Page 77 of Body Checked By the Defenseman

I’m in a state of shock.

Hayden looks like he is barely breathing, and Macklin looks like he wants to hug all of us. “Family isn’t defined by blood. I loved you kids from the first day I met you. You needed me to step up and I did,” Abuela explains, then she looks between Hayden and me. “Please say something.”

“I mean, it explains a lot. I always wondered how I could be so blond with Carmen having such dark features,” I say, but I feel a little delirious.

“What you’re telling me is that our birth mom may be out there somewhere?” Hayden asks because he also assumed over the years that something bad happened to our mom, I mean Carmen, and that’s why she never came back for us.

“I think so,” Abuela says. “I don’t know much. Johan never said much about your mom other than she left when Ruby was one. It was too much for her having two small babies and she took off. He was a single dad when he met Carmen. She fell in love with you guys right away. She was your mother in every sense of the word but when Johan took off, she broke. She wasn’t taking care of you guys properly and that’s why she dropped you off with me,” Abuela explains.

Growing up, none of us ever spoke about our parents. It felt like it was a subject that was off limits because it was depressing for us. Now it feels like we didn’t speak about it because there were so many secrets being hidden away and if it came up, the secret would be revealed.

“I feel sick,” I blurt. I get up and run to the bathroom. I barely have time to close the bathroom door when the contents of my breakfast come up.

Hayden is behind me in a flash. “Damn, Rubes. This doesn’t change anything.” He rubs my back.

I take some toilet paper and wipe my mouth.

“How can you say that?” I ask my brother. “It feels like our whole life has been a lie.”

“What’s changed, Rubes? We knew Carmen as our mom and she took off. We held on to that pain, but she wasn’t our mom. Our real mom took off much earlier and our dad was a coward who took off too. The only one who has ever taken care of us is Abuela. She was so scared of telling us the truth because she feared we’d leave her,” Hayden recaps.

“Abuela is the only one who has ever been a parent to us, but she lied,” I retort. It’s then that it hits me. I have been keeping my own secret. Loving Macklin isn’t just about me, it affects the whole family. I can only hope Hayden will be this understanding when the truth comes out.

“She lied to protect us, Rubes. She loves us. She’s done everything for us. I wouldn’t be going to the NHL if it weren’t for her,” Hayden reminds me.

“And I wouldn’t have gone to college if it weren’t for her. I get it. She felt like she was protecting us. We’re all she has,” I relay.

“And she is all we have,” Hayden adds.

“We should walk back into the kitchen and tell her we love her,” I say to my brother.

Hayden hugs me. “We have each other, and we have Mack and Abuela. We’re lucky.”

I laugh through my tears.

“What’s so funny?” Hayden asks, pulling away from me.

“We can still be so positive after all the shit we’ve been through,” I reply to him.

“You know, that’s something Abuela taught us both,” Hayden reminds.

“We really do owe her a lot.”

“Come, let’s go tell her that. I think now more than ever she needs to hear it,” Hayden says.

I follow my brother into the kitchen. There may be some aspects of his life he needs to work on but when it comes to family, he is reliable.

We walk back into the kitchen. Macklin is sitting at the table beside Abuela. It looks like he is consoling her.

“Abuela,” I say, and she turns her head. It hurts my heart to see she’s been crying. “We love you and we are so grateful for you. It doesn’t matter that we aren’t blood related. You will always be our abuela.”

“I feel the same, we love you,” Hayden adds.

Abuela stands from the table and hugs us both. Then Macklin stands and grips us all into one big hug.

“Family forever,” he says.

I just hope that will be true when they find out our family dynamic has changed.

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