Page 104 of Slots & Sticks
The back door opens—and the moment I see her, the whole world tilts.
Dot steps into the sunlight, each step slow and luminous. The lace of her dress catches every ripple of gold, the pearls in her hair glowing like they borrowed their light from the stars. My throat tightens. My chest aches.
She’s it. She’s everything.
I blink once. Twice. But the tears still blur the edges of her. I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth, trying to hold it together—but it’s no use. She’s walking toward me, and I’m already done for.
The world narrows to her and the slow rhythm of her dad’s footsteps on the stone path. I can’t take my eyes off of her as Coach walks her down the aisle. He has to go slower than normal, but he’s made huge strides in physical therapy in preparation for this.
With Delilah’s lyrics spilling through the air, complete now because I’m the groom, all three Shaws are present for this brief, beautiful moment. I feel her mother everywhere—in the melody, in the tears streaking Coach’s face, in the fierce grace that lives in Dot’s eyes. I swear I can hear Delilah singing us forward.
All my life, I’ve had to practice camouflaging and masking to blend in. I’ve had to hold myself back to avoid being too strange, too quirky, too much. Coach shakes my hand, his eyes misty. As Dot steps forward to become my wife, I don’t have to pretend anything at all. We’re perfect together, made for each other, simply as we are.
“Ready?” Dot whispers.
I smile down at her. “Ready,” I agree.
I have never been less anxious about what the future holds. My whole life has been about managing noise—on the ice, inmy head, in the world. But standing here with her, there’s only quiet. Not the empty kind. The good kind. The kind that feels like home.
* * *
“It’s weird to spend your wedding night at your father-in-law’s house, right?” Dot asks.
I glance around the familiar space—her childhood room, the one that’s seen her through every version of herself. The bed’s new, but the old dresser and those framed posters haven’t moved in twenty years. “Possibly,” I admit. “But it feels right. You wanted to be close to him tonight. After everything that’s happened, I get it.”
Truth is, I like it here. This house holds all the echoes of who she’s been, and I want to meet every single one of them before we move forward. Honeymoon suites can wait. Tonight’s about something smaller, quieter. Real.
I lie back on her bed with one arm behind my head. “I don’t expect you to move out yet. You’re helping your dad, and the honeymoon isn’t scheduled until the off-season. We’ve got time.”
“You’re so laid back.” Dot shoos Bo off of her side of the bed. “I’m surprised. I thought you’d want to move full steam ahead.”
I stretch out on my back, watching her kick off her shoes. In every version of my life that I pictured, she’s always been here—sitting cross-legged on this bed, hair messy, laughing at me. It feels like closing a loop I started when I was twelve and didn’t even know what marriage meant yet.
“I’m in no rush. The season is starting soon. I’ll be on the road a lot, and so will your dad. I like the idea of you not being alone. Speaking of which…” I reach over the side of the bed to retrieve the box I brought over in my bag. “I wanted to give these to you.”
Skinbad grumbles at all the shifting and the disturbances to his beauty sleep, but he settles back in as I hand the box off to Dot. She sits on the bed with her legs crossed, her hair pulled back in a messy bun, wearing a pair of well-worn pajama pants and an oversized tee. “What’s this?”
“A wedding present.”
Dot opens the box. It’s an old cigar box from one of Mom’s many trips, and it’s filled to the brim with letters and postcards, some of which are discolored from age. Dot sifts through them, glancing at them here and there.
Her fingers tremble as she lifts each piece—a snapshot from everywhere in the world I was without her. Years of unsent words and unsaid things spill between us, tiny proof that even when I didn’t know how to show it, she was always there, and so was I.
“Did you write these… to me?”
My throat burns. I can’t look at her without feeling twelve and thirty all at once—hopeful and helpless and hers.
“And never sent them.”
“But you did send some.” She shifts the box aside and scoots to the edge of the bed. To my surprise, she kneels on the floor and pulls out a dusty shoebox of her own. On the outside, in loopy childish letters, she’s written the wordsStop!andPrivate!Alongside a couple of Mr. Yuck stickers.
The sight of that shoebox hits me harder than the ceremony did. Those stickers, the childish handwriting—it’s like opening a time capsule from a girl who never stopped waiting for me. And it undoes me. All this time, I thought I was the one holding on. But she was there too—quiet, loyal, saving pieces of me I didn’t know I’d lost.
I sit up, causing Skinbad to grumble again. “You saved my postcards?”
“I saved everything.” She turns the box to face me. Every gift, every interesting coin, every trinket and photo I gave her over the years is in there.
“Dot…” My voice breaks. “You’ve been carrying me around all this time. Even when I thought you’d forgotten me.” I pick up a whale shark-shaped keychain I brought her from the Philippines. “I can’t believe you held onto this.”
