Page 176 of Slapshot Baby

I’ll try my best with what I know about her.

Five weeks of silence after a night that felt like something rare, and every morning the phone is blank. He didn't call. He isn't going to call. Of course not. Expecting anything else was the mistake, the same mistake Mom made, the same one she swore she'd never repeat.

But on getting to the hospital, the man opens his eyes and says have we met? The speech crumbles into dust because how do you tell a man who can't find your name in his own head that you're carrying his child?

When he can't walk to the bathroom. When he doesn't recognize the teammate beside his bed. When the doctors say four years are gone and might stay gone.

So tomorrow sounds better. Tell him tomorrow when he's stronger.

But when he gets well, he calls and his voice cracks saying he doesn't know who he is without hockey. Adding a baby to a man who's barely holding himself together feels like throwing a drowning person an anchor instead of a rope.

And every day the confession gets heavier even though she practices the words in the shower while the hot water runs.

I'm pregnant. It's yours. I've known since before you remembered how to walk.

Every morning the words dissolve because saying them means watching his face change.

Because what if he stays out of obligation? What if duty replaces desire? What if the man who chose you becomes the man who's stuck with you, and the warmth in his eyes cools into the resigned responsibility of a decent man doing the right thing?

Or worse. What if he leaves?

What if he leaves the way Dad left, with a kiss on the forehead and the car keys already in his hand and the taillights getting smaller and the phone that never rings?

That is the fear. Not that he'll be angry. That he'll be gone. And every day of silence is one more day where he's still here, still warm, still reaching for you in the dark.

Just one more week. Then I'll tell him. One more week of being loved before it ends.

That’s what Ava must have thought until one more week became five months.

I open my eyes.

My mother is sitting exactly where she was, coffee untouched, both hands flat on the table. Her chin is trembling.

Even though I don’t agree with Ava not telling me, I now understand why she didn’t.

"She wasn't being cruel." My voice sounds strange. Lower. Scraped clean.

"No, baby. She wasn't."

Mom's hand finds mine. She grips it hard.

"That girl sat in my kitchen and ate scones and listened to me talk about your height chart on the doorframe while your baby was growing inside her and she never said a word." Her voice breaks and rebuilds in the same breath. "She was scared of losing you."

"She should have told me."

"Yes. She should have."

I push back from the table.

"Where are you going?"

My keys are on the counter where I left them. They feel heavier in my palm than they did when I walked in.

"Kai." Mom's voice catches behind me. "What are you going to do?"

I look back at her from the kitchen doorway. "I'm going to bring my family home."

She smiles, nodding.