All That Matters

“You know if I hadn’t been wearing that jersey, there’d be rumors.”

“Why?”

I slid my blouse up over my stomach. The swell of my abdomen was more considerable than it had been when we were together the last time. He shook his head as we relaxed on the private flight back home. The flight crew was only visible when called, otherwise we were alone. Sid’s family was flying back with Mario and his family. We’d insisted that we didn’t need that much privacy, but they were adamant.

“How did that even happen? It’s only been a few weeks.”

“I guess once you start to show, it goes quick.”

“Clearly.”

I was lying on the long bench seat with my head in his lap. His hand had been in my hair, tangled in the curls. But he slipped his hand down along my side and onto the taut skin of my stomach. His hand was warm, broad fingers covering much of the small bump.

“Feeling better than on the flight here?”

“Did Taylor tell you about that?”

“No. Dad mentioned that you weren’t feeling very well when you got here.”

“He came in and checked on me when we got there. I was just nauseous.” I pulled at the band around my right wrist. “Your mom found this bracelet. It’s supposed to help and so far I’m alright. We’ve got a while left though. Speaking of jewelry, where’s your new hardware?”

“In my bag. I figured that I probably don’t need to wear it to impress you.”

“I don’t know, it’s kind of a turn on.”

He grinned. “There’s plenty of flight left.”

I smiled in return, his hand still pressed against the skin of my stomach.

We hadn’t had much time to talk in the whirlwind that surrounded getting out of Russia between weather patterns. We’d have a few stops for fuel but I was excited to be on our way home. I would have been whether they’d won or not, but I knew that he was a much more pleasant travel partner when he was happy. And he was happy.

Content was probably a better way to put it.

“When’s your doctor’s appointment?”

“The time difference messes me up.”

“Then just go with the date.”

I chuckled. “The twenty-sixth.”

“Day before the Montreal game?”

“Yep.”

We didn’t mention the fact that the day after Montreal came to town, they started a long road trip and that I would be back on a plane to meet my dad for the outdoor game in Chicago. But after that stretch of games they’d be home for a solid few. They’d only leave town for a Philly game and I didn’t mind the day trips as much.

“So they’re going to tell us what we’re having and we can start with the planning, huh?”

“If everything works out and they can get the right angles we’ll be able to tell.”

“You’re still okay with finding out, right?”

“Now you ask?”

He smirked.

“Yes. I’m okay with it. It will help us with the plans.”

“The plans you’ve already started making.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sometimes I do see what you’re doing when you work. I’m not completely oblivious.”

“The art piece?”

“With the hockey sticks? Yeah. That would be the one.”

“In all fairness, that could be for a girl’s room too.”

“Could be, but that’s not what you’re planning for.”

“Like you haven’t thought about it?”

He shook his head but I knew it was bullshit. He was just as guilty as I was of hoping for a boy. He wanted a son that he could teach to skate and play the way his father had taught him. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe that he could teach a daughter the same, it was that he wasn’t sure that a little girl would want to play. He didn’t know that a little girl would want to be like him or his sister and pick up the game. He wanted something in common with our child and he assumed, because it was what he knew best, that would be hockey.

He hoped it would.

“I’m capable of looking over shoulders as well.”

He grimaced. “What did you see?”

“Different shades of blue paint and little boy’s onesies?”

“So, we’re both guilty.”

“Completely.”

“We’re both hoping for a boy?”

“I guess.”

“We suck at waiting to do things together.”

“I got a little excited. I got that idea and I had to draw it up, just to get it out of my head. But at least I didn’t start working on it or anything.”

He wrinkled his nose, looking considerably more guilty than I felt.

“What now?”

“I may have bought a couple of things.”

“You may have?”

“Like a couple gallons of paint.”

“Sidney,” I groaned.

“In hindsight, since we don’t actually know we’re having a boy, probably a dumb decision. I just spotted it when I was at the hardware store and bought it.”

“You impulse bought paint at a hardware store?”

“Yeah.”

“Why were you even at the hardware store?”

“Paint?”

“We’re idiots.”

He laughed openly. “Yeah, we kind of are.”

“You definitely are.”

He scowled. “But I have a medal.”

“I’m sure you aren’t the first idiot to get a medal in something.”

“But it’s a gold medal.”

I laughed. “A gold medal you were almost dumb enough to win without your wife present.”

“Yeah, that was a dick move. I’m really glad you showed up and wore my sweater.”

“I was only cheering for you because the U.S. didn’t make it to the final. I could have gotten myself a different jersey easily enough.”

“Whatever. You were probably cheering louder than anyone.”

