Epilogue - Rafe
My choice of suits for Heath and Kieran’s wedding was the one Max’s tailor had made in February. I’d worn it four times now. Niko’s was the Stavros suit from the gala, out of the half of the closet that had been filling up since spring. Niko added clothes one shirt at a time.
Sometime in May we’d stopped pretending the shop apartment was where he lived. He wore the suit like a man who had made his peace with it. Formal clothes were not in his comfort zone.
My phone had been buzzing on the counter since eight.
“Varga’s built an agenda for the day,” I said.
“Of course he has.” Niko came down the hall with his jacket over one arm. He stopped behind me at the mirror, looked at my tie for a second, and reached past my shoulder to move the knot an eighth of an inch.
“Gift’s in the truck,” he said. “It’s been in the truck for three days.”
“I know. I checked last night.”
“You checked a wrapped box.”
“I checked it was riding right,” I said. “Things shift.”
The morning was already warm on the street.
July in Chicago smelled like hot pavement.
I backed the truck out of its parking spot and pointed us toward the northwest suburbs.
Niko told me what Ma had said on the phone that morning, which was that having a yard wedding in July was brave, and that she was sending a dish with Max even though nobody had asked her to.
“What’s the dish?”
“Spanakopita. Two trays. She said one’s for the table and one’s for you.”
Kieran’s brother’s road turned to gravel the last half mile, and the parking was a cut field with a teenager in a reflective vest waving vehicles into rows. He took one look at my truck and put me at the end of a row where nobody could box me in. I liked him immediately.
Somebody had mown the entire three acres within the last two days. The stripes where the mower changed directions were still visible. I inhaled the cut grass scent.
Two tents stood on the highest ground. The stakes were driven to full depth with the guy ropes at a proper angle. I checked it all as a matter of habit. My parents hosted a family reunion every August in Saskatchewan.
“Well?” Niko asked.
“Good work. The stakes are right.”
“I’ll let Kieran know the tents passed inspection.”
“Don’t tell him that.”
We walked up to the first tent and left our gift on a long table with the others.
Half the team was already there, wearing suits instead of gear. Cross stood with his wife, surveying everything. Sully was beside Pratt, telling a story with both hands. Coach Markel stood at the edge of the tent, sipping a beer.
Somewhere behind the house, something made of glass shattered. I heard the word “Shit,” and the catering crew laughed.
“Rafe.” Heath walked up to us and gave us each hugs. “You found the place okay.”
“I did, and the teenager handling parking placed me facing out.”
“That’s Kieran’s brother Danny’s kid. He’s taking everything seriously.” Heath looked back toward the house. “Also, something just broke back there, and I’ve decided I don’t need to know what it was.”
“Wise,” Niko said.
“It’s my wedding day. I’m allowed to ignore minor catastrophes.” Behind him, near the drinks table, a man in his sixties in a gray suit stood talking to two women.
Heath followed where I was looking.
“Yes, that’s the guitar uncle. He asked again in June,” he said. “Kieran said no again in June.”
“How’s he taking it?”
“He’s telling everyone he’s saving his voice for the dance. We hired a band. Nothing requires his voice. We’ll intervene if necessary.” Somebody called Heath’s name from the house. He squeezed my shoulder and left.
We found seats on the aisle, four rows back. Rook and Varga came up the aisle and took the row ahead of us.
The music started. It came out of two speakers on stands. Heath came out from the side of the house with his brother, and then Kieran came out with his. Everyone stood.
I didn’t hear most of the vows. I tried to focus, but then Niko squeezed my thigh, and everything jumbled in my brain.
The officiant said something I missed, and the crowd laughed. Kieran said something back that only Heath heard, and Heath laughed like nobody was watching.
In the row ahead of us, Varga sniffed. He didn’t hide it. He even dabbed at his eyes with Rook’s pocket square.
Beside me, Niko’s shoulder rested against mine, a full, warm line of contact from arm to elbow.
The officiant finally got to the part everyone was waiting for, and Heath kissed Kieran. Somewhere behind us a cork popped early.
We sat with the rest of the team. Max walked over to us, carrying two trays.
“One of these goes to the buffet,” he announced, “as a gift from my mother. She sends her congratulations. The other is technically for Rafe, so you’d better eat fast.”
