He could take a good photo, but he struggled to truly capture the character, emotion, and tension of a moment. He’d struckgold a few times. A candid photo of a local hero that won a campus photography prize, a photo diary of a ballerina in recovery featured in a citywide newspaper, and the NYE photos for Zeus that had led him to the Olympics. But he still didn’t think his track record was impressive enough to be capable of the kind of work Hans made. However, if he was going to be back in Wisconsin in a few weeks scrambling for opportunities, he needed to come up with a way to impress the team at Zeus. It would take something big to stay on their radar and be at the front of their minds the next time an opportunity came up.
So, he spent the journey from the press office over to the hotel his grandparents were staying at trying to come up with photo diary ideas compelling enough to stand out. When he walked into the lobby, he immediately noticed a girl wearing a blue winter coat embroidered with stars. She turned around and waved at him. It was his sister, Thandie.
“How does it feel to officially be an Olympian?” Drew asked, giving her a hug.
“Exciting and terrifying,” she said, thumbing the Team USA logo on the sleeve of her coat. “It’s been such a long time coming.”
Drew smiled. There was nobody who deserved a moment like this more than his sister. Thandie had been playing ice hockey her whole life and was one of the best players in the world. So, when the 2022 Winter Olympics had come around, she was automatically placed on the Team USA roster. But a few months before she was due to fly to Beijing, an injury had left her bedridden in Wisconsin. The heartbreak of missing out on something she’d spent her whole life working toward had been devastating. But Thandie was one of the most resilient people he knew, and she leaped straight back into action the minute her doctor signed her off.
“But how about you: Are you ready for your weekly interrogation?” she asked knowingly.
“I guess I don’t have any other choice.” Drew grimaced, bracing himself for their pre–opening ceremony family lunch. As they turned the corner of the lobby, they spotted their grandparents walking in, their grandpa in his standard three-piece suit and their grandma wearing a glamorous deep red coat.
“Look at my baby! All grown up,” Grandma said as she and Thandie ran toward each other and into a hug. Thandie had been so busy with hockey training that they’d only seen her for a few days in December before she was off to pre-Olympic training camp.
“Grandma, you have to let me borrow that necklace,” Thandie said, squeezing her tight. They’d always been close, but with Thandie spending the majority of her year training in Colorado, Drew knew they hadn’t spoken much. He was grateful for the temporary distance between them, because if Thandie had been present enough to spend time with their grandma, she might have noticed some of the signs, started asking questions, and figured out that something was wrong. Finding out about their grandma’s Alzheimer’s this close to the most important tournament of her life would have distracted her from her number-one focus: ice hockey. So, Drew and Grandpa had decided to do what they could to make sure that Thandie and Grandma didn’t spend enough alone time together for Thandie to connect the dots.
“And my favorite grandson, come over here,” Grandma said, hugging Drew as if she was seeing him for the first time in months, even though he’d been living with them since December.
“This is so much nicer than USA House,” said Thandie, glancing at the luxurious furniture and chandeliers. Their grandmabelieved the most important part of a vacation was where you slept, so she’d booked a gorgeous mountainside hotel in St. Moritz.
“I don’t know why you’re not just staying with us, Drew,” Grandpa said as they walked from the lobby into the restaurant. It had floor-to-ceiling windows that gave them the perfect view of the snow-coated mountains of St. Moritz, dazzlingly white against the bright blue winter sky. Grandpa gave the name of their reservation and then the four of them made their way across the restaurant to a beautifully laid-out table in the center of the room. As they ordered their drinks, a pianist on the other side of the room began playing a slow, gorgeous jazz medley.
When Drew’s grandparents had found out that he would be taking photos for Zeus and traveling to the Games on his own terms, they’d immediately offered to include him in their booking. But Drew didn’t want to stay in a fancy hotel room paid for by his grandparents or be spotted with his Olympian sister in the middle of the Village. He didn’t want the other journalists and photographers to think his family connections were the only reason he’d gotten the job. Even if they kind of were.
“That’s the issue with you kids,” began his grandpa as he leafed through the menu. Drew glanced over at Thandie, who was covertly holding three fingers up as she counted down to their grandpa’s infamous origin speech.
“When I moved to Wisconsin in the seventies, all I had was a bag and a few hard-won school qualifications. But I worked hard, built the firm from the ground up, and fought every day to keep us afloat.” His grandpa wasn’t a man of many words in his everyday life, but since Drew left college, every family dinner had become a lecture. “I put my blood, sweat, and tears into making sure that you could have a good life without having to struggle as much as we did. But here you are, Andrew, throwing away your—”
Grandma gave Grandpa a look that made him pause midsentence.
“Why won’t you just accept our help, Drew?” Grandpa said, softening his tone. Drew knew he was talking about work and college, but it was easier to just focus on the hotel room.
“Because I don’t want to stay in a grand hotel like some trust-fund baby,” Drew said, ignoring how incompatible the prices on the menu were with his desire to feel like a self-made man.
“But you do have a trust fund, Drew”—his grandma smiled—“and you’remybaby. There’s nothing to be ashamed about.”
Thandie, who was sitting next to him, stifled a laugh. Drew shot her a sharp look. She made a show of pretending to zip her lips before picking up her phone and pretending to look busy.
“Andrew, it’s not even about the hotel. It’s about your future. What comes next?” Grandpa asked.
“Don’t worry, I have a plan,” said Drew. He did not have a plan.
“You’re a terrible liar, son,” Grandpa said, shaking his head and leaning back in his chair, clearly over the conversation.
“But you would have made a brilliant doctor, Caleb.…” Grandma said, her gaze far away as her sentence trailed off.
Drew stilled, his heartbeat quickening.
Grandpa squeezed his wife’s hand and whispered something only the two of them could hear. She looked confused and then embarrassed, unable to make eye contact with anyone in the room. Drew didn’t know anyone called Caleb. Or a man who would have made a brilliant doctor. But his grandma had said it with complete confidence. He wanted to correct her but knew it was easier not to. Her lapses in memory and confusion were becoming more and more frequent, and Drew was powerless to the illness he could see unfolding. He glanced over at his sister to see her reaction, but she was tapping away at her phone, no doubttexting her team group chat about their plans for the opening ceremony. Drew sighed in relief, grateful that she hadn’t noticed anything. He knew it was better to keep Thandie in the dark. But he couldn’t help but wish he could talk to his sister about it.
Drew glanced over at his grandma, noticing the bags under her eyes that she’d tried to cover up with makeup, the layers of clothing that didn’t quite hide how much weight she’d lost, and the gentle looks his grandpa kept giving her. Silent reassurances that everything would be okay. But Drew knew it wasn’t true.
“You wanted this your entire life,” Grandma said, back on the topic of his dropping out of college. “I just… I just don’t believe you woke up one morning and randomly changed your mind.”
She was right. But he couldn’t admit it was because he knew she was sick. Thandie still didn’t know, and with the biggest competition of her life just around the corner, telling her the full story just wasn’t worth the risk. So, he changed the conversation to stop any further interrogation.
“What we shouldreallybe focusing on is that Thandie’s probably going home with her first Olympic medal this year,” he said, beaming at his sister as she put her phone down. He knew that their grandparents would leave him alone once the topic turned to ice hockey.