“I was standing next to your sister. She’s hard to beat.”

“Thank you for bringing her. Or coming with her, I guess. Just thank you for being there. I was being ridiculous when I asked you to stay behind. I wasn’t thinking, really. For some reason I thought I’d be distracted enough that I wouldn’t miss you.”

“But you did.”

“Like crazy. Barely knew what to do with myself when it was quiet. I mean, I was at the rink a lot or with the team watching video and stuff, but I had a lot of extra time to think about you. I think Bergy was tired of watching me sulk about it and without TV’s in the room, he didn’t have much else to do.”

“I like that you were thinking about me.”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m pretty much always thinking of you.”

“You should probably focus on hockey when you’re playing.”

“Ha.”

His hand traveled back up my side and into my hair as he selected a movie to watch before we headed off to the bed that we would share for the night as the sun chased us as we flew from east to west. I fell asleep as he played with my hair.

He woke me when the movie was over and led me towards the small room that contained just a bed and another television. I slipped into my pajamas as he stripped to his underwear and we both crawled into bed. It had been close to three weeks since we’d shared our sleeping quarters and he wasted no time.

He shifted his weight carefully, making sure that he didn’t put any pressure on my stomach. His thigh was wedged between mine as he kissed me slowly. His lips crept up my shoulders and onto my neck, seemingly not missing an inch of real estate as he worked his way up to my mouth.

I arched my back slightly towards him and felt him smile against my lips as if celebrating another triumph.

“Too bad you aren’t wearing that medal,” I murmured.

“I can always go get it if it turns you on,” he kidded.

“No, I don’t really want you to go anywhere.”

“Good, it’s so heavy it might weigh me down.”

I hummed a laugh against his lips as he devoured me with another kiss.

“You know, this is one thing we’ve never done,” he commented as his lips came to a rest upon my jaw.

“Discussed the weight of your awards and their potential use in bed?”

“No, I was mostly talking about becoming members of the mile high club.”

“Don’t tell me that’s on your bucket list.”

“I don’t have a bucket list, but if I did, it might make the list.”

“So many bigger things that you can accomplish.”

“Bigger, yes.” He kissed me quickly and slid his lips to the other side of my jaw. “Better, not so much.”

We took our time and I was sure that the smile never left his face. It wasn’t some quickie in the bathroom of a commercial airliner. That was something we never would have attempted. We were simply taking advantage of the fact that our plane had a bed that we could share. Frankly, we were just taking advantage of sharing a bed while we could, it just happened to be on a flight from Russia to Pittsburgh. Not everyone could be so lucky.

And there, with his lips and hands somehow covering every inch of my skin, no one was as lucky as I was.

We did what we could to readjust our sleeping patterns when we arrived home, though we had little time to do it. But Sidney wouldn’t be the only player in the league having that struggle. Many of them would. Some were separated by even more hours and would likely struggle more in the readjustment to the west. At least we were in the East.

But neither of us struggled in getting out of bed on the day of my ultrasound. He opted out of an optional skate that wound up being taken by only a few of the Pens, none of them needing to recover from the games or a time change. Most were just returning from short trips home or quick vacations they’d used to fill the two weeks.

He watched me as I drank several glasses of water at breakfast, his brow furrowed.

“Aren’t you going to have to pee?”

“Like a racehorse, but that’s the point.”

“Why?”

“Full bladder makes for better pictures and we want the best picture we can get.”

He shifted uncomfortably. It was only then that I noticed he was nervous. It wasn’t something that I saw often. Sid was a person who was usually deeply self-assured. But that was when it came to things he could control. His career and his game, those were things that he was confident in because he could always work and be better. But when he couldn’t control something or didn’t understand it, I could see him growing uncomfortable.

He picked at his breakfast before heading off to find a hat and leaving me to finish off my third glass of water. He returned with his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans, a cap pulled down over his eyes.

“You ready?” I asked.

He nodded slowly. “You?”

“Not even a little bit.”

I stood from my seat at the island, suddenly aware of just how full my bladder was. I took a deep breath and held my hand towards him. He bridged the gap between us and took his hands out of his pockets. He wove his fingers between mine and I could feel how clammy his palms were. I glanced towards him and he shrugged.

“I guess I’m a little nervous.”

“That makes two of us.”

He grabbed his keys and we piled into his SUV. He held my hand the whole drive into the city and to the doctor’s office. He parked in the back of the building and took us through the same side door we’d used when I’d had my first ultrasound. He was still carrying that picture in his wallet as it hadn’t returned to the refrigerator after we got back to the States.

