Page 184

Paloma

“Nice shot, Gabby!”

Gabrielle Huston smiles, front teeth missing as she trips forward on her skates toward me. She’s seven and the best one on the team, popular with the other girls and always smiling.

“Thanks, Coach P.”

I tap her helmet as she zooms over to the bench for water.

Coach P. I grin, still a little overwhelmed by exactly how much I love my job coaching the local girls club hockey team. I started it myself, with the help of Adam Reiner and the First Line Foundation—Max Koteskiy’s skating charity. I’ve been the head coach for two years now, after training under one appointed to start the team.

I love these girls. I love this game.

I’m happy.

“Huddle up,” I call, before handing my clipboard to one of my teenage assistant coaches, letting her take the lead today since I’m no longer allowed to skate—doctor’s orders. And if she hadn’t ordered it, I’m sure my beautiful, intense husband, currently seated on the steel bleachers, would have.

Bennett doesn’t like to be far away from me, pregnant or not. However, now he’s got an assistant worrier.

Annie, two perfect braids down her back beneath a beanie, sits in the stands right next to her dad. She’d been nervous about me leaving today—mostly due to how much time we spend together regularly—but sticking close to Bennett seems to have relaxed her somewhat.

She’s always been like that with her dad—finding him the soothing presence he’s always been for me.

“Hey,” a deep, low voice speaks. “Shhh, you’re okay.”

Hiding around the corner, I peek carefully into the living room, still half asleep. A baby cries, but the previous wailing fades off into little chuffs and sniffles as she settles against the mass of her father’s warm chest.

Because she knows she’s safe in Bennett’s arms. Just like I’ve always been.

He recites Mary Oliver’s “The Summer Day” quietly, voice low as she slowly falls back asleep. He’s read the same poem to her since before she left my belly.

This is their morning routine—though it’s the middle of the night now, unusual because Annie is good at sleeping through the night.

My sleepy girl. I’m usually always awake before her.

In the mornings, Bennett wakes up first. He makes the coffee and then leaves a poem for me on the fridge with our word magnets.

Sometimes it’s romantic and beautiful. Sometimes it’s witty and clever.

Sometimes I write one back.

He wants me to read it when I’m alone, always blushing as he walks into the kitchen to see me standing in front of the fridge and gazing at his words. I like to be awake to see him leave for his job as a professor of poetry and literature. Mostly because he’s dressed near to pornographic—brown pressed trousers, collared shirt, and tweed jacket.

One day, he’d worn a sweater vest over his button-down and I’d tackled him in the kitchen, making him take me as the sun rose over the oak wood table, his hands in my hair. It might have been the day he got me pregnant, but who knows.

At night, he’s always softer. We shower together—so often that he’s had a bigger one made during the remodel. But now when he washes my hair, I can feel his wedding band snag on my curls. Because he refuses to take it off.

Every tug from it is a comfort.

“Hey, P,” he breathes, quiet as I settle onto the couch next to him. I tuck in close, temple pressed to his shoulder as I look down at our daughter.

“She’s really perfect, huh?”

Bennett nods with a glimmering smile. “She looks just like you.”

He’s said it before; a phrase that haunted me as a kid into adulthood now feels warm and soothing. I’d talked with my therapist about it the first time he innocently muttered it and I’d locked myself in the bathroom to cry.

Now, I let it fill me with pride to chase away any lingering fears.