“I’m going to turn around so we can go home.”
“That enthusiastic about it, huh?”
“I have an idea.”
She lifts an eyebrow.
“How about… we stay put for now. You in the house. I can move back there… when we’re both ready for that.”
She nods.
“We can look more over the summer. That’s a better time for both of us. If we find something we both love, great. If we don’t… we have a pretty awesome place right now.”
“Okay. I liked the symbolism of starting over in a new place, though.”
“I know. But we can do something else to symbolize that.”
“Like what?”
“We could redecorate the main bedroom.”
She nods. “That could be fun.”
“Also, we could redo the nursery. But not as a nursery.”
I’m not sure how she’s going to react to that. I know Kane’s room was something she wanted to hold on to.
She nods slowly. “We could make it a guest room. Or an office.”
“You’d be okay with that?”
“Yeah. I accepted that I was going to leave that room behind. I need to leave it behind. So that idea doesn’t bother me as much as it might have a few months ago.”
I search her face to make sure she’s being honest. “Okay. How about we make it a study room for you?”
She tips her head and purses her lips. “I like that idea.”
“Okay. Good.” I’m glad she’s okay with that.
“I’ll call the realtor and let her know we’re canceling today.” She pulls out her phone.
* * *
This is a big game tonight. We’re in a playoff spot in mid-March. We have about a month and fifteen—sixteen?—games left in the regular season. We’re in second place in our division behind the Bears, and that’s who we’re playing tonight. A win will put us ahead of them in the standings.
“This is a good team.” Coach paces the dressing room ahead of the game. “We don’t need to give them anything. Nothing. They’re gonna push tonight so we need to get to our game quick. Right away. We have to be our absolute best. This game means first place and we fuckin’ deserve that, right? Let’s make this a great night.”
We’re all pumped. I can feel the energy in the room. It’s time to go on the ice. We line up in the hall, sticks in hands. Crusher comes down the hall, chest bumping everyone in turn. When he comes to me, we do our fist/stick/hip bump routine.
“Let’s fucking go!” we both yell.
“Aaaaand now ladies and gentlemen! Here come your Newww Jerseeeey Stoooorm!”
Archie’s always first on the ice and skates directly to his net to do his weird routine. The rest of us follow. Those on thestarting line go to our blue line. The rest of us head to the bench for the anthem.
Adrenaline pumps through my veins and I bow my head and do some visualizations, shifting from one foot to the other. We’re gonna do this.
Less than an hour later, in the first intermission, I’m not feeling so confident. Things are not going our way.
