Page 30 of Return To You

The wraparound porch where we’ve retreated offers me a front row seat to the scene of my childhood and early adulthood. It feels intimately close and yet remote, like something I broke and shouldn’t come near. It’s almost painful in its beauty. I should think about this more often when I’m away. Remember this beauty is always here.

Even if to some extent, I’m eager to leave already.

I’m lost in my thoughts when Mom comes out of the house, handing me the cordless landline phone. “It’s for you. Coach Randall.”

I stand, feeling awkward to take this phone call sitting down, and step away. “Coach!”

“King. How’ya doin, son?”

“Good! Great. I was actually planning on swinging by the Arena and catching up. How’s tomorrow?” I glance at Dad. For approval, and maybe there’s something planned? Something they need me for?

“Another time, son, I'm afraid. My sister passed away—”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah, well, a blessing. She had Alzheimer’s. Been mourning her for years now.” He clears his throat. “Anyhoo. I gotta leave town. Memorial is next week. Haven’t seen my other siblings in way too long… you know how it is.”

“Yeah.” Why is he telling me this?

“So I have this Varsity Preseason camp next week.”

Oh hell no. Feeling what’s coming, I step off the porch completely, away from company.

“Was hopin’ you could jump in and take over.”

Hell. No.

“Whole plan is typed up, schedule, all that. You’d just have to follow along my notes. Nothing to improvise.”

“Uhh. Jeez, coach, I don’t know. I—I actually might have to leave town next week,” I lie. There is no way in hell I am coaching a bunch of kids in hockey.

“You still play, right?”

“Y-yeah, course, but like I said—”

“It’s just kids, King. They don’t bite. And they need you.”

I kick the dirt with the tip of my sneaker. “Coach, I dunno.”

“I guess I could ask Owen to jump in. We’re close to getting to Nationals this year, but they need a lot of work.”

Fuck. “Owen Parker?” He’s got to be kidding.

“He’s all I got. ’Cept you. So—whaddayasay?”

I look up to the sky, then close my eyes when all I hear is his silence, heavy with expectation.

“I heard you already met our Tracy,” he drops. “Wait ’til you see her on the ice. She’s quite something. So—what should I tell the kids?”

I take a deep breath. “What time tomorrow?”

As I walk into the Arena the next morning at eight, I curse this small town for making me do something I did not want to do, while at the same time, my eyes dampen, my chest tightens.

The sharp, crisp air of the rink hits my nostrils, and from memory, I can almost taste the cold on my tongue. On the ice, two players are already practicing, their skates scraping the ice, their sticks slapping the puck. A rush of adrenaline fills me, remembering these quiet moments of warming up, of focus before a game, before the place filled with the cheers of the crowd, the flash of team colors, the thud of colliding bodies.

This used to be my life. My home away from home. My refuge.

And it’ll be my refuge from Grace. No chance I’ll run into her here now.

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