I extend my hand in greeting to the woman I believe is one of her new teachers.“Hi there.I’m Halle MacAlister and this is my father, Clint.And as you’ve determined, this is Lennon.Or Lenni.”
We shake hands, and she kneels on the ground to greet Lenni at eye level.
“Hi there, Lenni.My name is Miss Adelaide.But you can call me Miss Addy.”She smiles at Lenni, who peers out from behind my leg.“Would you like to come inside the classroom, and I’ll show you around?There are still a few of the kids here waiting for their families to pick them up, and I know they’re all excited to meet you.”
Lenni glances up to me with a dubious look, and I give her a reassuring nod of approval.She slowly untethers herself from my leg as Miss Addy stands, then takes hold of Miss Addy’s outstretched hand.Something unfurls inside my chest, loosening from the tight restriction I hadn’t realized had been there for weeks.
Letting go of people in life is difficult.It’s a hard life lesson we all have to learn and tests our resiliency to manage through change.
Just like letting go of my father’s helping hand in order to learn how to become self-reliant.I know this is the boost Lenni and I both need to become independent women.Lucky for us, though, my dad will always be around to bail me out if I need his help.
I suppose it’s part of the reason why I broke off the connection with Dane.At the time, I knew we both had to live our own lives and it would be best for both of us.
But this experience of watching Lenni leave me is an important life lesson for us both, too.Learning to fly even when we’re not sure we’re capable of doing it on our own.
I give her a wave, trying to keep my composure and the tears from spilling from the corners of my eyes.“Bye, sweet pea.I love you!”My voice cracks, and I point in the opposite direction.“I’ll be just down the hall if you need me.”
“Bye!”She waves and walks into the classroom.My dad squeezes my arm.
“You’re doing great, Hal.You’ve got this.”
Yeah, I’ve got this.
9
Ax
The game against Florida was tight the first two periods, and we are tied going into the third.Florida has ten more shots on goal than us, but thankfully Wolf has been an animal in the net, as his name implies.He’s done one hell of a job stopping those fuckers from scoring.
I leave the ice after a shift and watch tonight’s first line skate hard to make some plays and hold off the attacks of our worthy opponents.Right now, it’s Costa, Canners, Lundy, Brewsky, and Thorny, our playmaker, out there, and they just got the rebound from a deflected shot.
Thorny grabs the puck and they fly down the ice toward the zone, Costa out in front where he receives a quick dish from Thorny.Canners swings around to the outside of the net as the puck gets passed between Lundy and Brewer.Then Costa pushes past his defender, grabs the puck and shoots, but it’s deflected off Florida’s goalie.
Fuck.It’s so hard to watch from the bench, wishing I could be in there to help my teammates.
But with his catlike reflexes, Canners reaches out with his stick and catches the rebound, swinging around in front of the net, jamming his stick under the puck, and flipping the biscuit right over the goalie’s shoulder to score.
“Fuck yeah!”I shout along with thousands of others in the arena.Canners bends a knee and raises his stick in the air in a celly.He skates along the boards in his victory dance as the lines quickly swap, and I’m jumping back out on the ice.
“Nice work, Canners,” I congratulate him, giving him a fist bump on his way to the bench.A wide grin expands across his normally serious face.Brett has always been a closed-off kind of guy and rarely shows any emotion outside of frustration when he feels he doesn’t contribute to the team.
Me?I’m the chatterbox of the team.Well, me and Rossy.Some guys leave it to the ice where they chirp nonstop, but Rossy and I bring it out all the time.The guys call it getting Axed, and bets have been placed on how long it might take for me to get to the end when I’m telling them a story or a joke.
Except I haven’t shared with anyone that our new team analyst is my ex.
My thoughts go back to when I was leaving Ballas’s office earlier today.He’d called me down to talk about their decision to bring up a new kid from our AHL team and ask me to act as a mentor for him.
I admit, it felt pretty good to be tapped on the shoulder for something as important as that.I’ve always been a little bit on the cocky side.I mean, I was the highest scoring player my rookie season in the league.That means something.
But it’s low-key cool to know Ballas sees me as an unofficial leader on the team, too.He has helped build my skills in that area and for that I’m grateful.He’s taken me under his wing, given me some added responsibility, and guided me into becoming a mature player.
But that doesn’t come close to the level of maturity that Halle must have had to become a mother at such a young age.It still blows my mind.
A mother.
For fuck’s sake, that’s taking responsibility to a whole other dimension.Halle is going on twenty-five, the same age as me, but she’s a freakingmom.Holy shit.That really caught me off guard, just like that puck off the stick I took last season.
Something that feels like a scalding iron to my heart threatens to drop me to my knees when I consider that Halle could still be with Lenni’s father.
