The sound hit me square in the chest.
I didn’t want to live split in two anymore. Public and private. Player and secret.
Mike had said anything was possible.
For the first time, sitting there with my team, feeling steady instead of restless, I wondered if that might actually be true.
Could I be myself?
The door at the far end of the room opened, and the noise dipped. Coach Morin stepped inside and looked right at me.
“Jari?” he said. My stomach tightened. ”I need you in my office. Now.”
My stomach dropped before my brain caught up. I didn’t ask why. I just went. So much for hope. So much for a brighter future.
This was it. I was being traded. I’d improved, I knew that, but maybe not enough. Maybe the team was tired of the boos that still followed my name some nights. Worst-case scenario, if I were being traded again, I would be done. I couldn’t do this anymore. Not when I’d just started to belong. Not when I’d made friends. Not when I had Cam.
The walk down the corridor felt wrong, the quiet stretching out with every step. Coach opened the door and gestured me inside. “I’ll… give you some privacy,” he said, already stopping outside the door. “Take all the time you need.”
The door shut behind him with a quietclick, and I stopped dead.
She was here.My vision narrowed, breath stalling hard in my chest as if my body had recognized her before my mind could catch up. My knees went weak, a sharp, dizzy rush flooding me, and for a split second I thought I might hit the floor right there.
Small in a wheelchair. Wrapped in a soft grey coat. On the other side of an ocean from everything she knew.
“Mom?” The word felt wrong in my mouth here, in a rink office after so long not saying it out loud.
She smiled up at me, tired but happy, so pretty it caught at my breath. Real. Not brittle, not bracing herself. Just… here. I went to my knees in front of her, my forehead pressed to her stomach, arms locked around her as if letting her go meant she’d vanish. I felt her hand immediately—warm, familiar—sliding into my hair, stroking slow, steady, grounding me the way she always had when I was a kid.
“It’s okay, Jari,” she murmured. “I’ve got you.”
I shook. Hard. In front of Coach’s desk, the team logo staring up from the carpet, the faint smell of ice and sweat still clinging to the room. I didn’t care who saw.
I pulled back just enough to look at her face, to make sure she was real.
“There’s someone I want you to meet,” she said with another smile, this one more gentle.
Only then did I notice the man standing beside her, one hand resting lightly on the arm of her chair. He was older, silver at the temples, dressed too well for Harrisburg. Calm. Watching me with something like respect. Mikko Salonen. National sports hero. The name that had been on my posters growing up before my father ripped them down, the player I’d tried to skate like in the driveway, but just in my head.
“This ismyMikko,” she said.
“Mikko Salonen,” he said, and held out a hand which I shook. I was starstruck; this man was a Finnish legend.
“You own the Oulu Northstars,” I blurted. “And you used to play center for Vancouver,” I added, as though he might not know that about himself.
He inclined his head. “A long time ago,” he added.
“Mikko flew me here,” my mother went on, squeezing his hand. “Private jet. Very dramatic. I told him it was unnecessary, but he insisted he wanted to come with me when we tell you face-to-face.”
I stared at her, my brain still catching up. “Tell me what? Why are you here, Mom? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, I promise,” she said quickly. “I went to your hotel first, but they told me you’d checked out, so I came here instead. I’m sorry to spring this on you at work, but your coach is a wonderful man. So kind.”
“Mom, you're scaring me.”
She leaned forward slightly, her hand still in my hair, thumb brushing my temple. “I'm free of your father, Jari, the divorce papers will be delivered tomorrow, and I didn’t want you hearing it over the phone,” she added.
Something inside my chest cracked open—fear, relief, grief, all tangled together. Was this why Dad had been hassling me, demanding money? Had he realized he was losing his grip on one of his possessions and decided to tighten it on me instead?
