Page 74 of Snowballed

Then my dad walks in.

“Noah’s home, Gary,” my mother says. Of course, he can see that, but they have some unspoken thing going on.

“Noah.” My dad holds out his hand to shake like I’m some business acquaintance. I can feel my back stiffening.

“Dad.” I shake his hand with only a hint of my disdain for this stupid formality.

My mother clears her throat.

“Noah, I was wondering if you’d like to go out for dinner tonight?” he asks.

“Uh, sure,” I say. What the fuck is going on now?

“I thought we’d go to Mildred’s Café.”

“Sure,” I repeat stupidly. Mildred’s is a little restaurant about an hour south of here. We used to go there when we lived in Dana Point.

“Okay, we’ll leave in half an hour.” My dad disappears into his home office.

My mother squeezes my hand. “You two need to have a good talk. Please keep an open mind.”

I nod, but I’m feeling unsettled. I wish we could speak openly and not have to make everything into a big deal. I go up to my enormous bedroom and take a shower in the equally enormous bathroom. Afterwards, I feel energized and open my closet to choose some lighter clothes.

We take my dad’s Lamborghini, and I’m surprised to see that my Corvette is still in the garage. Adam and I used to share it, but now he’s living in Vancouver.

“I thought you would have gotten rid of the ’Vette by now.”

My dad makes that old man harrumph noise. “Not letting you or Adam drive the Lambo when you’re home. Ever.”

The traffic is bad until we get out to the I-5. I can feel my dad’s mood lifting as he steers with one hand on the wheel and his classic rock filling the car. This whole expedition must be my mother’s idea of a way for us to kiss and make up.

But she hasn’t calculated on how entrenched we are in our ways. For years, all we’ve discussed is hockey, and I have no accomplishments to offer up. Sure, I’m an alternate captain, but for the past two seasons, I’ve been captain.

My whole life, I’ve offered up my hockey accomplishments as a way to please my father and make him proud of me. But ever since Adam got drafted, it’s clear to me that I can never give him that ultimate accomplishment: my NHL career.

And it hurts so much to realize that I’m a failure in my father’s eyes. Only 22 and I’ll never do the one thing he raised me for.

Maybe this whole season in Vermont began as an act of rebellion, but I’ve grown. I can see a life beyond my dad’s vision for me. I’ll never have the hockey career he did, but I can accomplish other things.

Still that doesn’t alter the fact that I love him, and I want things to go back to normal between us again. And it’s not about money, it’s about feeling comfortable with each other. Right now that gap feels insurmountable.

“You’re having a pretty good season,” he says. That’s a conversational peace offering.

“Yeah. The team’s doing well. We’re second in our division.”

“I meant your stats. They’re not as good as your senior year, but still good. Especially under a new coach. There might be some possibilities for you at the ECHL level.”

Really? My dad saying this is ironic. For him, it’s always been all about the NHL. But now he’s ready to move onto Plan B for the Plan B son. Then he switches the subject to Europe and all his friends who had played there. What he doesn’t mention is that all of them had NHL careers first. Europe was their encore career.

Again, I feel like a failure. I’m ready to snap back at him, to tell him how well I’m doing under a coach who doesn’t micromanage and criticize me after every game. Just listening to him is making me angry and frustrated.

A breeze blows through the car. I hear Zoe’s sweet voice,I would give anything to talk to him again. To hear my father’s laugh. Or even hear him complain.

Life is short. Will I have to wait until something happens to my father before we can bridge our differences?

“Dad,” I interrupt his travelogue on Switzerland.

“Yeah?”

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