Page 54 of Pucking Fate

Even after bawling like a baby, the tears falling in relief, there’s still a nervous twist in my guts when I walk up to the front door. Maya opens it before I have a chance to knock.

“Hey,” she says with a sad, half smile as she stands in the doorway in her pajamas, her long hair tussled from sleep. She’s never looked more beautiful.

“Hey.” After I blink to ensure that the waterworks have been forcefully turned off, I say to her, “Thank you for not hating me for telling him.”

“I’m sorry I made you wait so long. I really thought it was best, though, at first…”

“I know you did. And you had good reasons. Honestly, I was a little relieved to just be his friend at first, to take some of the pressure off being the perfect dad when I was so clueless about what that meant. Now…now it’s like everything’s changed, become more intense. There’s no room for error, you know?”

“I know,” she replies. “Come on in. Finley just went out to the backyard.” She holds the door open for me to step through, like I’ve done so many times before this summer. Still, this time is definitely different. “I’ll go shower and give you two a moment alone.”

“Thanks,” I tell her before I walk straight through the kitchen to the back door.

Unlike usual, Finley isn’t running around the yard with a hockey stick in his hand. He’s sitting on the steps, his narrow shoulders hunched.

Going over, I take a seat on the step next to him and he glances over at me. His big brown eyes are full of pain. That would’ve been enough to bring me to my knees if I wasn’t already sitting down.

“How are you doing, buddy?” I ask him softly. “Are you okay? I mean, after what I told you last night? It’s okay if you’re not…”

“I’m sorry I got mad at you,” he says, which is the last thing I expected. “Mommy said you left town before she had me.”

“Right. That-that is true.”

“She said…she said that you would’ve come around sooner if you had known you were my dad. Is that true?” he asks hesitantly.

“I swear on all that is hockey that I would’ve been here as much as possible if I knew sooner. Finding out you were my son was the best day of my life.”

He nods as if he believes me. “And you’ll keep coming to play with me until you have to go back to Greensboro?”

“Yes, absolutely. And I wish you could come with me, but your school and friends are all here. Hopefully, you and your mom can come visit. I’ll call you every night if I don’t have a game. It would be too late to call you on those nights, but we can talk before, in the afternoons then. Would that be okay?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Even if I don’t get to see you every day, I’ll be thinking about you,” I promise him. “I love you, buddy. I’ve loved you since the second I found out you were my son.”

He stares at me, letting that information sink in. Then asks, “Do I have to keep calling you Christian or can I call you dad?”

“Sure, yes. You can call me whatever you want. Whatever you think feels right, okay?”

“Okay,” he replies with a nod.

“Any other questions?”

He shakes his head, so I say, “Race you to the goal?”

A smile spreads across his face before he shoots up from the step and takes off with a five second head start.

And then we spend the day playing like every other day, as if nothing has changed, which is a huge relief.

Finley doesn’t call me daddy or dad, which is a little disappointing, but I don’t want to rush him. One day, though, I hope to earn the privilege of being his dad in every possible way.

Maya

“Hey, how are you and my favorite nephew doing?” Preston asks when he picks up my call.

“Ah, well, things have been better,” I confess, which is the reason I’m calling him.

“What’s wrong? Do I need to come up there?”

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