EPILOGUE
TEN YEARS LATER
REN
It’s official.I may be getting too old for this shit.
And by ‘this shit’, I mean constantly having to travel to various locations to discuss things that should have been a memo.
Don't get me wrong, I fully understand why these particular meetings are not memos. The need to avoid a paper trail, preventing any type of situation where someone might be listening on video calls, it’s all necessary.
So every time I get invited to one of these I piss and moan about it the entire time, but then, once I've left the meeting, I'm reminded of why it was necessary.
When I first started my exhibition hockey club, I never imagined how quickly it would snowball. Soon after our first game, and the announcement on the amount of money that was collected for charity, the letters started pouring in.
Thousands of letters explaining desperate situations people live in.
And the letters weren't just from the people living it. They came from friends and loved ones, teachers and coworkers. Countless stories of people desperate for even the smallest amount of assistance in a world that felt created to see them suffer.
And then, amongst these thousands of letters, there were hundreds that told a much darker story. Countless men, women, and children living in a constant state of fear, living each day worried they wouldn’t make it to the next one.
It was after addressing one particular letter that I realized I was in over my head. Fortunately, I had the foresight to speak to Declan about it beforehand, and it was also just dumb luck that I had taken him seriously when he advised that someone should be tracking my location. Of course, I chose him because who else would I want watching my back if things went to shit.
Sure enough, things went to shit pretty quickly, and that was the moment where Declan got to return the favor on that time I saved his life.
After that incident, Cassidy put her foot down and said we couldn't risk doing personal follow-ups, especially when it was obvious the situation was dangerous. While I absolutely agreed I couldn't continue to risk my own life, there was no way I could just bin those letters and pretend they didn't exist.
And that's when Declan called Darius.
I'll admit the information I had on Darius was limited. And every time Declan referred to him and his friends as the ‘fuck around crew’, I thought it had more to do with Declan's previous rock and roll lifestyle than anything else.
I now know how I was wrong.
At first, I balked at the entire thing. The idea that there was some reformed group of vigilantes dead set on saving those who couldn’t save themselves seeming not only impossible, but completely insane.
And that's when Declan took me to New York. It was there that Lilith showed me the grand scope of their operation. I got to meet Jessica's husband, Matt, and a whole slew of other characters I'd only ever known by name.
From there, Matt and Tony took me to Montana. I got to see the sprawling facility that they lovingly refer to as ‘The End’.
To my shock and amazement, the place was bustling with activity. And even though they don't typically allow visitors, Darius gave me a full tour before sitting me down and going over a proposal on how he could help me.
Before I left, I even got to see Amber, so when I returned home to brief Cassidy on all of our options, I also got to give her that update. She was relieved to hear that Amber was doing well, and she was intrigued to hear everything I had seen on my fact-finding journey.
It took her some time to digest all the information. I didn't want to rush her into making any decisions, but then one evening I found her in the bedroom sitting on the floor surrounded by piles of letters, the pain on her face was visceral. I knew as soon as her eyes met mine, I knew without her saying a word, the project was a go.
And that is whenA Light in the Dark Foundationwas born.
No sooner had I given the green light to Declan and Darius than we were off running. It was a relief for me to be able to focus on the day-to-day operations, working with the players who wanted to take part and the various teams that wanted to be included.
My initial nervousness that the players wouldn't want to be involved in anything that wasn't a payday for them was quickly extinguished. It turns out that the vast majority of players were only too happy to give back to the game that had provided them with so much.
And the letters kept pouring in.
I foolishly figured at some point we would at least be able to catch up with the demand, and some of those darker stories would abate, but I was wrong. If anything, we just received more and more every day.
Even now, a decade later, there's no sign of it slowing down. Which brings me to now, once again, staring at a text message from Declan requesting my presence in LA.
Cassidy and I had discussed relocating to Los Angeles, and then we discussed perhaps having a secondary residence. The fact of the matter is, Portland is our home and there'd be no point in having a secondary residence because Declan would expect us to stay with him anyway.
