Page 65 of Home Ice Advantage

“Just wait,” Eric said. It was strange; his mouth was smiling without his brain’s conscious input. “You’ll understand when you meet her.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Ryan said.

Flying into YUL had been bittersweet over the years. It was such a familiar airport, one he’d spent so much time in. Sweet to see his parents; bitter to leave them. And then, after his father had died, a whole other layer of regret and the knowledge that time was slipping by faster than he could do anything about it. Walking through the arrivals hall with Ryan at his shoulder, talking a mile a minute about the time that the baggage claim at YUL had lost the entire Desperadoes’ gear and Murph had threatened to go down there and sort it out himself, felt different than anything he’d been through here before.

“It’s nothing special,” Eric warned him, as they got into a taxi to head to his mother’s house.

“Shut up. It’s where you grew up; of course it’s special.”

The thing was that it wasn’t a very impressive house. Eric had grown up solidly lower middle class, and the house reflected that. It was an older building, a long brick rectangle with a sloped roof on top, a skinny yard in front and a shallow yard in back. There were a few equally skinny, stubborn trees on that block, and he had spent many hours in the street shooting pucks and orange balls at the beaten-up net his parents had to replace too frequently. It had been a happy place for him, close enough to walk to the synagogue he attended with his parents, not too far from his billet when he had gone away to play in Boisbriand for juniors.

He knew he shouldn’t have been nervous about Ryan meeting his mother, because Ryan always made a good impression on everyone. His mother was excited to meet him. There was no need to worry about it. But he was evidently doing a piss-poor enough job hiding it that Ryan looked over and said, “Hey, it’s going to be fine, you know?”

“Logically, I know this,” Eric said, exhaling.

“Okay, well, logically or not, it’s going to befine,” Ryan said, following Eric up the concrete path to the door.

When Eric’s mother answered the door, she immediately threw her arms around him and held on tight. He hugged her back, trying not to think about how frail she felt these days when he remembered her from his youth as an imposing and solid physical presence. Her grip was just as tight as it had always been, though, and her eyes were just as bright when she looked up at him and said, “I’m glad you’re here.” She took a step back, her smile a little intimidating. “And you... I’ve heard a lot about you, Mr. Sullivan.”

“Sully, please,” he said, holding out his hand, “or Ryan. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Aronson.”

Instead of taking his hand, she threw her arms around him in the same bear hug she’d subjected Eric to. “Then you’d better call me Rosa, Ryan.”

Eric exhaled: he shouldn’t have worried. It was clear that Ryan was going to be fine here. He knew his mother, the way she opened her home to his friends, the way she lived to feed guests and make them feel welcome. There had been nothing to worry about. And yet, seeing the physical evidence of it...for a second, he let himself stop thinking about it and just enjoy the novelty of watching Ryan Sullivan and his mother, chatting away like they had known each other for years.

Ryan hadn’t known what to expect when he’d agreed to come home to Montreal with Eric. He hadn’t known what to expect from Eric’s mother, beyond the fact that Eric had said he’d told her who Ryan was to him and that it had gone much better than he’d expected. He’d been to Montreal before over the years—had actually had his bachelor party there, been dragged through the strip clubs on St. Catherine by his older brothers and gotten incredibly, painfully sick in an alleyway after. He’d been there for games, which had always been a little more intense than usual for him: even though he played in Dallas, he’d grown up a Beacons fan, and he’d still nursed that little rivalry deep in his heart.

This was completely different. This wasn’t even coming to Montreal as a tourist. This was...well, it was important that he made a good impression. This was meeting the mother of someone who had, in a fairly short time, become pretty important to him.

Whenever Ryan stopped to think about everything that had happened to him over the last year or so, he almost felt like his head was spinning, dizzy and off-balance. It wasn’tbad, it was just objectively somewhat insane.

Ryan hadn’t known at all what to expect from Rosa Aronson, but he could see the ways she was both like and completely unlike her son. She was much smaller than Eric, but still taller than Ryan, and however frail she was, she had the air of someone who would only be stopped by force. Her thick-framed glasses mirrored Eric’s, and her snow-white hair was a hint of what might be in his future, once the salt overtook the pepper.

Where Eric had been grumpy and closed-off and combative, she was immediately warm and welcoming, throwing her arms around Ryan in a tight hug. But he could see she had the same sharp sense of humor, the same mean little glimmer in her eye that promised a cut to the quick if you weren’t on your toes.

Eric’s childhood home was so different from Ryan’s. It wasn’t as big, but it felt warmer, cluttered with books and papers and full of family photographs. Ryan surreptitiously snuck glances at the pictures of Eric and his parents from his childhood: they had had him later in life, and Eric’s father was the spitting image of Eric to the point that it was a little eerie, like looking at the same face from years in the past.

“You look so much like your dad,” Ryan said to Eric, while Rosa was puttering around in the kitchen, getting their lunch ready. Eric had tried to argue with her that he would do it and she had both shut him down firmly, and banished both of them to the living room so they wouldn’t get in her way.

“Everyone always says that,” Eric said, looking down at the same photograph Ryan had picked up. In it, Eric was about thirteen years old, and he and his parents were at the beach. He had been tall even then, gangly and awkward. “I don’t see it.”

“Really?”

“Maybe I don’t want to see it,” he admitted. “My dad was special, you know? There was only one of him. It doesn’t seem right that people tell me that.”

“I dunno, Eric,” Ryan said, looking down at the picture again. “You’re also pretty special.”

“Shut up,” Eric muttered, clearly embarrassed, and Ryan relented. “Anyway, now you know what I meant about Maman being stubborn as fuck.”

“Again...” Ryan said, trying to hide his smile and definitely failing, “I wonder who else in this room has that particular quality.”

“That goes for both of us, you know. Not just me.”

“Probably,” Ryan said, and slipped his arm around Eric’s waist. “It’s just nice, though. Seeing where you came from. Seeing parts of them in your face.”

“Who knew you were such a romantic?” Eric drawled, but Ryan could tell from the little crinkle at the edge of his eye that he was smiling.

“Boys!” Rosa called from the kitchen. “Lunch is ready.”

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