I’m cut off by the rapid-fire pattern of incoming texts.
Answer your phone.
I know you’re there.
Tyson and Blythe said last week you’re signing them up for more activities. We need to talk.
I mute the phone entirely, but the damage is done. Tyson’s watching me with that careful expression he gets when his father enters any conversation.
“Are you in trouble?” he asks quietly.
“No, sweetheart. Dad just wants to talk about money stuff.”
Which is true, in the way that saying the Titanic had a small ice problem is true.
My laptop chimes with an email notification. Evan’s name appears in my inbox, because of course he’s moved on to email when I wouldn’t answer his texts.
Are you insane? They need discipline, not expensive hobbies. Call me back or I’m calling my lawyer.
I delete it without reading the rest, but Tyson has moved closer and caught his father’s name on the screen.
“He’s mad about hockey?”
“He’s...” I pause, trying to find words that won’t make my ten-year-old feel responsible for adult problems. “He thinks hockey costs too much money.”
“It does cost too much money,” Tyson says with devastating honesty. “Maybe I don’t really need to play.”
And there it is. My child, who has finally found something he loves and is good at, ready to give it up because his mother can’t afford it and his father thinks it’s a waste.
Another email from Evan appears.
Kids don’t need skating lessons. They need structure. Real activities. Not fantasy sports for rich kids.
Fantasy sports. Like the thing that’s made Tyson smile more in the past three months than he did in the entire year after our divorce.
“You know what?” I say, reopening the registration website. “You’re going to play hockey.”
“But the money?—”
“Is my problem, not yours.” I enter my credit card information before I can change my mind. “Your job is to be a kid and learn hockey. My job is to figure out how to pay for it.”
“What about Dad?”
“Let me worry about Dad.”
The confirmation email arrives instantly, cheerful and official.
Welcome to Youth Hockey Development! Your first practice is Saturday at 8 AM.
Tyson’s smile could power the entire house. “Really? I can really do it?”
“You can really do it.”
He launches himself at me with the enthusiasm of someone who’s just been granted their biggest wish, and I hug him tight while mentally calculating how many extra commercial auditions I’ll need to make this work.
My phone, still face down on the table, starts buzzing again. Evan, probably escalating from text to email to whatever comes next in his playbook of control disguised as concern.
But I find myself not caring about what he has to say. My son is going to play hockey, my daughter is going to figure skate, and Evan can call his lawyer all he wants.
