Page 15 of Gave Proof Through the Night

Yet she’d spent years trying to transform herself into whoever the casting directors decided “American” looked like that season. The hair a shade blonder every year. Blue contact lenses. Accent coaching that never seemed to help much.

My father, meanwhile, a man who considers a loss by the Mexican national team in the World Cup a personal tragedy requiring several days of mourning, never tried to talk me out of hockey. Not once.

“No problem,” I say, and I mean it. I don’t know what I’d do if my mother actually did show up for one of my games.

“You’re so understanding, mijo. You get that from me.”

I really, really don’t.

“Anyway, I should…”

“Ay. Mijo.” Wounded. Gentle. Theatrical and completely sincere at the same time, a trick I have never once figured out how she pulls off. “How many times do I tell you. Would it hurt you to say Mamá every now and then?”

I don’t answer that. I have never called her Mamá. Mamá is a word for someone who shows up, and showing up was never really her thing, not until I started winning things and the wins came with cameras attached. That’s when the calls started. That’s when I became mijo, every single time, like the word had been sitting in a drawer for years waiting for a reason to come back out.

I never called her by her first name, either. My father raised me not to call an adult by their first name out of respect. What I’ve landed on instead is nothing. I just don’t address her, not that I’ve had many conversations with her. I open with “so” or “anyway” or whatever filler buys me half a second.

“I’ve got a team thing,” I say, deflecting. “I have to go.”

It’s not exactly a lie. I need to sort out all these plushies.

“Of course, go, go.” Warmly. She’s rehearsed that warmth. She’s an actress, after all. “I’m so proud of you, mijo. Tell everyone hello from me.”

Everyone? I picture myself in the lobby, flagging down the bellhop. Hi. My mother says hi. It’s not like she knows anyone in my life.

“I will,” I say, because it costs nothing, and I hang up.

I stand there in the sudden quiet, surrounded by roughly forty stuffed fish and a bouquet that belongs in the Rose Parade, and breathe out slowly through my nose.

Then I pull out my phone and type a message to Mikael.

Me: Got your gifts. The fish situation is intense. In the best way.

Me: Thank you for all this. Means a lot.

The reply comes back fast enough that I wonder if Mikael ever sleeps, until I remember he mentioned flying to Finland to see his parents this week. Which means it’s the middle of the afternoon for him.

I picture Mikael checking his phone between whatever it is co-owners of brand new NHL franchises do on a trip home. Sauna breaks. Reindeer.

Mikael: lol the merch team got a little carried away, not gonna lie

Mikael: Hendrix Ellis wanted to send an actual fish tank. With actual fish. I had to be the voice of reason

Mikael: Welcome to the fish fam for real though man. Genuinely thrilled to have you. Go win a tournament, then come win us a Cup

I huff out something close to a laugh, alone in a hotel room full of plush animals, and send back a thumbs up.

Out of all the owners, Mikael’s the one who texts most. He’s the one who called me himself the night the deal closed, instead of having someone else do it. There’s a whole list of others, Owen Jablonski, Hendrix Ellis, Sawyer O’Malley, Griffin McGregor, and a handful of other names engraved on the Stanley Cup. Several of them are still playing for Toronto.

A few years back, a group of those Toronto players pooled their own money to buy the franchise outright after the previous owner turned out to be running a Ponzi scheme big enough to make the actual news, not just the sports section. I was a rookie in Corpus Christi when that story broke, and I remember thinking even then that you don’t see players do that. They did it anyway.

All of them somehow found time to build a franchise from nothing because, from what I can tell, they wanted it to feel like that movie. An underdog story with a happy ending.

I’m moving the gift basket when I see a creamsicle colored hat wedged under a scarf. Orange embroidery, block letters across the front.

GILL POWER

I hold it up. Turn it over once. I put it on. Check the mirror. Take it off. Put it back on.