Sitting there, having pancakes with Jules and Canyon, felt right.
I knew now more than ever before that I needed to know what happened all those years ago. Because that’s where I was stuck.
Because this should have been all of ours.
Canyon and I sat in the grass next to the driveway putting our rollerblades on.
We were going to run some drills out in their cul-de-sac, she really did have a great place in the neighborhood for street games. Hopefully with a little work I could have Canyon actually hitting the net after his breakaways.
I was wrong about him being quiet though, he was quite the chatterbox. Seemed that once he accepted me, he did not shut up.
I decided to try to steer his conversation a bit to something that had been bugging me.
“So, who’s Tammy?” I asked him, thinking she was a babysitter or something.
“That’s um…” he grimaced and I felt bad then for changing to a topic he didn’t want to discuss.
“I’m sorry, never-” I started.
“My dad’s, um, friend?” He asked more than said.
I closed my eyes and had to take a deep breath. I should have known. That guy oozed the title piece of shit.
“Mom’s not upset about it,” Canyon said quickly. I looked down at him and he looked a little nervous, like he knew she wouldn’t want him talking about this. He glanced back at the house. “I don’t think they loved each other. They never said it, ya know? They only say I love you to me. I don’t want them to live together ever again,” he said as firmly as he could.
I had to steady my breathing. Their home life must have been worse than what I was thinking - when even an eight-year-old wanted him away from her. I was about a second from losing my mind and wandering back into the house to ask her what the hell she did in choosing him over me. Why would she have taken such a risk with her life when I could have given her so much more? I didn’t want to do it in front of her kid though. I wished like hell I still had hockey as a outlet because I felt the hum of angry energy overtaking my body. I wanted to pummel the guy.
I tried a quick deep breathing exercise that one of my old team’s shrinks told me to practice.
When I finished and looked back up, Canyon was already on his feet rolling away, and he yelled back at me, “C’mon Coach!”
As upset as I was with the situation, I also knew I only had control over the now.
After a couple of hours of playing around outside we were drenched in sweat and ready for a break. It was September, but definitely an Indian summer this year- around noon it had to have been about eighty degrees. Playing street hockey with him made me feel like a kid again; like I was completely carefree and weightless, and my only goal was to have fun.
Jules walked out a little bit ago and put two Gatorades and protein bars near our stuff in her front yard and watched us for a couple of minutes.
She looked so casually beautiful, standing there barefoot on her lawn watching her kid with a genuine smile on her face.
It was funny, her presence still made me want to show off. I took a break from teaching for a minute and fooled around, making some quick dekes around the kid and easily shoved one in the net.
I looked back at the house to see her shaking her head with a smile on her face.
Canyon and I were silent as we plopped down to drink and eat our snacks.
“What happened to your face?” Canyon asked me after taking a large bite of his bar.
I laughed mid-swig and almost choked, “what do you mean, kid? That comes off a bit mean,” I pointed out before taking a swig of Gatorade.
He made a funny face then and pointed on his face to his eyebrow, and lip, and then cheek- the places I had noticeable scars.
“Well, bud,” I laughed again, “I do not scar well. Some people heal up real good, my skin just doesn’t.”
I pointed to my lip, “this was a stick to the face when I was goofing off with coach Smitty when we were kids. I thought your mom was gonna deck him when she saw what he did to me.”
“What?!” Canyon thought that was tremendously funny.
“Yeahhh… she actually bandaged this up. I probably should've gone to the hospital; it might’ve healed better.” I laughed at the memory of her freaking out at me and wanting so badly to take me in. I hated hospitals though.
