Third period. They press hard, score one. The lead is 2-1, and the last few minutes are the longest of my life. Every shot on Zach’s net makes my whole body clench. Mom has stopped drinking her wine and is gripping the stem of the glass with both hands. She’s a hockey wife. She’s done this for twenty years, and she’s still white-knuckling it with eight minutes left because the playoffs do this to everyone.
Zach makes a save with two minutes left that I will remember for the rest of my life. Their best forward on a breakaway, and Zach reads the release before the shot even happens. He’s already moving, dropping into the butterfly and kicking his right pad out. The puck hits him square and ricochets into the corner. The building groans. I’m on my feet in my parents’ living room with both hands on top of my head, screaming.
“THAT’S MY—” I stop. “That’s my team,” I finish, lamely.
My mom stares at me for a moment, then she reaches over and squeezes my hand.
“I know, sweetheart.”
The final buzzer sounds. 2-1. We win the series. They’re going to the Stanley Cup Finals.
The camera finds the team on the ice and there’s number 35, mask off, Rodriguez grabbing his head with both hands, andZach is laughing and I’m crying on my parents’ couch because the man I love just made the Stanley Cup Finals and I couldn’t be there. Mom puts her hand on my knee. She doesn’t say anything. She just leaves it there and I let her because I need someone to touch me right now and the person I want it to be is on the ice in another city surrounded by twenty-two guys in pads.
I hit send on the text I typed in the first period.
Then I type another one.
Me
you did it
you DID it
Stanley Cup Finals, Zach
I’m so proud of you I can’t breathe
He won’t see these for an hour at least because of the locker room celebration, media, the whole postgame circus. I don’t care.
He calls me at midnight.I’m lying in bed with the lights off but awake and I pick up before the first ring finishes.
“Hi,” he says. His voice is hoarse and happy and exhausted. I can hear the team in the background—distant, someone yelling something about champagne.
“Hi.”
“We did it.”
“You did it. YOU did it.”
“Mackie—” He lets out a disbelieving laugh, like he still can’t process it. “I’m going to the Cup Finals. I’m the starting goalie in the Cup Finals. I said that during truth or dare. Do you remember? I said?—”
“I remember.” My voice cracks. “I remember everything.”
He’s quiet for a second and I can hear him breathing and the background noise fading like he’s walking away from the group, finding somewhere private, and when he talks again his voice is lower. “I wish you were here.”
“I know.”
“I looked for you. After the buzzer. I looked up at the stands because I wanted you to be there.”
I press my face into the pillow and take a deep breath. My eyes are burning and I can’t talk for a second.
“Zach.”
“Yeah?”
“I want to tell my dad.”
The line goes quiet.
