Page 44 of Canadian Boyfriend

Exactly. “But the secret is I actuallylikegrilled cheese and Labatt Blue as much as, I don’t know, caviar and chardonnay.” She laughed and I said, “See? I don’t even know what to hold out in contrast.”

The conversation turned to Olivia as I made the sandwiches, but when I plated them, I said, “Don’t get me wrong. I have developed a taste for the finer things in life.” I walked around the island and sat on the stool next to her. “This cheese, for example, is amazing.”

She picked up her sandwich, took a bite, threw her head back and went, “Uhhh,” in a way that, well… I’m not going to lie. It did something to me.

“But it’s just fancy cheese,” I went on. “This sandwich”—I picked up my own—“would taste as good with Wonder Bread and Kraft Singles.”

“Would it, though?”

I chuckled. “My point is that I would genuinely enjoy the low-rent version.” I paused. “And that I appreciate people who understand that about me. I think you’re the only person I’ve met since I joined the NHL who doesn’t think of me as a hockey player first.” I lifted my drink. “So cheers to you, Aurora Lake, from Olivia’s dad.”

“Cheers,” she echoed, but her voice sounded oddly quiet. She opened her mouth like she was going to say more but then closed it.

I waited a beat, but whatever it was, she’d changed hermind. I searched for a new topic. Our discussion about my humble roots had gone on long enough that I was starting to feel unhumble. “We gotta get a Christmas tree.” But why the “we”? This was not her problem. “Igotta get a Christmas tree.”

She cleared her throat. “You’re gone again tomorrow, right?” Her voice was back to normal.

“Yeah, then back here for two games, then—hallelujah—an eight-day break.” The longest in the season.

“When you get home, we’ll go get a tree.”

“OK.”

“Hey,” she said, “I want to tell you something, but I feel a little awkward about it.”

Oh shit. “OK…”

“It’s about your game last week. You know when you were on the JumboTron as part of that whole introductory video?”

I rolled my eyes. That was so embarrassing. The filming for that had been excruciating. When it was my turn for a close-up, they’d spritzed water on me to look like sweat.

“Well,” Aurora said, “Olivia was screaming in delight, and when you guys skated out and you gestured toward us, she started shouting, ‘Dad, Dad, Dad!’”

Oh my God. I’d been thinking, a bit ago, about how I could confront certain things these days without feeling like someone was shoving a spear through my chest, but the spear was back. I opened my mouth to say something, because that’s what was called for in this situation. “Thank you for telling me that,” was all I could manage.

“I know you’ve maybe been hurt by her calling you Mike, but I think she’s just trying to protect herself. Same with her not wanting to go to games. We talked a bit, and that was definitely about her not wanting to sit in the box and haveto talk about her mother with everyone, not about the games themselves, or you.”

Damn. “Aurora, I don’t know what Liv and I did to deserve you.” She started to get embarrassed, so I moved on. “Hey, what did Olivia give you for Christmas last year? What do other kids get you?”

“Honestly, I can’t remember what Olivia gave me. If people give me anything, it’s often dance-themed stuff—figurines and crap.”

“Well, as I’m learning, it’s hard to find meaningful gifts for all the people we’re supposed to be giving meaningful gifts to.”

“Nobody wants ‘meaningful’ gifts.” She made quotation marks with her fingers. “Just get gift cards.”

“To where?”

“Doesn’t matter. Amazon, Target, Starbucks—which maybe isn’t the jackpot for me it would be for someone else. The point is, we don’t want dance figurines; we want a proxy for cold, hard cash. I bet schoolteachers are the same.”

“Well, that makes it easier.”

It occurred to me that that’s what Aurora did for us. For me. She made things easier.

I treated the next week like that song “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” except every day I tried to get a few more things done than I had the previous day and hoped it would add up to something approximating Christmas. I worked at it even when I was on the road, ordering presents for Olivia, gift cards for teachers, and a cheese tray to bring to Christmas Eve at Lauren and Ivan’s. When I got home, we got a tree. I couldn’t quite see my way through to tromping out on a cut-your-own outingas we had traditionally done. We went to a church parking lot, and it was fine. I was half expecting Olivia to kick up a fuss because we weren’t cutting our own, but she didn’t. She led us through every row, methodically assessing trees and talking about how they might “fall” inside the warm house. Eventually she pointed to a huge Fraser fir that was 120 bucks, aka highway robbery, but I said, “Great,” and got out my wallet.

And so we had a tree. That was half the battle, or so I told myself. Olivia hadn’t noticed there was no mistletoe in our house, and she hadn’t said anything about the lack of an Advent calendar, which, without a time machine, wasn’t something I could give her. I feared that decorating the tree was going to be a big deal, though, that it might degenerate into conflict. But it was fine. It was more than fine; it was actually pretty great. We did the stuff we used to do, like starting the decorating with the ornaments Olivia had made over the years. She didn’t call me Mike. She didn’t call me Dad, either. She didn’t address me at all, but I was taking it as progress.

When we were all done, I plopped myself on the chesterfield, and to my shock she cuddled in next to me. “You remember that time we finished the tree and we were all sitting here and the whole thing slowly tipped over?” She giggled, the same girlish laugh she’d had since she was a baby, and it made something inside me relax to hear it.

---