Blue Paint & Red Lights

I waddled through the newly bought and painted house. It was beautiful and had a brick front, a perfect Chicago bungalow. It was on the upper east side in a lovely neighborhood with a large wooden fenced backyard. I rested my hands on top of my large pregnant belly as I sat down at the breakfast table.
"Sam?" Antti called from the front of the house.
"Yes?" He had just come home from training camp and was freshly showered and wearing comfortable jeans and a hoodie. I remember when I could wear actual jeans- lately it was yoga pants and basketball shorts. I could not bear to put on a pair of the maternity jeans with the stretchy waist, that was not going to happen. "Hey there, kuuma äiti." I smiled at his newest nickname for me. 'Hot momma' was a compliment nowadays, and I'll take it. You never think you look good with a beach ball for a belly.
"How was practice?" I asked him as he came closer, one hand running his fingers through my hair and one hand on top of mine that rested on my enlarged torso. "Oof." I said, caught off guard by the strong kick the baby had delivered to my belly button.
"What's wrong?" Antti asked, studying my face for an answer. "He kicked." We had known for two months now what gender the child was, and we still didn't have a name. Antti's face lit up and he quickly asked, "Are you okay?" I nodded, feeling the baby prod around.
"Want to feel him kick?" I inquired, looking up at his face. He eagerly replied, "Can I?"
I took Antti's hand and placed it were I felt the fetus kick the most. He spread his fingers across my belly and waited, then: "Pyhä Jeesus äiti Maria ja Joosef! That's our son, se on meidän poika." I smiled and looked up at Antti. "I love you." He told me, and I said the one thing I knew in Finnish by heart, "Minäkin rakastan sinua."

----

"He has your eyes." I commented, brushing the wispy hair out of the tiny human's face. I spoke to my husband, who lovingly held the child to his chest, his aforementioned eyes misty.
"And hopefully your hairline." He joked, letting a choked laugh escape his throat, gently jarring the baby, but not enough to wake him up from his slumber. The child was a week old and Antti couldn't stop lightly touching the miniature fingers and toes.
"Samantha..You made him." He said breathlessly, lovingly rocking the baby in his arms.
"With your help." I kissed him lightly on the forehead and pulled away, ignoring the feeling in my stomach. Postpartum depression was a little too intense to describe the sensation, but it was definately an emptiness. I missed little Liam and my body still didn't realize he was still with me, just outside.
"He's perfect." Antti whispered, clearly for only himself to hear, "He's perfect."

----

"Perfect!" Antti yelled, clapping loudly and running along the backyard ice rink. We had built it a couple of years before during the winter so Liam could become used to skating and being on the ice. Now, at seven years old Liam could make saves his father was proud of. I picked up my hockey stick and smiled, lightly skating over to the net Liam was standing straight in front of, listening to his father's advice.
"Your mother always goes glove side. There's a reason for this- most players will recognize a weak glove hand and attack it. Work on that and you're practically golden." Antti told the boy, patting him on the shoulder and shooing me away.
"Lisää, taas!" He called as he stepped off of the icy surface. Liam and I both knew what that meant and I skated back to my spot next to the pile of pucks I picked at.
I used my stick blade to slide one of the black discs closer to me. I triple deked and shot it blocker side, just to test him. Liam knocked it away like a fly and I smiled, grabbing another puck and going top shelf on his glove side. Liam caught it and flung it back my way.
He would make his father proud.

----

"Mom, I want to go to this school." Liam waved the packet of registration forms just as the backup I had called fifteen minutes prior walked into the kitchen.
"So you want to be a Badger?" Adam asked the gangly teenager who stood across from me, manilla envelope in hand. Liam nodded eagerly, his eyes imploring his godfather to understand.
"Why?" Adam asked and I raised my eyebrows, placing my hand on my hip.
"I want to be a Badger, I want to play for one of the best college hockey teams out there, I want to major in Engineering and I want to play hockey." Liam said, only breathing once he reached the end of his long explanation.
"Engineering, eh? Good kid." Adam smiled and began to walk out of the house.
"That's it? 'Good kid'?" I called after him and he quickly replied with, "Yup!"
"Ugh!" I said, throwing my hands in the air and looking back at Liam.
"I talked to the counselor at school today, mom. She said with my four years of prep hockey, my record as a goaltender, and my A/B grades, they would more than likely be willing to get me a scholarship."
I looked at my son levelly. "Money is not the issue here, Liam."
"Then what is?" He asked, equally as serious.
"You're only a junior, kid." I smiled at him, tousling his hair and adding, "We'll talk when you're a senior."

----

"Using their 2nd draft pick, the Philadelphia Flyers choose goaltender Liam Niemi." The arena filled with polite applause with speckled heavy clapping. The sound soon left my ears as Antti and I stood close and watched as our son stepped up onto the platform that served as a large stage for the NHL Draft. The smile on his face as he donned the jersey and the cap was a mile wide. We would have never guessed that afternoon that Liam would spend a year in the minors and be brought up into the majors to spend a very full career full of shut outs, Stanley Cup finals, and drinking from the Cup. I would have never have guessed that this would all be the cause of that one 2nd intermission where I had tended to Adam Burish or because of the blue paint and red lights that made me fall in love with Antti Niemi.

The end.