me a memory box months ago, said I'd know when to use it.
As much as I hate to admit it, since we’re not on the best terms at the moment, given her trying to snag custody of my children and all, it's time.
I put a few photos in the box. I’m not erasing Genny—no, never. It’s just that seeing her smile, frozen in time, scattered across every surface of the house, sometimes makes it harder for us to smile. The kids whisper when they think I'm not listening, tiptoeing around her memory like it's something fragile they might break. But she was not fragile. Moving her photos isn't about forgetting—it's about letting her legacy be one of strength and resilience. Not perpetual mourning. It’s about giving us space to heal, to find joy without the weight of constant remembrance shadowing every laugh, every new memory.
And maybe, it’s also about making room for new memories, ones where she’s remembered with love and laughter, not just loss.
I add a few more photos to the box. A beach day. A hockey game. The last Christmas. Not gone, just... stored. Like memories should be. Safe but not suffocating.
Through the wall, I hear the kids plotting.
"Wanna make Lexa something?" Lukas is saying. "A Christmas present?"
"With glitter?"
"Yes. And crayons."
I look at the last photo—the one of Genny writing in the very journal the kids and I were just looking at. She'd laugh at us now, trying to figure out what she already knew. That loving means feeling pain. And in spite of that, we keep moving forward.
The memory box closes easily. No drama, no lightning strike. Just a quiet click of doing something that needed doing.
Gloria finds me in the backyard at six a.m., lifting weights.
Her showing up is a unexpected. I consider her grab for custody of the kids pretty much an act of war.
“What can I do for you, Gloria?” I ask, working to keep the edge out of my voice.
On one hand, I don’t blame her and Bert. I know they love the kids and only want what’s best for them. But to go so far as to draw up legal documents? I got them to back off after a difficult conversation, but I’m afraid our relationship may be permanently strained.
"The kids told me about Genny's journal."
I wipe the sweat off my face. "If this is another lecture about moving too fast or too slow?—"
"It's not." She watches a squirrel jump from the fence to a tree, where he disappears. Pretty sure she’s avoiding looking at me. That she’s ashamed. That she feels badly. Which she should. “I think it's time I told you something about Genny."
I stop. Gloria hasn't offered new Genny stories since the funeral. She's been more focused on giving opinions about my parenting, my game stats, my life choices in general.
"She told me once," she continues, "that if anything ever happened to her, to help you all move forward. And she said if anything ever happened to you, to make sure she’s able to get out of bed every day, because she wasn’t sure she’d be able to.” Her voice catches. “And she went first. So here we are."
"Gloria—"
"Let me finish, Jonas. I haven't been... fair. To any of you. The kids. You. Alexa."
Hearing Alexa’s name gives me a start.
"She handles the kids well. I’ve watched her. Different from Genny, but good different. Even Bert's noticed.”
Coming from Bert, that's something. Last I saw, he was watching her like she's some sort of alien interloper.
"It doesn't matter now. She chose Paris."
"Did she? Are you sure?"
I rack up some new weights, figuring I might as well keep going while Gloria continues to insert herself into my life. It’s not going to be easy to forget her custody grab. It’s that simple.
"Lukas asked me about writing to her," she mentions, too casual to be casual. "Wants to tell her about his art show. And hockey."
That makes me turn. "Hockey? He stopped going to hockey."
"I know. And yesterday, he was talking about it again."
Damn. He didn’t say anything to me.
"Bert says your playing is getting back to where it should be. Your focus is back. That last game? Best he’s seen this season."
Jesus. My father-in-law watches my playing with an intensity greater than Coach’s?
I gesture for Gloria to take a seat on the weight bench next to me. "I'm moving forward. Always moving forward. There’s no choice, when it comes down to it. Sometimes you don’t like the hand that life deals you. Doesn’t mean you’re not going to keep playing, excuse the pun. I have kids to raise. Bills to pay. A commitment to the team."
"Right. You have responsibilities. And that doesn’t mean you can’t want good things to come your way. You know, it’s not a betrayal to Genny to be happy again. In fact, it would be a betrayal to live in misery. That would upset her more than anything."
I do some curls with Gloria sitting on the other end of my weight bench while she waits for me to say something, but I don’t feel like talking anymore. Because if I talk, I need to think, and I only have so much capacity for that.
Yeah, I’m fucking overwhelmed by life. That happens when you become a widower in your twenties. Shit’s not supposed to turn out that way. I was supposed to grow old with Genny. I was robbed and I’m pissed about that. I always will be.
