“Yeah. To Minnesota?”
“Because you were going to college?”
“No.”
He’s quiet for a long moment, and I notice how his grip tightens on the wheel.
“I mean, yes, Sutton and I went to college in Minnesota, but that’s not why our parents moved there.” He pauses. “Our mom ended up getting pregnant when we were fourteen.”
“Oh, wow.” That had to be…interesting.
“Yeah, it was, obviously, a total surprise. But it was cool. We were all really close, Sutton and I loved having a little sister. Everything was good.”
Trepidation trickles down my spine at the way he says ‘was’.
“None of them live here now, though?” I ask.
He clears his throat “No. Mara died.”
Shock tightens my chest. I look over. “Damn. I’m really sorry.”
He nods, staring at the road in front of us. “She got cancer. When she was four. Brain cancer. We all ended up moving up to Minnesota so that she could go through treatments at Mayo Clinic.”
Oh, fuck. That’s horrible. I can’t imagine one of my sisters being sick like that. Astrid’s injury and her surgeries and rehab were bad enough. But at least we all knew she’d survive and get better. I clear my throat. “And you started playing hockey up there?”
He nods. “Yeah. I’d played here growing up, but Louisiana isn’t a hockey state like Minnesota. I wasn’t on anyone’s radar. I walked on at a small college. Sutton had always danced and skated, too, and she was able to do both more intensely. We both had a couple of decent years. But our entire family’s life revolved around Mara and her treatments. She was doing well, so things felt good.”
I stay quiet when he pauses, letting him tell the story his way.
“But then the cancer came back in our sophomore year. She was dying. Sutton and I both dropped out. I quit the team. I had to be there for my family.”
So that’s how his career got derailed.
Scrapping for a position on a small school’s team was hard enough, but he’d gotten attention. People noticed him. He had promise. But suddenly quitting took away all those opportunities.
“I’m really sorry, Beck,” I say.
He nods. “Me too. She was so little. It was so bad at the end. Our family just…broke up. Our mom lost her mind. Our parents divorced. Our mom had an affair with Mara’s oncologist. His marriage ended. They ended up getting married. And had two more kids.”
I stare at him. “Fuck, man.”
He nods. “Yeah. She wanted another baby within months of Mara’s death, and my dad couldn’t handle that. He moved to Texas. Mom stayed in Minneapolis. And Sutton and I just needed a break. I’d already fucked up my hockey career by dropping out of college, so we decided to come back home. Atleast to a place that felt like home. A place where we knew a lot of people, and I guess the place that had been happy and normal.” He takes a deep breath. “The FPHL team was here and I tried out, made it, and it felt like kismet.”
We’re quiet for the last few miles.
I haveneverexperienced anything like what Beckett and Sutton have been through. My injury felt catastrophic, and it certainly turned my life upside down, but…it’s nothing compared to what their family went through.
We pull up at the kitten’s new home first.
He’s going to be a surprise for a nine-year-old’s birthday. He’ll be all moved in by the time she and her sister get home from school.
I suddenly really want to see her reaction. That is going to be awesome.
I want to stop by in six months and see how much he’s grown. Fuck, I want to deliver kittens all over town.
And Beckett is exactly right. As we make the rest of the deliveries, not one person comments on the scrimmage or says anything about hockey at all.
They thank us for our help, tell us a little about what they needed their deliveries for—April and Mark, for instance, have a huge family reunion coming up, and are going to make some incredible potato salad—and put in orders for other things next week.
