I thought about Dad's hand under mine, cool and still. About thirty years of being told what I was supposed to want without anyone asking what I actually did want.
"Not anymore," I said.
She nodded slowly. "You're building a good life. The business, the coaching, the—" She paused. "Everything. It's good."
"Thanks, Mom."
"Is he—" She picked up her spoon again, set it down. "Is he staying? In Thunder Bay?"
"I don't know. His team might get sold. Moved." I sipped the tea. "We're figuring it out."
I finished my tea, stood, and brought my mug to the sink. Rinsed it and set it in the dish drainer.
"I should go," I said. "Need to get back to the Underwood job early tomorrow."
"Of course." She stood and smoothed her cardigan again. "Thank you for coming. For sitting with him."
"Call me if anything changes."
"I will."
When I stepped onto the porch, I turned back.
Mom looked smaller in the doorway—tired and sad, trying to hold herself together with tea and sheer stubbornness.
"I'm glad you're happy," she said. "With your friend. With Connor. I'm glad."
My jaw tensed. "Thanks, Mom."
I kissed her cheek—quick, the way we'd always done it—and walked to my truck.
The engine turned over on the second try. I sat there for a moment, watching her close the door.
My boyfriend.
I'd said it out loud to my mother, in the kitchen where I'd eaten ten thousand meals and learned that some things were easier not to talk about.
And she'd said okay.
Relief flooded me—warm and disorienting, like stepping into heated air after hours in the cold. Underneath it was something else. A distance that had always been there but was even more apparent now.
She was glad I was happy.
That was something.
It wasn't enough, but it was something.
I pulled out of the driveway and headed toward my apartment, past the shuttered tourist shops on Red River Road and the marina where boats sat locked in ice, past the Common Thread's dark windows.
Somewhere behind me, my father was dying.
I didn't plan to go to the game.
Planned to drive home, heat up something frozen, and maybe text Hog that I was fine even though we both knew I wasn't. Instead, I took the long way. Then made it longer. Turned down streets I hadn't driven in years, past the high school where I'd learned I wasn't leaving.
When I finally looked up, I was in the Fort William Gardens parking lot.
The arena sat squat and ugly against the night sky—half the floodlights out, paint peeling around the main entrance, a building that got the job done without trying to be pretty about it. Cars were still pulling in, late arrivals hustling toward the doors with scarves wrapped around their faces.
