“Look.” Cam points at his grinning face and my smiling one reflected in the shiny gold of the trophy. “We’re champions, Savannah. The Cannons won the whole thing. How do you feel?”
Like I needed this more than I even knew.
“I’ve dreamed of the Cannons winning since I was a little girl,” I say into his ear. “But doing it with you? That blows my fantasy out of the water. This is so far beyond what I could have envisioned, Cam.”
As I look out over the ice, a familiar figure catches my attention. He’s standing at the back of the crowd, watching the opposing team celebrate. His eyes are focused on me.
I give Cam a hug and tell him I’ll be back.
* * *
I walk through the people gathered on the ice, careful not to slip and fall on my ass. When I break through the throng, my father’s waiting for me.
His eyes are dim the way they always get when he loses, and his mouth is a thin line. But he surprises me by stepping forward and giving me a kiss on the cheek.
“Congratulations, Vannah. I knew you could do it.”
I don’t bother to correct him, and he points to the aisle outside the rink. “I want you to meet some people.”
He leads me off the ice and over to a smiling woman who is heavily pregnant.
“Savannah, this is my Flora.”
“Oh, Savannah,” Flora says. “Aren’t you darling?”
Flora looks my age, and I’m not exaggerating. In reality, Celie had said she’s thirty-five, but she’s got beautiful smooth skin and a doe-eyed expression that makes her appear even younger. She’s blond, blue-eyed, and about to pop. But if she weren’t pregnant, I can tell she’d be skinny.
I say hello and congratulate her on her pregnancy.
“Thank you,” she says. “And that’s Tara. My first baby.” She points outside the rink window at a young girl smoking a cigarette.
A daughter? I turn to my father.
“Didn’t I mention my about-to-be stepdaughter?” he asks me.
I shake my head.
Tara’s a teenager going on fifty. She has her mother’s blond hair but dark eyes, eyes that look at me like daggers through the glass.
My father says he’ll join her for a quick cigarette, and I watch him greet her. Tara hugs him happily, and I feel a momentary pang of jealousy as I watch them. Clearly, they have things in common, what with their mutual cigarette habit and all. I was nearly Tara’s age when he left, so it’s strange to see him fathering a new teenage daughter when he couldn’t be bothered with us.
Flora says to me quietly, “This means so much that you’re spending time with your father like this. He had some trouble this morning.”
Dread shoots through me, and I jerk my head to meet her frightened gaze.
“What do you mean—trouble? I thought he was on meds.”
“He is.” She shrugs. “The doctor said he needed therapy as well, but you know…”
“I do. All too well,” I say.
Her smile fades a touch, but she regains her confidence quickly. “I know he’s a bit temperamental. But he’s a good man, your father.”
I reach into my purse and press into her hand the card of the therapist Mama tried to give Daddy years ago. All these years, I kept it.
“Take this,” I urge her. “This therapist is one of the best in the country at handling narcissists and other complicated disorders that are hard to categorize. She does phone and online sessions, or I’m sure she could refer you to a therapist out here in Denver.”
Flora glances around furtively and then takes the card and slips it into her lily-white clutch that perfectly matches her blouse.
