“Welcome to the Otters, Ms. Baker.”
He doesn’t look back.
CHAPTER TWO
ARTHUR
Of all thetechnological advancements mankind has achieved, nothing’s really fucked us over quite like the cell phone.
I’m not a luddite, I do own a cell phone. I like knowing what sort of weather to expect in the coming days—mostly so I can look forward to my leg hurting more than usual when it’s cold and damp.
I like being able to conjure up player stats and final game scores whenever I want to, wherever I want to.
I like knowing where I’m going and how to get there without ever needing to ask for directions. Haven’t been lost since the early 2000s.
I don’t even give a shit about the supposed dangers of social media because I don’t use any of those apps to begin with. Much to my sister Britt’s disappointment. She’s just mad because she can’t tag me in her “throwback Thursday” posts and that I can’t “like” her daily pictures of a steaming cup of green tea and whatever the hell granola-based breakfast she’s eating on any given day. Her workaround for the latter isshe just texts me pictures of her food which I then refuse to acknowledge out of principle.
No, my real issue with the aluminum rectangle that we, as a society, have allowed to rule our lives is this: My father knows he can call me anytime he wants. And we both know, without a doubt, that I will always pick up.
As if on cue, my phone buzzes on my desk. I take a grounding breath and then exhale through my nose before picking it up and swiping to answer.
“You been playing lullabies in the locker room between periods, Arty?”
I hate that nickname. Acquaintances call me Arthur. Friends, the few I have, usually refer to me as Ace, and everyone else just calls me Coach. My father is the only one who calls me Arty, despite knowing how much I hate it. But when have my or anyone else’s feelings ever meant a damn thing to Edward Stetson the Third?
Not answering will just piss him off, and as much as the thought of raising his blood pressure enough to send him to an early grave appeals to me, it will ultimately make this conversation last longer. Which is why I decide to give him what he wants.
“Morning, Dad. No lullabies that I’m aware of. Why do you ask?” I rest my head on the back on my leather chair and wait for the punchline I saw coming a mile away.
“Huh.” His sneer practically comes through the phone and wraps around my throat. “I wonder why your second line always looks like they’re asleep?” His laugh comes out like a wheeze, and I hold the phone away to distance myself from it.
One might call his behaviour childish, but there is nothing child-like about my father. He’s always been a mean bastard. Now he’s just an old one.
“Listen, son.”
I think I hate being called that more than Arty. I don’t like being reminded that this is what I came from.
“It’s like I always tell you, you’re too soft. You were too soft on the ice and now you’re too soft behind the bench. I blame your mother.”
Tell me something I don’t know, Dad. At age thirty-eight, my dad was still playing hockey in Boston when I was born. It wasn’t like it is now. Players didn’t miss games for frivolous things like helping their wives bring children into the world. My mother gave birth to me alone in a hospital in Calgary, Alberta. After thirty-six hours of labour she pushed out all ten pounds, four ounces of me and named me Arthur after her late father.
That was my first sin. My father had assumed she knew she was supposed to name me Edward Stetson the Fourth. Since he didn’t actually come home to Calgary to meet his first born until after his team was eliminated from the playoffs, I had been legally Arthur Stetson for two whole months before he had any idea.
A disappointment from the very beginning.
My father managed to play pro hockey for another four years, though given how much he drank and smoked, I have no idea how. After he retired he came home ready for the next chapter in his life. Unfortunately for me, that included trying his damndest to mold me into another version of himself.
And God, did he try—when he hit that perfect combination of sober enough and not too hungover, anyway. In addition to my regular Pee Wee hockey practices and games, he had me out on the backyard rink every night running drills until my legs gave out. Sometimes he pulled me out of school for days at a time to work on one technique or another.
Did it work? Yeah, it did. Maybe too well. By the time my turn in the draft came around, I was twice the player my fatherever was. Faster, stronger, better in every way. I was also a good four inches taller than him, and I know that pissed him off.
In just ten years, I shattered every one of my father’s personal records—except one. We both have two Stanley Cup rings. He took twenty years to get his. I was on the brink of my third when a teammate’s skate sliced through my Achilles and ended everything.
“Are you listening to me, Arty?” my father snaps, pulling me from my pleasant walk down memory lane.
“Of course,” I lie. “Look, I’m late for a meeting so I have to run.” Another lie. I’m on a roll. “It was nice talking to you, Dad.” Now I’m three for three.
My father snorts. “Run? I see you trying to hide that limp every time they show you on TV. You’ve got a better chance of winning the Cup than you’ve got at going for a jog.”
