“I suppose,” he allows, the corner of his mouth ticking up.
We walk in comfortable silence for a while, the only sounds the crunch of our boots and the roar of the surf. It feels domestic in a way that should scare the shit out of me but doesn’t.
“You know, this reminds me of home a little,” I say, looking at the trees. “Northern Ontario doesn’t have the ocean, obviously.But the smell of the trees. We used to spend all day outside in the winter. My dad would flood the backyard, and me and Rylan would be out there until our toes were black.”
Tanner glances at me. “Your dad was a doctor, right?”
“Yeah. Small-town GP. Which meant he was also the marriage counselor, the sports medicine specialist, and occasionally the vet if someone’s dog got into it with a porcupine.” I chuckle at the memory. “It was good. We all thought it was so boring, but it was safe and stable. Mom was a nurse at the hospital about an hour away, but she was from that generation that taught women that they were the ones responsible for feeding the family, even if they were working outside the house. She was always cooking enough food for an army, so we always had leftovers.”
“And Rylan?”
“He lived at my house more than his own, especially after his brother died.” I trail off, looking out at the water. “And then his mom passed like a year later. My parents just kind of absorbed him into us. They could see his dad struggling so much, and they loved them both, so they stepped up and welcomed Ry into our family, loving him like another kid. That’s why we’re closer than a lot of siblings.”
“That sounds nice,” Tanner says. His voice is carefully neutral. Almost like he’s trying to distance himself from an emotion he doesn’t want to examine.
I stop walking and turn to him. “What about you? I know your mom had to work a lot, so were you closer to your grandparents?”
Tanner stops too, squinting against the wind. He looks down at his boots. “It was fine. It was just logistics.”
“Logistics,” I repeat.
“Yeah. My mom was grinding. She was a single mom trying to climb a corporate ladder. She loved me. I know she would do anything for me, but she was tired. All the time.” He shrugs. “Ilearned pretty quick that not causing problems was the best way to help her. Get good grades so she doesn’t have to meet with the teacher. Don’t ask for help with homework. Don’t break things we would have to pay to replace. Don’t need things.”
“What about hockey?”
“Hockey was my ticket out,” he says simply. “I left when I was fifteen. Juniors.” He hesitates for a second before continuing. “It made my mom’s life a lot easier when I moved away. She was able to focus more on her job without worrying about me. It was better for everyone, honestly.”
I frown. “Jesus, you really think it was?” I say softly.
He shrugs. “How could it not be? I went from being in her house, full-time, always needing a ride somewhere, or something for school, or some new piece of equipment for hockey, to being only something she had to think about once a week or so for a phone call.”
“Damn, you only talked to her once a week?”
It’s pretty common for young hockey players in Canada to play on teams far from their hometowns, so they stay with other families. Rylan and I were lucky we were able to live at home and still play rep hockey, but that’s not the case for most kids.
But most of the guys who lived with billet families kept in touch with their parents all the time. Only talking to your family once a week sounds like something from my parents’ generation, before everyone had cell phones. But nowadays, when it’s so much easier to stay connected, only talking to your kid once a week seems… extreme.
“The billet families I lived with were always nice,” he says, still not looking at me. “They fed me, drove me to practice. They were great.”
“But?”
He shrugs again, still staring out to sea. “I was a teenager living in someone else’s home. I was always a guest, never partof the family. I learned to not take up any more space than necessary. Don’t make noise, wash my dishes right away so I didn’t make a mess anyone else would have to clean up.”
He chuckles wryly. “Sometimes I wonder if that’s why I was successful as a goalie. It’s more solitary, you know? You’re on the team, but you’re apart from it. You have your own rules, your own space. It made sense to me.”
“Do you still talk to the families you lived with?”
“Nah, not really. We’re connected on social media. For the first few years, I would make a point to try and call them around the holidays, but after a while, that faded too. That’s how it works.” He shrugs like it doesn’t matter, but I get the feeling it does.
My heart breaks for that fifteen-year-old kid trying to be invisible in a stranger’s house, worried that if he made too much noise or struggled in class, or fuck, needed some emotional support, he’d be a burden.
“That must have been fucking hard,” I say.
He blinks, maybe surprised at the force of my words.
“Maybe sometimes, but it’s not a big deal. It’s just what happened. Lots of kids have it a lot worse.”
“Yeah, I know you get the math.” I step closer, forcing him to look at me. “It sounds to me like you’ve rationalized all that shit away.Mom worked hard. Billets were nice. Taught me how to take care of myself, made me tough.” I shake my head. “But how did itfeel? Because it sounds pretty fucking lonely.”
