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The intense gaze of her brown eyes pierces right through me. “Hey, listen. I’ve been thinking since our last conversation.”

“Can I take off this suit first?” I point to myself.

Joanne shoos me into the bedroom. “Hurry up.”

I change clothes at my usual pace and shuffle barefoot back into the living room. Joni is clearing away the bulk of the mess from the countertops. She slides a plate toward me and points to one of the chairs in front of my bar. “Sit down.”

The corner of my mouth twitches automatically, but I do as she says and eye the food. Zucchini spaghetti, lentil sauce. Fits right in with my diet. I can eat all of this.

She hands me a fork, and I dig in. Only now do I realize how hungry I am. “Thanks,” I mumble with my mouth full.

“Mhm,” she replies. She watches me for a few moments.

“Eat some too.”

She shakes her head. “I already have.” She sighs. “You know, I think what you’re doing is amazing. I’m incredibly proud of you. Maintaining that level of performance for such a long time is inhuman. I know that. Not only because I had to listen to Dad’s lectures about training, stats, and who knows what else year in and year out.”

My chewing slows down. She could have waited a little longer to say all that.

“I know,” I mumble. Although I don’t really know that either. I kind of figured it, but we never talked about how everything in our lives was measured against hockey and how my sister wasn’t interested in the circus.

“No, you don’t. The fact that I turned my back on hockey completely doesn’t mean I didn’t want anything to do with you. It was the easiest way to stop feeling insignificant compared to everything related to that sport.”

“Joni.”

“No.” She raises her hands. “Let me finish. I’m interested in what you’re doing with your life, what it’s like.”

“Whether I’m dating Valentina Garcia.”

Now she grins. “That was a post that popped up in my feed, too.”

I nod. “I’m still sorry.”

“You don’t have to. He’s been dead for three years now, and I still haven’t managed to talk about all of this. That’s how I am.”

“I understand.” I push a zucchini spiral around on my plate. “I can’t bring myself to say certain things either.” Until it’s too late. “You know . . . whether I officially come out or not. Dad will never find out. He’ll never know who or how I am deep down.”

Joni sucks in her lower lip and nods. “I know exactly what you mean,” she whispers. “He didn’t see me at all, either. There was only one topic.”

“Shit.”

Tears stream down her face. “Dammit, I don’t want to cry.”

I stand up and hug her. “I’m sorry.”

“Is that all you can say?”

We both laugh.

Finally, we let go of each other, and my sister sits next to me on a chair.

“Sometimes I’m relieved that I’ll never have to tell him,” I continue. “I know how he would have reacted. But maybe he would have accepted it, eventually. And we would have . . . ”

Joanne takes my hand and squeezes it. “And that’s exactly what you’ll never know for sure.”

I shake my head and fight back my own tears. “Maybe he would have cut off contact.”

“Maybe he would have gotten over his prejudices.” Joanne says the words softly, as if testing how they sound.