I end the call as always, eternally grateful for my best friend’s incredible strength. But now it’s time to confront the lion in his den. I let myself in using the coded keypad, so if they’re awake, they’ll get the message that it was my code that opened the door. Sure enough, a moment later, I hear my father call out from their room upstairs, and a minute later, he comes down the massive, curved staircase.
“Aleks? What’s going on, son?” he says, a tinge of panic in his voice.
My mom is right behind him. “Aleksandr, is everything alright? What are you doing here unexpectedly?”
“I’m fine, Mom. Nothing’s wrong. I just really need to speak with Dad, and it couldn’t wait.” They both give me confused looks. My dad is now at the bottom of the stairway, standing a couple of feet in front of me, and my mom stands halfway up, clutching her silk robe in one hand and the banister in the other. She descends the remaining stairs more slowly and comes to stand in front of me, hitting the light switch on her way. Reaching out, she puts her hands on my biceps and holds me away from her, giving me a motherly once-over to make sure I’m not physically hurt before pulling me into a crushing hug. My mother might not be perfect, but I’ve never doubted for one second how much she loves me. And she really does give the best hugs—she hugs you like she really means it.
I allow myself to relax in her warmth for just a moment before straightening up. “I’m fine, Mom, I promise. But I really need to talk with Dad about something important.”
She looks at me again and cocks an eyebrow like she’s not quite sure whether to believe me, but seeing as I appear to be physically intact, I guess she decides to let it go. “Okay. But you scared us,” she says a bit reproachfully before giving me a kiss on my cheek and another quick squeeze. As she turns to go back upstairs, she and my dad exchange a glance, communicating in that way people who’ve been married for a long time do. She’s asking Dad what the hell this is all about, and he’s telling her he’s got no idea.
As she heads back up the staircase, I turn to face my father, and for some reason, the edge of unease I often have around him isn’t there. Right now, I’m as calm, cool, and collected as a goddamn cucumber, despite the anger coursing through me.
“What’s this about, son?” he asks.
“I have to talk to you, Dad. We should sit down.”
He bobs his head. “Alright, let’s go in my den.” He turns to lead us down the hallway, but something inside me resists that idea. I don’t want to have this conversation in his den. That ultramasculine lair of his that has always made me feel uncomfortable.
“No, Dad. Let’s go in the kitchen,” I say, and there’s surprise on his face as he turns around.
“Okay, ah, sure,” he says and follows me into the kitchen, where I pull out one of the heavy wooden chairs gathered around the long table.
Once we’re sitting down, I take a deep breath. There’s no way I’m chickening out of this now. The problem is, I’m not exactly sure what I want to hear from him.
“Dad, I overheard you talking with Carson and Ben today in Carson’s office.”
His eyes widen. “How did you hear that?”
I let out a bitter laugh. “I went to talk to Carson about something and just about walked in on you. Instead, I overheard everything, including the way you were talking about me.”
At least he has the decency to look ashamed. He doesn’t meet my eyes as he swallows hard. “Look, son…” He clears his throat. “I was just concerned for the sake of the team. You know all that CTE stuff is just silly. This whole thing is like some kind of little science project for these egghead doctors. Plus, it’s like I told you, coaches from my generation are going to have a lot of concerns about this technology being added to the game. There’s a fine line between doing what’s reasonable and possibly affecting the integrity of the game.”
He pauses for a minute, his eyes darting to the side, and I can literally feel my blood pressure rising. “Nope. No way, Dad. This isn’t about the ‘integrity of the game.’ I’m not letting you use those stupid talking points on me. Maybe you really do feel that way, but you wouldn’t make your son look like a foolish child in front of hisbossjust because you’re worried about that.Would you?”
He tries to interrupt me, but I forge ahead. “Now, while you’ve never bothered to tell me this yourself, others tell me that you’re actually rather proud of me, even though I find that hard to believe. But for you to be talking shit about me like that, there’s got to be more to it than just your ‘integrity of the game’ line. Oh, and just so you know, Ben Jacobs and I have been seeing each other, but he ended things with me tonight. You wanna know why he broke it off with me? He doesn’t think we stand a chance due to the fact that you ended his stepfather’s hockey career with a borderline criminally illegal hit and never even bothered to acknowledge it, never even bothered to talk to him, after it happened.”
The color drains from my father’s face. “Oh” is the only thing that comes out of his mouth. He looks at me for a minute before speaking again. “Aleks, I’m sorry. Obviously, I didn’t know.”
“What is it that you’re sorry for, Dad? Are you sorry I overheard the shit you said about me, trying to make me look stupid for your own gain? Or are you saying you’re sorry for never telling me that you were almost charged with assault for that hit you laid on Bob Prescott? Even when I told you about my new project, the one that finally got me mydream jobon an NHL team, a project trying to preventexactlythe same kind of injuries you gave Bob Prescott, you still didn’t think I should know that story?” I’m on a roll now, my anger starting to bubble over. “Or is it that you’re sorry for the way you handled it in the first place? Like how you never even fucking bothered to reach out to Bob Prescott after you forced him into an early retirement! Tell me, Dad, what exactly is it you’re sorry for?”
As I make it through my tirade, it’s almost like I can see the image my dad has of me changing as I speak. It’s possible, just maybe, for the first time ever, my father is seeing me as a grown man instead of an extension of himself who never lived up to what was expected of him.
The most surprising thing though, as I stand there demanding some accountability from him, is that maybe, for the first time inmyown life, I feel like my own man. Someone separate from the legendary NHL bruiser Kent Warren. I’m nothing like that guy: the fighter, the enforcer that was my father during his playing days. But his whole identity is wrapped up in that persona, and I can finally see it clearly. All of my brothers and me, and probably even Christine, to some extent, have been measured against that version of my dad. Not only by the outside world but byhim. That’s what he wanted and what he still wants: for us to continue doing what he loved once he got too old. He wants to live vicariously through us because he doesn’t know any other way to value himself. But it’s never fucking mattered what we actually want for ourselves.
All of these thoughts swirl through my mind in a jumbled mess as I wait for him to answer.
He sucks in a breath and squares his shoulders, but somehow, he still looks smaller to me than he did a few minutes ago.
“I’m sorry for a lot of things, son. Right now, I’m sorry I hurt you.”
That takes some of the wind out of my sails. “Why, Dad? Why the hell would you talk about me that way? This is an important project for my career. Why would you try to make me look stupid? I don’t understand.” Part of me feels like I should be ripping him a new one over what he did. But instead of rage, it’s waves of disappointment and sadness that swamp me.
Something in my tone must disarm my dad, taking all the fight out of him, because it’s like he deflates before my eyes. He leans forward, elbows on the table, and holds his head in his hands.
“Look, Aleks, it’s complicated, alright? I’ve been so consumed with getting you taken off that project because I… It’s… I don’t know how to handle any of this. I played in the league for twenty years. I fought almost every single game I played. Do you know how many times I knocked guys out cold? I mean, Jesus Christ, it was almost every damn night of my life.” He gets up from his chair, getting a glass and filling it with cold water from the fridge dispenser, his hand shaking.
“That hit against Bob Prescott is one of my deepest regrets. It was… fuck, it was vicious and brutal. Everything they said about it was true. It was an evil thing that I did.”
