“Is your cell phone working?” she asks, and here is layer two of the guilt trip. “Because I left you a couple of messages.”
“You know I don’t listen to messages,” I reply because I’ve told her a million times I never check them and that it’s a waste of time for her to leave one. I’ll see her number on the missed call list and call her back, no need for voicemail. Only this week, I haven’t called her back. “And again, I’m crazy busy. I was going to call you back tonight.”
“Well, now you don’t have to,” she says, her tone light even though I know she’s ticked she had to hunt me down. “I can tell you in person.”
“Tell me what?”
“Daddy is being honored at the Winterhawks game Friday!”
When I don’t say anything, she glances over at me and smiles expectantly. I stare back passively so she elaborates, her hands flailing wildly for emphasis. “They’re retiring his number! You know what a big deal that is? The Winterhawks are yet to retire a jersey. This will be the first one. He’s been doing interviews all week. I’m surprised you haven’t heard one. He’s very proud.”
“I don’t listen to sports shows, Mom,” is all I say in a calm, flat voice even though I know what she’s going to do next, and I’m already angry about it.
“So we need to be there on Friday night, obviously,” she says, and my blood pressure spikes. “There’s going to be a video tribute and they’ll raise his banner and he’ll drop the puck for the game.”
“I’m not going, Mother.”
I don’t know why she bothers making a completely hurt and stunned face. She knew I was going to say that. Still, my mother is the queen of hurt and stunned faces. The world, it seems, has been wounding her and taking her by surprise her whole life. She’s the person who would tie herself to some train tracks and then be startled by the locomotive’s headlight when it barrels toward her. Her complete refusal to live in reality is the thing that makes me most crazy.
“Shayne, this is getting ridiculous and, quite frankly, embarrassing.”
“Nobody cares if I attend Dad’s stupid ceremony.”
“Everyone knows he has two children,” my mother replies in a clipped tone. “We were a very high-profile family in this city when your dad played, and you and your brother were media darlings.”
She says that a lot. All I remember is being dragged to arenas to sit in the family box with a bunch of other glammed-up housewives and their bratty children. And my mother always made us go down to the locker room when the media was finishing their postgame interviews and basically shoved us at my dad. He’d bend down and swing us around or hug us and at first I used to love it, because I was young and starved for his affection, and this was the only time he gave it. Then I got older and realized that the only reason he gave it to us after games was to entertain the media and impress his fans. Then that’s when I started hating it. I was eight.
“I hate hockey. I’m not going.”
Here’s the part where she tells me how I owe my life to hockey.
“You always forget, but your father’s career gave you a very comfortable life,” she lectures sternly; her thin lips, painted a pink that’s way too light for her skin tone, are turned down in a hard frown.
“More comfortable than a history teacher’s salary, right? I mean, that’s why you never went back and finished your own degree,” I mutter.
“Being a hockey player’s wife is a career, Shayne,” she retorts. “I’ve told you that.”
“Because Dad toldyouthat when you wanted to go back to college,” I remind her, even though I know she hasn’t forgotten.
She doesn’t respond to that. Her lips are pressed tightly together and her grip on the steering wheel is making her knuckles turn white, so I take a deep breath and return to the original conversation, which is only slightly less unpleasant.
“I haven’t attended one of his events in years. No one will make a big deal out of it if I miss this one too.” She turns into the parking lot of Elevate. “And I’m not just being difficult. I teach flow yoga at seven on Fridays. Sorry. But thanks for the lift.”
I expect her to pull over at the curb by the door, but she turns left and starts scanning the row for a free spot. “I’m coming in to check on your brother and make sure he’s still going to be there for your father. Make sure we can count on one child.”
I wait impatiently as she slowly noses into a vacant stall. I just want to get out of the car and away from the guilt trip. She turns off the car and opens her door. I do the same and as soon as my feet hit the pavement, I turn to her with a smile and a wave. “I have to run ahead. I’m late for a class I’m teaching. But thanks for the lift. Have fun Friday.”
She mutters a good-bye, and I know she’s still upset with me. I just don’t care. I made it clear to my father five years ago that I would not be a part of his career again—and I would never take another dime from him. And I hadn’t. That money was blood money and it was the blood of this family that it shed. I was not going to be a part of it.
I rush straight to the nutrition class, shoving my coat and bag in the corner of the room and lecturing in my street clothes, which I know Trey would hate. He wants us in his Elevate Fitness gear at all times. But hey, at least I got here in time. When the class is over, I head toward the changing room to get into the right clothes and start my shift at the juice bar. Trey calls my name across the foyer and stops me dead in my tracks. I turn and find him standing by his office door, a scowl on his face. He waves me over.
I walk over and squeeze past him into his office. He lets the door close behind me and says firmly, “You’re going.”
“Where?”
“To the Winterhawks game on Friday. To Dad’s ceremony.”
“Trey.”
