Page 14 of Hot Puck
Chase
For a minute I freeze in place.
My mind can’t comprehend Natalie’s question. Her words stick on a loop in my head.
“What does Chase Hawkins, hockey goalie, want to answer?”
Over and over and over.
“What does Chase Hawkins, hockey goalie, want to answer?”
Round and round until things start to come unstuck and I know the answer.
Or at least I did.
In a different life.
Not this one.
In another life I worked and worked and worked for the chance to be offered a position in the NHL. But starting goalie?
Fuck yeah!
Every one of my dreams had me starting in goal for an NHL winning team.
Except all of those dreams and wishes and hard work were a lifetime ago and, inthislife, the one I find myself living now, I’m a twenty-year-oldparentof three.
And that’s when things really come unstuck.
And I come unglued.
In more ways than one.
My body jolts and out of my mouth bursts laughter so unhinged even I can hear the insanity in it. But I can’t control it—can’t stop it.
The sound grows louder and louder and more demented and is so far beyond my ability to rein in it makes me laugh harder.
Motherfucker.
I’ve lost my damn mind.
Or she has.
She can’t be serious. The Rogues can’t possibly want me to play for them. I’m a kid raising kids.
That thought makes me laugh so hard I have to wrap my arms around my waist to hold my sides because my whole body feels like it’s going to explode.
My chest aches. My gut aches. And my heart aches for all that I can no longer do.
I’m not sure when the switch happens. When I go from deranged amusement to heart breaking distress, but one minute I’m laughing my ass off, the next I’m sobbing like a toddler in the arms of the woman who just offered me the world.
I cry harder when the reality of what I have to say sinks in.
I cry harder for everything I’ve lost.
I cry harder for what my sisters have lost.
But I cry the hardest when the realization of never being able to share this momentous moment with my parents—never seeing either of them again—kicks my heart so hard my ribs ache.
