"Yeah," I say. My voice sounds wrong. "The ice."
"The ice."
Neither of us believes the ice.
Dante is last. Number eighty-eight.
His name rolls through the speakers, and he skates out alone, blades cutting clean lines across the ice. The crowd cheers. He moves the way he always moves, smooth and balanced, each edge clean enough to make the ice look negotiated.
The family space on the carpet looks full with only two people waiting. A woman stands at center ice in a navy coat with her hair swept back and her hands clasped at her waist. The arena dwarfs her. Five-four, maybe five-five. She stands with her shoulders back, and somehow every eye near the carpet findsher. She's smiling, and the smile is enormous, the warmest thing in a building cooled to eighteen degrees.
Serena Voss.
Beside her stands Marco in a charcoal overcoat and open collar, his watch catching the arena lights. He stands the way Dante stands, shoulders square, weight centered, but where Dante's stillness reads as control, Marco's reads as ease. Just Marco and his mother on the silver carpet. Marco Voss, dateless, in a coat that costs more than the lighting rig.
Dante sees them. His stride loosens. His shoulders drop. He exhales whatever he's been holding for hours. When he reaches them, Serena steps forward first and pulls him down into a hug with her arms around his neck, her face against his chest, her hand gripping the back of his jersey.
She's crying. She doesn't wipe it away or turn from the cameras.
"Mio figlio."
My son.
It's loud enough that the microphone catches it, and the cheers dip for half a breath around the sound.
Dante's arms close around her, tight. His chin rests on the top of her head. His eyes shut.
She pulls back and holds his face in both hands. Her mouth moves with words too low to carry while his gaze stays on hers. With the back of her hand, she wipes her eyes and laughs at herself, and people close enough to hear it smile back before they can help it.
"Salvatore wanted to be here," she says, louder now, her hand smoothing his jersey. "Gia sends her love. Rafael too. They're watching."
She presses the bouquet into his hands and steps aside.
Marco steps forward, grips Dante's shoulder, and pulls him in. He presses his forehead against Dante's for two seconds. Brief.Physical. Their mouths move. Italian. Words between brothers that stay between brothers. Then Marco claps his shoulder once and steps back.
Serena turns. She looks past the carpet, past the flowers and silver ribbon, directly at my father and Suzanne, who are still waiting near center with the rest of the families. She crosses to them with her arms already open.
"Suzanne."
Serena pulls her into a hug before Suzanne can get a word out. The way she always does. Six years of hockey games and holiday dinners and phone calls between New York and New England, and Serena still hugs Suzanne like she hasn't seen her in a decade.
"Look at him," Suzanne says into Serena's shoulder. "Look at our boys."
Serena pulls back and holds Suzanne's face in both hands, her eyes filling again. "Last one," she says. "The last home game."
Two mothers stand at center ice with the arena noise washing over them.
My father stands beside them with his hands loose at his sides, letting the moment move around him. He catches Serena's eye and nods once. She reaches over and squeezes his arm without releasing Suzanne.
Maya watches from beside my father. Her mouth is soft, her eyes too bright, and her hands stay empty at her sides while she looks at Serena and Suzanne.
Dante stands on the carpet with the bouquet in his hands. Marco is beside him, and both of them watch their mother hold Suzanne like all these years still haven't made her less grateful.
Marco catches my eye across the ice. He holds the look for one beat. Then he smiles, and the press-room edge falls out of it.
Maya walks toward Dante and stops in front of him with her arms at her sides. Six thousand people watch from the stands while the arena lights burn down on the silver carpet.
A week ago, she would have kept three feet of space between them. Now she stands at two. Maybe less. Her chin lifts. She holds his gaze. Dante leans barely an inch forward, the same lean I clocked at the dining hall table when she started talking about neutral zone reads.
