to be a flower girl.” The words rushed from her faster than a player skating down the ice during a power play after stealing the puck from the opposition—and the player’s team was the one in the penalty box.
I kneeled in front of her. “That sounds really nice. Your auntie Nala sounds like a wonderful person.”
“Oh, she is. She’s Mommy’s best friend, and she’s really nice and makes pretty dresses.”
“All right, everyone,” Glenda, the recreational therapist, said, preventing us from talking further. “Are you ready to play a game of hockey?”
The kids cheered.
With their parents’ assistance, those who didn’t usually require a wheelchair climbed into the kid-sized sports wheelchairs waiting on the sidelines. While the kids were getting ready, my teammates and I planted our asses in the hospital-grade wheelchairs that weren’t designed for competitive sports.
Glenda assigned Logan Mathews, Grant Weiland, Kai Korhonen, and myself to the two teams…and the game began.
I’m a talented hockey player. I wouldn’t be in the NHL if that weren’t the case.
But when it came to playing wheelchair hockey?
The innate talent that came alive when I stepped on the ice abandoned me the moment I sat in a wheelchair.
Fortunately for my wheelchair hockey team, they didn’t need my skills to win the game. We won by a narrow margin of 6-5.
“Way to go, Bears,” I said to the six kids on the team with Logan and me.
We high-fived them and signed the Rock T-shirts we’d brought with us.
“What do we say to Eli, Logan, Grant, and Kai?” Glenda asked the kids once the four of us had finished chatting with them and signing the memorabilia.
“Thank you! Good luck in the playoffs!” they all yelled at relatively the same time, causing us to chuckle at their enthusiasm.
As I walked toward my truck, located in the outdoor visitor parking lot, my phone rang. I removed it from my pocket and checked the screen.
Oh, shit.
Already suspecting her reason for calling me, I deliberated the wisdom of answering. But then I realized it was easier to rip off the Band-Aid and hope for the best. “Hey, Mom.”
“Hi, Sweetheart. I’ve got some great news for you.”
“What news is that?” Oh, good. She wasn’t calling to see if I had a date for my cousin’s wedding. For the past three months, she and my two aunts had been sending me photos and information about potential dates.
Aunt Lana, who lived in San Jose, had been pushing a little harder than the other two because her selection of women lived in the same state as me. There was—in her mind as well as my mother’s—a better chance of me falling for one of them and getting married someday soon.
“Sharon McNair is going to be your date for the wedding.” There was as much conviction in Mom’s voice as a nun saying her Hail Marys.
I released a long hard sigh. “I don’t need a date for Hazel’s wedding.” Especially not Sharon McNair. “I can go solo.”
“You’ll really like her. Aunt May said she’s smart and sweet.”
Meet my mother. I swear that she believed her purpose in life was to find soul mates for single people. Forget online dating and the algorithms that claimed to find your ideal match; Mom believed her intuition was sharper than all those programs combined.
Case in point, her history of success stories.
All five matchups had gone on to be married.
My cousin Hazel was the latest to join the list.
And since Mom was hoping I’d provide her with additional grandchildren soon, she was determined to find me a girlfriend even though I didn’t want one.
“Why do I need a date for the wedding?” I asked, approaching it from a different angle.
“Sweetie, you’re twenty-nine years old. It’s time you find a nice woman to settle down with.”
“You make it sound like I’m ready to trade my skates for a rocking chair on the porch. I can guarantee I’ve still got plenty of years left in me before that’s the case.” I could easily imagine her rolling her eyes, and I inwardly chuckled.
“I get it that you’re gun-shy after your ex-fiancée got pregnant and claimed you were the father,” she said with a sigh in her tone. “But that shouldn’t keep you from finding someone else.”
Way to go, Mom, on dragging me down that old road again.
“Your ex was a ninny,” Mom powered on as though standing in a courtroom, playing the role of prosecutor. “They aren’t all like that. There are plenty of nice fish in the sea. And I promise you,