34. Mackie
MACKIE
Mom is on the other end of the couch with a glass of wine. The house is quiet in the way it gets when my dad is on the road—his energy is so big that when it’s gone the rooms feel too large, like the furniture was arranged for someone who takes up more space than the rest of us.
The first period is scoreless. Zach makes fourteen saves, and two of them are ridiculous—a glove snag on a one-timer from the slot and a pad save on a two-on-one that makes the commentators lose their minds.
I’m sitting on the couch with my phone in my hand.
I want to text him so badly my fingers ache.
He’s IN NET. He’s playing RIGHT NOW. Even if I sent something, he wouldn’t see it until after, but I type it anyway.
you are unbelievable right now
Second period, we go up 1-0 on a Rodriguez power play goal.
Mom raises her wine glass at the TV. I scream into a throw pillow.
2-0 three minutes later on a deflection.
The building in Colorado goes dead quiet, and I can see Zach in the wide shot.
He’s one period away from the Cup Finals, and all I can do is watch from my couch.
He knows. He has to know. I watch every game. I’ve watched every game since before he knew I existed—watching him because something about the way he moved in the crease made me pay attention. And then I was in love with him, and watching became something else entirely.
Third period. They press hard, score one.
The lead is 2-1, and the last few minutes are the longest of my life.
Every shot on Zach’s net makes my whole body clench.
Mom has stopped drinking her wine and is gripping the stem of the glass with both hands.
She’s a hockey wife. She’s done this for twenty years, and she’s still white-knuckling it with eight minutes left because the playoffs do this to everyone.
Zach makes a save with two minutes left that I will remember for the rest of my life.
Their best forward on a breakaway, and Zach reads the release before the shot even happens.
He’s already moving, dropping into the butterfly and kicking his right pad out.
The puck hits him square and ricochets into the corner.
The building groans. I’m on my feet in my parents’ living room with both hands on top of my head, screaming.
“THAT’S MY—” I stop. “That’s my team,” I finish, lamely.
My mom stares at me for a moment, then she reaches over and squeezes my hand.
“I know, sweetheart.”
The final buzzer sounds. 2-1. We win the series. They’re going to the Stanley Cup Finals.
The camera finds the team on the ice and there’s number 35, mask off, Rodriguez grabbing his head with both hands, and Zach is laughing and I’m crying on my parents’ couch because the man I love just made the Stanley Cup Finals and I couldn’t be there.
Mom puts her hand on my knee. She doesn’t say anything.
She just leaves it there and I let her because I need someone to touch me right now and the person I want it to be is on the ice in another city surrounded by twenty-two guys in pads.
I hit send on the text I typed in the first period.
Then I type another one.
Me
you did it
you DID it
Stanley Cup Finals, Zach
I’m so proud of you I can’t breathe
He won’t see these for an hour at least because of the locker room celebration, media, the whole postgame circus. I don’t care.
He calls me at midnight. I’m lying in bed with the lights off but awake and I pick up before the first ring finishes.
“Hi,” he says. His voice is hoarse and happy and exhausted. I can hear the team in the background—distant, someone yelling something about champagne.
“Hi.”
“We did it.”
“You did it. YOU did it.”
“Mackie—” He lets out a disbelieving laugh, like he still can’t process it. “I’m going to the Cup Finals. I’m the starting goalie in the Cup Finals. I said that during truth or dare. Do you remember? I said—”
“I remember.” My voice cracks. “I remember everything.”
He’s quiet for a second and I can hear him breathing and the background noise fading like he’s walking away from the group, finding somewhere private, and when he talks again his voice is lower. “I wish you were here.”
“I know.”
“I looked for you. After the buzzer. I looked up at the stands because I wanted you to be there.”
I press my face into the pillow and take a deep breath. My eyes are burning and I can’t talk for a second.
“Zach.”
“Yeah?”
“I want to tell my dad.”
The line goes quiet.
“What?”
“I don’t want to wait. Let’s tell him. Before the Cup starts.
I’m done hiding.” I sit up in bed. The words are pouring out of me now and I can’t stop them.
“You got your wish. And I was sitting on my parents’ couch watching it happen and I almost screamed ‘that’s my boyfriend’ in front of my mom and the only reason I didn’t is because I caught myself and I am so TIRED of catching myself, Zach.
I’m tired of watching you on a screen. I’m tired of not being able to wear your jersey.
I’m tired of sitting in the family suite pretending I’m just Jack Anderson’s daughter when you’re out there playing the best hockey of your life and I can’t even stand up and scream your name. ”
“Mackie—”
“I want to be in the building. In YOUR jersey. I want my dad to know. I want everyone to know. I want to stop lying and sneaking and checking over my shoulder every time I text you. You’ve been asking me for months and I kept saying not yet and I’m saying YES. Now. Right now. Before Game 1.”
The silence stretches. I can hear my own heartbeat in the dark.
“We can’t,” he says.
I blink. “What?”
“We can’t tell him right now. Not before the Cup.”
“Zach, you’ve been BEGGING me to tell him. For months. You sat on the kitchen counter and said—”
“I know what I said. And I meant it. But that was before we were in the Finals.” His voice has that careful quality again, the one that means he’s choosing every word.
“Mackie, everything is working right now. The team, my game, the routine—I can’t change anything.
I know that sounds insane but I’m a goalie and goalies don’t change things when they’re winning.
You don’t move the tape, you don’t wash the gear, you don’t—”
“You don’t tell your girlfriend’s father that you exist?”
“Not before the biggest series of my life. Not when telling him could blow up his focus and mine and the entire team.”
I’m sitting in the dark in my childhood bedroom and the man who spent six months pushing me to have this conversation is telling me to wait.
“You’re serious.”
“Mackie, if we tell him right now and he loses it, that will be in the locker room for the entire series. I want to tell him. I’ve never wanted anything more. But I want to win the Cup first. And I need to be focused to do that.”
“So I’m supposed to keep hiding. Through the entire finals.”
“It’s two weeks, tops. If we go all the way to Game 7.”
“Six weeks ago you were telling me the guilt was eating you alive and now you’re asking me to do the thing you couldn’t do.”
He sighs. “You’re right,” he says quietly. “I’m asking you to do the thing I couldn’t do. And I’m sorry. But Mackie—this is the Cup. The thing I’ve wanted my whole life. And I’m scared that if we shake anything right now it all falls apart.”
Six months of him pushing and me stalling and now it’s flipped and neither of us is laughing about it.
“The Cup Finals. But Zach—the second it’s over. Win or lose. I’m done waiting.”
“The second it’s over,” he says. “I promise.”
I close my eyes. “That’s my line.”
“I know.” I can hear him almost smile. “I stole it.”
“Go celebrate,” I say. “You earned this.”
“I’d rather stay on the phone with you.”
“Be with your team. I’ll be here when you get home.”
“Promise?”
“Always.”
He hangs up, and I lie in the dark. The house is quiet. My dad is in another city celebrating with the team. My mom is asleep down the hall.
After the Cup. Win or lose. I’m telling him.
I close my eyes. I can still hear Zach’s voice—hoarse and happy and far away. I hold onto it until I fall asleep.