Page 156 of The Home Game

Damn it.

Still, as Matty tossed his bag on the bed in his room, he had to admit it was a hell of a lot better than last season. Last season, he’d had no one to go home to at the end of a trip at all.

Sure, he’d love to call Antoni now but he had to be up early and deal with the kids before work so the last thing Matty wanted was to make him lose sleep.

Matty took a few pictures of the view from his window, sent them to Antoni so he’d see them in the morning, then unpacked.

But as he pulled his travel kit out, something fluttered to the floor.

His knees popped as he squatted down to pick up the simple piece of ruled notepaper with a short note.

We miss you already! Have a great game tomorrow!

-Antoni, Alexis, Eli, River, and Reese

Matty’s eyes swam a little as he read the note. Each of them—except Reese of course—had signed it themselves and Matty pressed it against his heart for a moment and blinked back tears.

God, he loved them. Every last one of them.

As Matty hopped from city to city, Antoni’s world once more narrowed to work and the kids.

He had papers and tests to grade and the kids’ activities had exploded. Alexis and Eli were busy with hockey and River had some speech therapy testing this week.

Worst of all, his Mom’s MS symptoms had returned. She’d gone a long time between relapses this year but it was sort of inevitable that they’d flared up again.

He hated how down about it she sounded as they talked on the phone.

“I’m sorry to leave you in the lurch like this,” she said with an exhausted sigh. “But my vision … it’s been bad. And I have so much numbness and weakness in my hands and arms. I certainly can’t drive and I’m afraid I’d drop Reese if I have to change or feed him.”

“Hey, no. It’s okay,” Antoni assured her. “I can take care of the kids. You focus on taking care of yourself.”

“But your father can help.”

“I’m sure he will. But he also needs to be there for you,” Antoni reminded her. “We’ll be fine.”

“I talked to Andrea and Stephanie. Stephanie said she can get River to and from speech therapy on Tuesday afternoon. And your father will get Alexis and Eli to hockey practice on Tuesday night.”

“Mom, you didn’t have to worry about that!” Antoni protested. “Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate it, but you’re supposed to be resting.”

“We still need to figure out what’s going on Thursday,” she continued like he hadn’t spoken. “Matty has the game against Carolina on Wednesday, and then he’s flying back home on Thursday morning, right?”

“That’s the plan, yeah. But it sounds like they’re filming some volunteering thing at the children’s hospital when they get back and we’re not sure how long that’ll take. So I don’t want to count on him. Not that I can’t rely on him,” he hastily added. “But a lot of that is out of his control.”

“No, of course,” his mom said. “Matty has been wonderful. But his schedule is a challenge, isn’t it?”

“It sure is,” Antoni agreed with a sigh. God, the SAPs hadn’t been kidding when they said there was a big learning curve to being the spouse of an NHL-er.

But it was fine. Antoni’d figure it out. The timing fucking sucked with his mom’s relapse hitting as the season and travel kicked off but, well, that was life. Shitty things didn’t exactly wait for life to be convenient.

Antoni could handle this. He absolutely could. He just had to shuffle some things around.

“Okay, well, I think we’ve got this under control, Mom,” he assured her. “You go rest.”

“But what about hockey on Thursday? We haven’t figured that out.”

Antoni tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling. “Oh my God, you need to stop worrying!”

“Your Dad has in-office meetings on Thursday afternoons or he’d handle it. Stephanie can watch the little ones for a bit until he gets home but she can’t get the older two to hockey.”

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