Drake and I exchange a brief glance that’s full of what the fuck?
“You understand,” Campeau continues. “I need the stats. If I am to give Sylvie a good life, I need a big, multiyear contract. I need to reach the next level.”
That is a story I know all too well. We all need the stats. We all crave the next level. Maybe I’m just a punter, and Campeau is the real deal. But what if the “next level” is an illusion? What if every single day of my career will feel just as perilous as the last?
“Sylvie wanted me to invite her here. She wanted to come to Brooklyn. And I did not offer.” The Canadian sighs. “She stopped talking to me. She makes new friends. She even posted a picture on Instagram with a guy on a date.”
“Cold, man,” Drake says, reaching for another slice.
“No, it isn’t,” Campeau defends her. “We were never a couple. She wanted it. I always knew that. But I was living in her parents’ home. A man does not go there.”
“True,” Drake says. “No sticking it to the coach’s daughter. Big no-no.”
“Big no-no,” Campeau repeats. “She was just a teenager when we met, too. I love her. But…” He heaves a sigh. “The time was not right. The time still is not right.”
“But here she is in Brooklyn,” I say, twisting the knife a little. Because I’m still stuck on the whole I love her but I should never admit it thing. “What are you going to do now?”
“I have no idea,” he says. “First, I will make sure this place where she lives is safe. If it is not, she can come and stay with me. I have a pull-out sofa.”
“Women love that.” I chuckle. “When they’re in love with you, and you offer them the pull-out sofa.”
Drake snorts out a laugh.
“I am so fucked,” Campeau says.
“Yup! Entirely fucked.” I take another slice of pizza and eat it with gusto.
Four
An Ocean of Mercy
SYLVIE
I strike a match, and the flame leaps forth with a familiar hiss. I tip the glass candle holder and carefully light the wick. Then I shake out the match and lay it on a saucer, since I’m not keen to set my new apartment on fire.
Apart from the unfamiliar location, this ritual is as familiar to me as breathing. It’s three o’clock, the magic hour. My mother always lit candles in the afternoon. Tradition holds that Christ died at this hour.
“Google says that three o’clock in Jerusalem is really eight in the morning here,” I’d once pointed out during my contrary teen years.
“That is not the point, Sylvie,” she’d replied. “A ritual is for remembrance. The meaning is here,” she’d said, tapping her chest.
I watch the candle flicker in its cup, and now I understand. These days, I light a three o’clock candle whenever I’m able, and nothing could be a more potent reminder of Maman.
I kneel for her in front of the candle and close my eyes. I say the prayer in French, as she taught me. “Vous avez expiré, Jésus, mais…”
It’s a comforting prayer. Who wouldn’t want an afternoon reminder of an ocean of mercy? I’m basically a lapsed Catholic like my father. And I only say the prayer once instead of the three times the ritual calls for.
But then I address her. “Maman, please be careful about hairpins on the ice. Someone could trip.” In the silence of my new apartment, I feel more self-conscious than usual, even though I know Fiona is out shopping for throw pillows. “Okay, a hairpin probably won’t kill anyone, but it’s not a good look. I’m sure you were just reminding me to be patient. Especially with Bryce. The look on his face, though…”
I fall silent, remembering his expression. It wasn’t joyous. First, I saw shock, followed swiftly by confusion. And then discomfort, especially when I made that joke about sleeping in his bed. I swear all the color drained from his face.
“It wasn’t the reunion I’d hoped for,” I tell my mother. “I thought he’d laugh and maybe pick me up and twirl me around. But he just looked like I’d run him over with the Zamboni.”
Sure, I’d expected some surprise. But a small part of me thought he might see it as a sign.
But, nope. He was definitely stuck on the shock phase.
“I could be patient,” I whisper. “If I thought that patience was the issue. And we already knew he doesn’t like surprises.” He’d had too many of those in his life already, many of them bad. Bryce likes order and planning and preparation.
But I’d sprung myself on him, because I wanted a big romantic reunion. Laughter, followed by the kind of kiss that sailors gave their women after returning from war.
I didn’t get it. And after that awkward greeting in the hallway with my teammates, I’d hurried away to regroup.
The candle flickers gently. It’s not a sign. My mother only communicates in lost hairpins and memories. “You did tell me to be patient,” I whisper. “A year ought to be enough, though. He doesn’t love me, Maman. It wasn’t real. I wish you were here. I wish you could tell me what to do.”
My voice cracks a little bit. I miss my mother so much that it aches. She and I were nothing alike, just as Bryce and I are nothing alike. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t get along. She was so strong and beautiful, and I thought she’d be with me forever. Instead, she was cut down on a sunny autumn day.
Nobody plans to die young. Nobody except my mother, that is. She’d had a will, which I guess is something responsible people do. But she’d also left me a letter.
It began: Dear Sylvie, if you are reading this, then I have left this Earth. But I will never leave you, my baby girl.
Maybe I should have waited to read it, because that first line cut me in half. The tears in my eyes made it hard to keep reading. She said so many loving things. And she reminded me to work on my patience.
But she followed that by telling me that I will be loved deeply and completely. And that Bryce was my soulmate.
The letter is tucked away in a shoebox now. It hurts too much to read it. And it won’t do me any good to read it again, anyway. Maman was amazing, and many of her words will doubtless prove true.
But as I sit here staring into the candle’s flame, I can’t help thinking that she got a few things wrong.
It hurts, too.
Five
The Right Kind of Screw
SYLVIE
“You have to admit,” Charli says from a corner of our sofa. “Bombshells is a terrible name for a team. What were they even thinking?”
“It’s not terrible at all,” Fiona argues from the other end. “I love it. A bombshell is a sudden revelation. An overwhelming surprise. That’s what we’re supposed to be, in this scenario—the thing that makes New York realize that women’s hockey is great. Plus, you get the alliteration with Brooklyn.”
“But it also means sexpot,” Charli sputters. “It’s evil marketing. They think they can only sell tickets by sexing us up. If they print posters with a naked woman riding on a missile, I will quit on the spot.”