Page 136 of Slapshot Baby

"I'll tell him. He won't listen, but I'll tell him." She sighs. "I actually called about something else. Your father and I want to redo the house. Finally. I want Ava to do it."

I lean against the counter. "Yeah?"

"She has an extraordinary eye. Mira showed me some of her redesigns, and what she did with your apartment was remarkable." A beat. "I want her redoing this house. I want her opinion on the spaces where you grew up."

I hear what she's saying and I hear what she's not saying.

Mom doesn't hire designers, she recruits family.

The renovation will take months. It will put Ava in the kitchen where I ate breakfast for eighteen years, in the living room where I watched my first hockey game with Dad, in the hallway lined with photos that trace every version of me from birth to the championship.

She's not remodeling the house. She's building Ava a permanent way in and is fishing for where we’re at in the relationship.

“Okay,” I say.

"I'll call her tomorrow morning."

I smile. “Sure, Mom.”

"Tell her I have ideas."

"She can handle your ideas."

"Good. I need someone who pushes back. Your father just agrees with everything and then complains about the result for six months."

Her voice drops, and warmth replaces the sharpness. "The captaincy will come back, Kai. Don’t fret."

She hangs up. I set the phone down.

The city is fading into purple and burnt orange through the window. Somewhere in this apartment, Ava's shampoo still sits on the shower shelf. Her toothbrush is in the cup beside mine, her shoes by the door.

She's being woven into every part of my life. My apartment, family, recovery. And now, the house I grew up in.

The only part she's missing is the one I can't hand her yet: the version of me that walks into a locker room with the C on his chest and twenty players who know exactly who their captain is.

I have six weeks to take back what should already be mine.

Hargrove wants evidence.

He'll get so much of it that the only risk left will be him having to explain why it took him this long to see what the entire locker room already knows.

23

AVA

Man Down

The ultrasound tech stops moving the wand.

Her hand is still on my stomach, still pressed into the cold gel, but the smooth tracking has frozen mid-sweep. She's looking at the screen with an expression I can't read.

Which is worse than one I can.

"Is everything okay?"

"I'm going to get Dr. Fernandez."

She leaves before I can ask another question. The door clicks shut. I stare at the grainy glow of my baby on the screen.