Dinner arrived family style. It was grilled chicken, sweet corn, and a potato salad with dill in it. Ma Gregory’s spanakopita was still warm somehow, and the phyllo shattered the same way it did at Sunday dinner.
Somewhere between dinner and cake, the sun drifted low on the horizon and sent gold light under the tent edge. It was the perfect shooting light Max always talked about.
He kept his phone in his pocket.
Max had joined the team, and he was leaning back in his chair with his tie loose, telling Sully the story of regrouting his own hand into a wall.
Somebody dinged a glass, and Varga immediately stood. He didn’t have notes.
“Okay,” he said. “Before I begin, some history. Since January I have been writing a toast for my wedding, and then it was explained to me—repeatedly—that the system does not permit this. So Heath and Kieran are getting it. Rook has heard four drafts. He said the third one was good.”
“I said it was shorter,” Rook said.
“He said it was better, which is the same thing, and tonight you’re getting the fourth draft, because the fifth draft drifted in an unfortunate direction.”
Varga squared himself to the head of the table, where Heath and Kieran sat with their chairs pushed together.
“Heath Donnelly. I have played hockey with this man for years now. In that time I have been open, genuinely, beautifully open, perhaps four hundred times, and he has passed to me perhaps eleven of those times. Eleven. I counted. I have the count in a note on my phone, with dates.”
“He does,” Rook said.
“And you know what? I kept playing with him. You want to know why? Because when Heath doesn’t pass to you, it’s because he’s right. Every time. It’s the most annoying quality a man can have, and Kieran, you’re marrying it, and I want you to know what you’re signing up for.” Everyone laughed.
When the laughter settled, Varga turned a little toward Kieran.
“And this one. Years ago, Heath found a bar. Suddenly, it was his bar. He’s got a bar now.
And I go, because I’m a good friend, and the bar has one working tap and the game on a television from another decade, and I say, ‘Heath, what are we doing here,’ and he says ‘the atmosphere.’”
Varga paused. “The atmosphere was a fish tank. There is an Oscar in that tank. His name is Melvin. Heath knew the fish’s name.
That’s what I want you all to sit with. Before this man knew Kieran’s phone number, he knew the fish’s name, because it was the only question he could think of that didn’t sound like the question. ”
He stopped. He looked at the two of them for a second.
“And the guy taking care of that tank—it wasn’t his tank.
It wasn’t his fish. Nobody asked him. That’s who Heath found.
A man who takes care of things when it’s not his job,” Varga said.
“And when a man like that decides you’re his job, that’s it.
That’s the whole thing. There’s nothing else to know. ”
Beside me, without turning his head, Niko slid the last of Ma’s spanakopita onto my plate.
I looked at him. He was watching the toast.
“Heath figured it out at a fish tank,” Varga said. “The rest of us figured it out at their table. We’ve been eating there ever since, and tonight the table got a tent.” He raised his glass. “To Heath and Kieran. Forever.”
The band started. They worked through songs everybody’s parents could dance to.
The tables emptied toward the floor. On the far side of the floor, Trier sat with a plate of cake he wasn’t eating.
Peaches was asleep on his lap in a harness the exact color of his tie.
Mark sat beside him, and they were both laughing.
The cake table had been picked over down to two flavors, and Kieran was working behind it with a knife and a stack of small plates.
“Rafe,” he called to me, “red velvet or yellow?” He had a plate in each hand.
“Yellow.”
He gave it to me and moved on to the next empty hand.
I was three bites into the cake before I felt it. Niko stood at the end of the drinks table, twenty feet off, with a beer he wasn’t drinking. He watched me the way he looked at a joint that had just come out of the clamps. I checked myself. Suit fine. Cake fine. Face presumably fine.
I took three steps toward him. “What?”
“Nothing,” he said.
“You’re staring.”
“I’ve got something worth staring at.” He took the fork out of my hand and ate a bite of my cake. “Not bad.”
We stood on the edge of the dancing crowd. “Ma wants to know if we’re coming Sunday,” Niko said.
“Is it tacos?”
“Yes, and Yiayia’s asking about you.”
“Tell her we’re coming.”
“I already did,” Niko said.
Behind us, the band started something slow.
“Let’s dance,” I said.
***
Thank you so much for reading Home Ice.