Page 7 of Moms of Mayhem
I gave him a thumbs up but kept my head down. The buzzer sounded again, and no one around me cheered.
0-2.
I peeked at the game between bouts of panic attacks,munching on my pretzel and sipping the Diet Coke when I could, but by the time we were down 0-4, it was hard to watch.
The third period started, and you could feel the energy in the rink deflate. Lots of families left, and I could hardly blame them. Hockey was a fast game, and every second mattered, but this one felt like a runaway train.
I didn’t bother texting Ryan or sending any videos—the last thing Jace needed after this beating was a phone call from his absent father dissecting everything he’d done wrong.
Jace was on the starting shift again, and even behind his mask I could see the anger on his face. He hated losing, but I knew it was Ryan’s absence that was the real problem.
Teen years meant my son acted indifferent about almost everything these days, but their Thanksgiving visit had gone well, and Jace was excited to show Ryan Linwood.
He’d talked about maybe staying at the hotel in Vail with his dad, and where they’d eat this weekend, and the video game he wanted to show him. He’d even worn a University of Michigan shirt to school today—Ryan’s alma mater.
Beckett’s too, but the last thing Jace needed was to know his idol was watching him lose this bad.
Jace got the puck off the tip off and shot toward the net like a bat out of hell. But the Bruins’ defender had his number now, and raced forward at the same time, slamming him into the boards. Jace’s head snapped back from a high stick, then crumpled. He was back up in an instant, but his stick was gone.
I shot to my feet as Jace flew toward the defender with control of the puck, his shoulders dropped. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.”
In an instant, Jace threw himself into the defender’sabdomen, dragging him down to the ice. He sat on his chest and slammed a glove into his face, and I turned my back. “Tell me when it’s over.”
The ref blew the whistle, and—I knew it was coming—ejected my son. “Bruins’ Number 12: five-minute major and a match penalty for intentional high sticking. Mayhem’s Number 61: two minutes for instigating, five for fighting, and a game misconduct. Number 12 and Number 61 are both ejected from the game. Penalties will be served as assessed.”
I dropped my head, then sighed. Ty bumped my shoulder, and I shrugged him off, not ready to hear whatever he had to say. Grabbing my purse, I stormed down the steps toward where my son was coming off the ice.
So much for a great day.
4
The final horn blasted, ending the game with the Mayhem losing by six. The crowd shuffled down the ramps and out into the atrium outside the rink, headed for the exit.
“That was painful.” I leaned down to grab my crutches from under Ty’s and my legs, ready to leave. “A shutout to start the season.”
Ty grunted, but didn’t get up, still staring out at the ice while the teams left. Several other parents lingered around the rink, and I glanced at my friend for any hints as to what was going on.
The garage door at the far end of the rink housing the Zamboni opened, and Tate stood there with several shovels. Ty walked down to where she opened the gate. One by one, the parents who had stayed back grabbed shovels from her, then moved out onto the ice. In practiced motions, they worked their way around the rink, smoothing over the surface.
I crutched my way over to them, putting light pressure on my leg. “What are you doing?” I asked Ty, glancingthrough the garage doors for a Zamboni that should be doing this job for them.
“Zamboni broke last summer,” he answered, taking a shovel from her and following the parents out onto the ice, scooping up the shavings the kids’ skates had left behind. “Hey Tate.”
Tate smiled, then raised her brows when she looked at me. With hockey skates on she was up to my chin and the spitting image of her late father, freckles dotting her pale skin. “I thought that was you before the game. Long time, no see, Conway.”
I nodded, trying to come up with what to say. In that “long time” was her dad’s funeral I hadn’t attended, unable to come face to face with the loss of my mentor and friend. “You’re all grown up now, aren’t you?”
She rolled her eyes, then took a bucket of water held on a sled and pulled it onto the ice. With a quick hop, she skated over the frozen surface, her homemade contraption spreading water in an even layer by the mop extending behind the sled.
There was a pond behind my mom’s house that froze over every winter, so I was no stranger to manually smoothing and caring for an ice rink, but seeing this in a frequently used commercial rink was jarring.
Ty came off the ice and stored his shovel on a rack against the wall as the other parents finished up. But he didn’t walk away like the others did; Ty grabbed a set of skates and the second sled contraption, following Tate out onto the ice. Rowdy climbed up onto the sled, tail wagging like he’d done this a dozen times.
I leaned against the glass, hands resting on the metal boards separating the rink from the stands, the ache in myhip a sharp reminder that I wasn’t cleared to so much as tie my own skates, let alone help.
I hated standing on the sidelines.
Watching instead of doing.