"The kids talk about Alexa almost as much as they talk about Genny," she says finally.
Like I hadn’t noticed.
"Since when are you and Bert on Team Alexa?" I scoff before I can change my tone to something more polite.
She doesn’t miss a beat. "Since we saw how good you all were together. The kids were happy. You were happy. Even your game improved."
I drop my weights to the ground and shake my head. "She left, Gloria. Let’s not keep dwelling on her."
Through the kitchen window, I see the kids at breakfast. Lukas is eating for a change, instead of pushing food around his plate, and Jace is attempting her own hair, and not doing badly for a three-year-old. Her concentration leaves me with a combination of pride and heartbreak all at the same time.
How does that happen?
My phone starts buzzing. Damn thing never stops.
Team manager:
Whatever's cleared your head, keep it up. Stats don't lie.
Coach:
That footwork's back. Keep this momentum for season opener.
Vince:
PR loves the redemption angle. City's ready to root for you again.
Glad I’m making everyone but myself happy.
I grab my weights off the ground for another set.
Gloria gets up to return to the house. I do appreciate her help with the kids, I really do. If that comes at the price of her meddling, I need to just suck that up.
She says, "You know what else Genny would say if she were here?" She pauses at the door. "She’d say love's about making room for more without losing what was."
She heads inside, leaving my head spinning.
I watch the squirrel dart through the yard, kicking up damp leaves. The morning light shines on a pile of toys the kids left out. A half-deflated ball. A plastic sword.
I put down my weights and grab the ball, lining up a shot to our kid-height basketball net, and let it fly. It drops right in, landing with a thud because it’s so low on air.
I take the shot again.
Visiting with the team psychologist wasn't my idea. Coach strongly suggested it after I spent an entire practice running the same drill over and over, trying to perfect a play that was already perfect.
"You're using hockey to avoid dealing with things," she says in our first session. "And you're using the kids as a shield against moving past your grief."
Damn. Sounds like she’s been briefed by my mother-in-law. I wouldn’t put it past the woman.
I want to argue, I do, but the shrink has my practice footage pulled up on her tablet. Hard to argue with that. "Your game is solid," she says. "But you're playing it safe. On and off the ice."
So this is what a sports psychologist is all about.
She's right. I've been running the same plays, the same routines, the same patterns since Genny. It’s how you get through the day when you’ve been through what I have. I mean, am I supposed to apologize for that?
Not gonna happen.
That night, I find the kids in Lukas's room, surrounded by his art supplies.
"We're writing a book, Daddy," Jace announces, up to her elbows in glitter.
"About all the stuff we want to do when Lexa comes back," Lukas adds, then freezes, looking at me as if he might be in trouble.
"It's okay to want her back," I tell them. Guess I learned something in therapy today, in spite of myself. "It's okay to hope."
They look at me like I've grown a second head. We don't usually talk about wanting things. About hoping for things. About letting ourselves be vulnerable to disappointment. Not that that’s a conversation you have with three- and four-year-olds.
"Can we put hockey pictures in the book?" Lukas asks carefully. "From when I start playing again?"
"Yeah, buddy. Whatever you want."
The psychologist would have a field day with how we're processing things through arts and crafts. But watching my kids plan futures that include possibilities instead of just protection— maybe that's what breaking patterns looks like.
I start making changes. Small ones at first:
Actually answering when the team asks how I'm doing
Letting the kids talk about Alexa without changing the subject
Planning Christmas without trying to recreate past perfection
"We could get our presents before Christmas," Lukas suggests when we talk about holiday ideas. “Maybe Santa can come early?”
A month ago, I would have steered him toward the way it’s always been done. Kept things safely the same.
"We gotta wait for Santa to come, little man," I say. “But maybe he’ll drop something off early.”
His face lights up like he won a million dollars.
The psychologist might say I'm making progress. The team might say my game is evolving. The kids might say I'm less boring.
I'll take it.
Lukas and Jace dive into holiday planning as only two little kids could, with their usual pandemonium, but something’s different this time. They have more energy this year, unlike the last couple. Without Genny around, we were all kind of lost.
A few days later at dinner, Lukas makes a request. "Dad, we finished the book we made for Alexa. Can we send it to her soon? Before Christmas?"
"You think we should?"
"Yeah." He pushes his food around, thinking. "I don’t know if Santa goes all the way to Paris.
Very logical. And sweet.
The psychologist would probably say something about emotional growth and healing processes. The team would talk about game evolution and adapting plays.
Me? I’m just trying not to screw everything up.