"I wanted you to have it."
I grab his face and kiss him. “Thank you, it’s beautiful. I love it so much.”
Tyler's already shredding the next gift, oblivious. Logan fastens the necklace, fingers warm on my neck, lingering longer than necessary. I shiver, and his thumb traces my collarbone before pulling away.
"It's perfect. Thank you."
He tucks hair behind my ear, thumb lingering on my jaw. "There's more."
Another box, heavier.
The vintage book, Snowy Day. My breath stops. The exact edition Grandma read to me. Inside the cover, her handwriting: "To my sweet Reese, may you always find the magic in every snowy day. Love, Grandma."
Tears come before I can stop them.
Logan waits, hand steady on my back.
"How?"
"Called your mom."
So simple, like it's obvious. Like of course he'd track down my childhood treasure.
I look at him and everything I can't say yet fills the space between us.
I kiss him slow, deep, grateful.
"Are you crying?" Tyler asks.
"Happy tears, buddy." I swipe my face, reach for another box. "Here, this is for your dad from me."
Logan unwraps it carefully—a weathered hardcover. The cover shows a black and white photo of father and son in parkas, with a garden hose creating sheets of ice under porch lights. "Northern Ice: Backyard Rinks from Manitoba to Minnesota."
His hands still. He opens it, finds black and white photographs of fathers flooding rinks at midnight in Duluth, Thunder Bay, and Hibbing where Logan grew up.
"How did you?—"
"You mentioned it. Once. About how your dad made your outdoor rink."
He flips through pages, finds a photo that could BE his dad—plaid jacket, wool toque, cigarette dangling while flooding the backyard.
"Every November, soon as the ground froze solid. Dad would map out the yard, twenty by forty feet. We'd help him put up the boards, staple the liner."
Tyler's listening now, cars forgotten.
"He'd be out there at two in the morning with the garden hose. Twenty below, didn't matter. Ten-minute floods every few hours to build up the layers. I can’t believe he did that looking back."
His thumb traces a photo of kids playing under string lights.
"My brothers and I lived on that rink. Mom would literally drag us in for dinner. I'd eat in my skates, soup going cold because I wanted to get back out. We'd play until our feet were numb, then warm up in the garage just long enough to feel our toes, then back out again."
"That's where you learned?" I ask.
"That's where I learned to love it. Before coaches and teams and scouts. Just hockey because it’s hockey."
He looks at Tyler. "Maybe one winter we can build one. We’re gonna need a yard first, but?—"
"Can we make ice outside?" Tyler asks, grinning with possibility.
