Old leather and Irish breakfast tea and the faint ghost of ice rink that clings to everything Rick Holloway owns regardless of how many times it has been through the wash.
The walls are panelled in dark walnut, scarred with decades of thumbtack holes from rosters and training schedules that once covered every square inch. A shelf behind his desk sags under the weight of coaching manuals, VHS tapes nobody has the technology to play anymore, and a framed photograph of a nineteen-year-old version of my father standing on a frozen pond in Sudbury with a stick in his hand and a grin that could melt the ice beneath his skates.
Trophies crowd every flat surface. Not the gleaming, polished kind that live in my mother's wing of the house, arranged by size and illuminated by recessed lighting like artifacts in a museum exhibit.
These are dented, tarnished, and shoved into corners with the casual indifference of a man who values the memories attached to them far more than their aesthetic contribution to the room.
A Sudbury Regional Coach of the Year plaque leans against a stack of Sports Illustrated magazines from 2003. A silver puck mounted on a marble base serves as a paperweight for what appears to be a takeout menu from the Thai place on Fourth Street. And the crown jewel of the collection, an Olympic coaching staff commemorative medal, dangles from a hook on the back of the door that also holds his ratty terrycloth bathrobe and a leash for the dog we have not owned in seven years.
This is a man who has won everything and organized nothing.
And I adore every chaotic inch of it.
The couch is the centerpiece. A monstrous, overstuffed leather beast the color of aged cognac, cracked in all the right places and sunken in the middle from three decades of postgame collapses and halftime strategy sessions. The cushions have molded themselves into the specific shape of my father's body over the years, creating an indentation that swallows you the moment you sit down and refuses to let you leave without a fight.
I sink into it now, letting the familiar embrace of worn leather and old springs pull me into that specific brand of comfort that only exists in spaces built by people who care more about function than appearance.
The opposite of my mother's office.
Her workspace occupies the east wing of the estate like a corporate outpost that accidentally materialized inside a residential building. All marble surfaces and chrome accents and orchids that a service replaces every Tuesday because they must always be at peak bloom, never wilting, never showing signs of natural decay. The scent in there is clinical. Vetiver and whitemusk from a diffuser that costs more than my hockey gear. The furniture is designed to intimidate visitors into compliance, every chair positioned at a specific angle calculated to make the person sitting in it feel smaller than the woman behind the desk.
My father's office is designed to make you feel like you belong.
Funny how two people who share a marriage can occupy spaces that share nothing.
Dad is behind his desk, leaning back in a rolling chair that squeaks every time he shifts his weight. His reading glasses are perched on the end of his nose, giving him that absentminded professor look that drives my mother insane because she believes glasses should either be worn properly or not worn at all, and there is no dignified middle ground.
His scent fills the room the way it has filled every room I have ever felt safe in. Warm cedar, worn leather, and the barest trace of peppermint from the tea he drinks by the gallon. It is the scent of bedtime stories read in silly voices and early morning drives to the rink and arms that held me steady the first time I wobbled on skates and told me I was born for the ice before I was old enough to understand what that meant.
He is watching me with that expression. The one that sits halfway between amusement and anticipation, like he is holding back a laugh or a secret and cannot decide which one to release first. His gray-streaked hair is mussed from running his hands through it, a habit he shares with me, and his flannel shirt is untucked on one side in a way that would send my mother into cardiac arrest if she saw it.
"A letter came for you," he says.
I frown.
"A letter?"
"Registered mail." He picks up an envelope from his desk and holds it up between two fingers, wiggling it like bait. "Arrived this morning."
My frown deepens, one eyebrow arching as I lean forward on the couch.
"Since when do you handle my mail?"
He has the decency to look mildly guilty.
"Since when does registered mail arrive with your name on it and a university crest on the envelope?" He taps the corner of the envelope against his palm. "Your mother usually intercepts the post before I get a chance to see it. She has that arrangement with the mail service where everything gets sorted through her office first."
"Control freak tendencies applied to postal logistics." I roll my eyes. "Shocking."
"Well, this one came through the courier entrance while she was at her board meeting, so Jeffrey flagged it for me instead." He extends the envelope toward me, stretching across the desk. "And it is a damn good thing he did."
I take it, turning the envelope over in my hands with the cautious scrutiny of someone who has learned that surprises in this family are rarely pleasant. The paper is thick. Heavy stock, cream-colored, with a watermark visible when I hold it up to the desk lamp. Professional. Institutional. The kind of stationery that announcesthis communication is important and the sender has a budget.
The return address is embossed in navy ink, raised lettering that I can feel under my fingertips.
Valenridge University.
The name means nothing to me. I have never heard of it, which is unusual because I have made it my business to know every university, college, and training academy in North America that operates a competitive hockey program.I have spreadsheets. Color-coded tabs. A ranking system that accounts for coaching staff quality, rink facilities, scholarship availability, and historical willingness to consider non-traditional applicants.
