I exhale, staring at my hands. "If I can get Nash to listen to me—really listen—he might finally make good on his promise."
Dad pauses before saying, “When are you going to stop chasing the past and start making yourself a future?”
“Because you need surgery,” Sean says before I can. “Even without Nash, these tours pay big. Pat’ll bring home half, I’ll cover the rest.”
“You’re not helping,” I tell him. “I got this.”
Sean doesn’t quite roll his eyes, but it feels like he does.
Dad shakes his head. “I have everything I need. If you’re doing this, do it for you—not for me.”
“I’m doing it for all of us.” I look around, frustrated, and point to rusted hinges and the dripping pipe. “Yeah, it’s for your surgery, but also so we don’t have to scrape by just to fix a door or patch a roof. I’m doing this so we can take a break! We need this.”
Sean pats my back. “You have my support.”
“It’s hockey season,” I say, even though his reaction is exactly what I hoped for. “This is a big ask.”
“I know.”
“This could be your last season on the ice?—”
“All the more reason to get this done now. If you can come home with a payday, all our problems are over.”
“And maybe future generations would remember your name,” Dad says wryly.
“I don’t care about that.”
“If you say so,” Dad says.
He closes the register, putting the money in a bag and rolling past us into the office, where the overnight vault is.
Sean and I speak through glances while we wait for Dad to get back. And Sean’s glance is so supportive, my throat tightens.
“I love you, my boy,” Dad says, sounding almost as Irish as our last name. My mom’s family is Irish too, but I don’t think about her any more than I have to. “If you want to do this, you have my support.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I say.
I turn to Sean. The cost of my failures clamps onto my gut, and it doesn’t shake off. “I’ll remove myself from the payroll for the time being so y’all can hire more help in my place. Don’t let this stop you from chasing your dreams.”
“I’m a thirty-three-year-old goalie with three knee surgeries under my belt. My body’s got an expiration date.”
“Don’t think like that,” I say, even as the toll cuts deeper.
“I don’t regret anything,” Sean says. “You need to forgive yourself.”
I shake my head. “Some things are unforgivable. All I can do is try my best to atone for it.”
“You don’t have the power to do that,” Dad says, clapping his big hand on my forearm. “Nor the need, son.”
I nod as if I agree, as if I believe him, when nothing could be further from the truth.
“You’re not the same guy,” Sean says. “You gotta let yourself move forward.”
“I know.”
I look at my feet and then force my gaze up to meet theirs.
For years, Sean ran around behind me, picking up the pieces of whatever I so carelessly broke, and when he put it all back together, he never complained.
