“Don’t do it,” said Sienna, but she couldn’t hold back her excitement.
“It’s basically the national anthem. You have to play it,” said Yasmeen as Izzy picked up her phone, connected it to the speaker, and grinned.
“Izzy,” warned Sienna, but even she was smiling.
“Izzy…”said Yasmeen, spurring her on.
“Izzy!” laughed Ari as she let herself experience the joy around her.
She heard the opening beats to a song they hadn’t played in the locker room since their last major win at the Ice Hockey World Championship. The trumpets began to play, the drumbeat kicked in, and, to everyone’s surprise, Sienna jumped onto the bench. She used her hairbrush as a microphone and sang along to the Neil Diamond song.
Ari, holding her hockey stick like a mic stand as the whole team began to sing the chorus of “Sweet Caroline.” The entire locker room was up on their feet chanting and the joy in their voices was infectious.
Though they’d landed in Switzerland with hope, and Ari had spent all their pregame moments trying to drill in some level of optimism, nobody, least of all themselves, believed they would get this far. When they returned to the rink, Coach McLaughlin shed a tear, the supporters’ section erupted into cheers, and all of their friends and family back home started calling to congratulate them and book tickets to fly to the quarterfinals and celebrate their historic win. Because, even though Gracie wasn’t here and Team Finland was better than them in almost every single way…they’d won and were advancing to the quarterfinals. It was no wonder they felt on top of the world.
Ari and the rest of the girls wanted to transform their GB House corridor into a party. But Coach McLaughlin quickly put a stop to that idea by reminding them they had practice first thing the next morning. So instead, the team transformed the locker room into a club and spent an hour singing, dancing, and celebrating. They were about to head to the canteen for a celebratory dinner when Ari’s phone rang. She told her teammates that she would meet them there.
The call was from her mom and sister. Her family had tried to book tickets to be with her from the very start of the Olympics, but she’d insisted that having them there would distract her, so she’d convinced them not to come over unless she qualified for the quarterfinals. And now she had. Arithoughtthey were calling to celebrate her win and confirm their travel plans. But when she picked up her phone, excited to bask in their excitement for her, she realized she’d been mistaken.
“Ari, you need to speak to your sister,” her mom said from her end of the phone call.
Her mom wasn’t calling to celebrate her win, she was calling to get her to mediate the family drama unfolding eight hundred miles away.
Again.
“She thinks she can just fly away to go and spend a week with a man she barely knows,” her mom said, exasperated.
“Well maybe if you’d let me have a real relationship with him growing up, wanting to spendtwo weekswith him wouldn’t be such a big deal now,” said Anesu.
Once again, Ari was being brought in to act as the secondparent her dad had failed to be. She wanted to go and celebrate with her friends, but family came first. So, she sighed and jumped in.
“Anesu, I get what you mean, but don’t you think—”
Her mother immediately, unsurprisingly, took it the wrong way.
“You get what she means? Arikoishe, who took you to school and after-school clubs? Me. Who helped you with homework and went to your parents’ evenings? Me. Only me. Your dad could have gotten on a flight to actually be a father if he wanted to. But he didn’t.” Her mom’s voice was shaking.
“Maybe he would have if you weren’t so…” Anesu paused midsentence. Ari held her breath.
“If I wasn’t so… what?” Their mom’s voice was steely and quiet.
Ari needed to intervene before things got worse, that’s why she’d been called, after all. The two of them couldn’t have a conversation that didn’t descend into chaos.
“Anesu, I think Mom’s hurt because she feels like you didn’t consider her feelings before agreeing to go to the wedding,” Ari began, glancing out the window and watching as her teammates laughed and messed around in the snow.
“Why is it my job to tiptoe around Mom’s feelings?” said Anesu. “She’s the mother, and I’m the child.”
“Exactly!” shouted their mom. “That’s what you need to remember. I am your mother, you are my child. And because you are my child, I will not let you fly to Zimbabwe to celebrate the man who left us.”
“He leftyou,” muttered Anesu.
Ari froze. It felt like all the oxygen was being sucked out of the call. She turned away from the window and back in the direction of the locker room. She walked over to a bench and sat down asshe listened to the silence on the other end of the line. Ari didn’t need to be in the room to imagine her sister’s regret and picture her mother’s hurt. She wanted to say something to defuse the tension. Smooth things over and deescalate the situation before things got worse. But her mother was the next one to speak, and the hurt that had been in her voice for the first half of the conversation shifted into something calmer and more honest.
“Anesu, your father left you, too,” their mom said, her tone almost pitying. Their mom got sad and angry, but she almost never got mean. “In his sudden desire to spend time with you, did he ever mention the fact that I got full custody because he didn’t once, for a second, want a joint arrangement?”
“He…” said Anesu, her voice deflating. Gone was the stubbornness and determination. Now she just sounded like a young girl being forced to hear the truth.
“No, of course he didn’t mention that,” their mother said plainly. “Why would he? He’s this superhero dad in your head because he’s not around enough for you to see him for who he is. But I am your mother. I will protect you even when you don’t realize that’s what I’m trying to do. I’ll be the strict one, the parent with rules, the punching bag you get angry at. And one day, you’ll thank me for it. But until then, you’re not going anywhere,” she said, a sense of finality in her tone as she hung up and left the group call.
