40. Mackie
MACKIE
The house smells like coffee and banana bread when I walk in—the stress-baking kind my mom makes during every playoff run.
She’s at the island with her laptop and a mug.
She doesn’t look surprised because my mother has never once been surprised by me in my entire life.
She knew about Zach before Dad did. She’s been sitting on it for months, waiting for the rest of us to catch up.
She points at the bread and says. “Your dad’s in the garage.”
I take a piece of banana bread and stand at the counter eating it, not saying anything and she watches me over her laptop the way she does when she’s giving me room to arrive at the thing I’m going to say.
My mom is a girls’ girl. She has been a girls’ girl since before I existed.
She got pregnant with me at nineteen and had me at twenty and spent the next two decades building a life around a man who’s gone half the year and she has never once made me feel like that was a sacrifice.
“I’m going to go talk to him,” I say.
She closes her laptop. “Good.”
“I don’t know if he’s ready.”
“He’s not.” She comes around the island and stands next to me and puts her hand on the back of my head the way she used to when I was little. “You know what he said when I told him I was pregnant with you?”
“What.”
“He said good. He said good, Chloe, this is good. And then he drove to the airport.” She’s smiling, a quiet private smile like she’s watching the memory play.
“Your father was twenty-three. He was wild back then, Mackie. I mean WILD. I called him from the bathroom terrified because I thought he was going to panic and he said good and came home immediately.”
“Mom, what does that have to do with—”
“You are his daughter. Whatever he says in that garage, remember that he is the man who said good when I surprised him with a pregnancy after only six months of dating him. He’s going to come around. He’s just going to be loud about it first.”
She kisses the top of my head and lets go.
“Don’t apologize for loving Zach,” she says. “Apologize for the lying. That’s the wound. That’s the only part he can’t get past.”
I finish the banana bread and walk through the house to the garage door and stand there with my hand on the knob.
I can hear the TV through the door, it’s always playing hockey highlights.
The low murmur of an announcer calling a play I can’t make out.
Dad is sitting on the weight bench in sweats and a Puckaneers hoodie, the TV is on, but he’s not looking at it.
He glances up when I come in and watches me cross the room.
“You said after Game 7,” I say. “But I’m here now.
I lied to you. For eight months. I looked at you every day and I kept a secret that I knew would hurt you and I did it anyway.
I’m not going to explain why because the why doesn’t change it.
I’m sorry for the lying, Dad. I’m sorry you found out the way you did with no warning and no time and no space to feel what you needed to feel.
If I could change how you found out I would. But I’m not sorry for Zach.”
He opens his mouth like he’s about to interrupt me and I rush on.
“I’m not sorry for falling in love with him and I won’t say I am because that would be another lie and I’m done lying to you.
He wanted to tell you from the beginning.
Every single time I said not yet, he argued.
He sat across from you at dinner and it made him sick to lie to you because he respects you more than anyone in his life and losing that is the thing that’s been destroying him.
Not the series. Not the team. You. I know you think the PWHL is about him.
It’s not. I chose women’s hockey because I want to cover women’s hockey.
That decision exists separately from Zach and it existed before Zach.
You raised me to love this game. All of it.
Not just the version with your name on the jersey. ”
“Mackie...”
“I’m not here to ask your permission. I’m not asking you to be okay with it or to forgive me today. But I needed you to hear me say it.”
He looks at me. And his face isn’t the emotionless mask he’s been wearing since Game 1.
“You know what the hardest part is?” His voice is rough. “It’s not the lying. The lying is—yeah. But the hardest part is that I liked him, Mackie. I really liked him. I looked at that kid and I saw something.”
His voice catches.
“And the whole time he was sitting there, he already had you. He already had the thing that matters most to me and he was letting me treat him like he needed me. When he already had everything.”
“He does need you, Dad.”
He stands up. “Don’t come in here and tell me what he needs. You lied to me for months. Both of you. And now you want me to what, Mackie? What do you want from me? You want me to step aside and let some hockey player have my daughter?”
“You know he’s not just some hockey player.”
“Then what is he?”
And there it is. The question underneath all of it. Not who is he because my dad knows who he is—he’s known who Zach is for two years. The question is what is he to you? What is this thing that was worth lying for.
“He’s the man I love, Dad.” My dad stares at me and I stare back and I don’t flinch because I’ve been flinching for eight months and I’m done.
“He has no family. He has nobody. He had billet parents and teammates and coaches and none of them stayed. You stayed. You were the first person who stayed and treated him like he mattered outside of a rink. And losing that has been—you didn’t see him after Game 1.”
Dad closes his eyes and presses the heels of his hands against them.
“He’s a good person. He made a bad choice. We both did. But he loves me and I love him and that’s real. It’s been real since October.”
He drops his hands. “You said he argued. Every time you wanted to wait to tell me?”
“From the beginning. I was the one who said no. Every single time.”
He sits back down. Slower this time, like the fight went out of him between standing and sitting.
“I’m not ready,” he says. “I need you to hear that. I’m not ready to sit across a table from him and act like nothing happened. I might not be ready for a while.”
“I know.”
“But you’re my daughter and I love you and that doesn’t stop because I’m angry.”
I nod because if I try to talk right now I’m going to start crying again.
“Game 7 is tomorrow,” he says. “Are you going to be there?”
“Do you want me there?”
He looks at his hands. “Yeah,” he says. “I want you there.”
I put my hands over my face and my shoulders shake while the tears come fast. He sinks down next to me on the floor, pulling me against his side the way he used to when I was little.
“I still need time,” he says.
“I know.”
“With him. I need time with him. But I’ll get there.”
I lean my head against his shoulder. “Dad?”
“Yeah.”
“He really is a good goalie.”
“I know he’s a good goalie, Mackie. I’ve been watching him play for two years.”
I stand up and I’m halfway to the door when he calls out. “Tell him to stop the puck tomorrow.”