I was chewing on my lip nervously and couldn’t concentrate on the magazine in my hands as we sat in the waiting room. There was another couple across the room, the eyes of the husband falling towards Sidney every few minutes. I saw him nudge his wife repeatedly. She glared, looked towards us, and slowly shook her head at the man next to her.

Sidney laughed under his breath, his eyes down on the magazine in his lap.

“What’s so funny?” I asked quietly, my hand resting on his arm.

The metal of his watch was cool against my fingertips as he shook his head gently from side to side. I narrowed my eyes and glanced back at the other couple. He was still trying not to stare at Sidney as his wife hissed at him from between clenched teeth.

“He’s trying to convince her to let him come ask for my autograph.”

He said it knowingly. He’d seen it hundreds of times. I’d seen it at more than a few at restaurants and even the grocery store. Generally it struck me as comical, the back and forth between a husband or boyfriend who really wanted to meet Sidney and a wife or girlfriend that didn’t want to be embarrassed by the man she was with.

That seemed to be the case of the other couple in the waiting room. They got called back to the room and he managed to nod in Sidney’s direction. Sid returned the gesture and waited until they were out of the room to chuckle softly.

“He could have just come over,” he muttered.

He closed the magazine he wasn’t reading and tossed it back onto the table next to him. I freed up my hands and intertwined my fingers with his on the armrests of the chairs we’d chosen in the corner of the room.

“You have to admit, it’s a strange place to approach a celebrity.”

He huffed at my use of the word.

“People take pictures of you with their cellphones in bars and health food stores. You’re a celebrity whether you like it or not. I just can’t blame her for putting her foot down on that one.”

“I have a feeling he was right not to argue.”

“Keep that in mind when I’m that pregnant.”

He laughed and pulled me to my feet as the tech came to retrieve us.

He didn’t let go of my hand as I settled on the table or when they spread the cold gel across my belly. I felt his grip tighten as the wand was pressed against my skin.

He’d reacted much the same way when I’d had my first sonogram. There hadn’t been much to see, a silhouette of a baby that was just beginning to develop. But it had been overwhelming. I’d seen the tears well in his eyes when we heard the heartbeat but I hadn’t mentioned it.

But that was nothing compared to his response when the image on the screen came into focus.

A lot had changed in the weeks since the first time we’d seen our baby. The young woman next to me didn’t have to point anything out on the screen because the image was clear enough we could tell. We could see spine and the features of a face that was becoming defined. A tiny hand was pulled close to the face of a baby that suddenly seemed very real in a way it hadn’t before.

His grip on my hand went slightly slack and I glanced in his direction. His eyes were glazed over as he stared at the screen.

“Wow.”

The technician smiled as she shifted the view, sliding the wand across my stomach.

The pressure a full bladder was forgotten. The couple from the waiting room may never have existed as far as I was concerned. I felt tears forming in the corners of my eyes.

“Did you want to know the sex or are we keeping it a surprise?” she asked softly.

Her voice seemed to jar Sidney out of his revelry.

“Um…”

“We want to know,” I said quietly.

She looked to Sidney for some form of confirmation, making sure we were on the same page. We were, for once in our marriage we were in total agreement. He managed to nod and I felt his grip tighten once again. I too held tighter.

“Well,” she said, shifting the wand slightly once again. “It looks to me like you’re going to be having a girl.”

My eyes shot to Sidney as his eyebrows rose in surprise.

Why we’d both been banking on a boy I couldn’t be sure, but we had been. It was unlikely that he’d even considered having a girl as a real option. He was a guy’s guy so why wouldn’t he have sons that would destroy our home and spend their time getting hurt?

I hadn’t thought much of it either. As soon as I’d settled into the idea of being pregnant, I’d spend most of our conversations trying to limit my use of masculine pronouns in reference to the baby. I’d been so sure and I’d been that way with no reasoning behind it.

We’d both been wrong.

“A girl,” he murmured.

It was a phrase he repeated every few minutes on the drive home. His disbelief never faded. He was as surprised as he got a bottle of water out of the refrigerator and sat down in the kitchen as he had been when she printed out the pictures of our daughter and handed them to Sidney.

He had his copy of the picture tucked in his wallet, mine wound up on the refrigerator where the initial image had been. The word ‘girl’ was printed at the top next to my name.

“A girl,” I repeated.

We hadn’t spoken much since leaving the office. I wasn’t sure either of us could form a clear thought until we were settled in back at home.

“Are you okay?” I asked after a while.

His eyes locked on mine. “Yeah. That being said, a little freaked out.”

“Me too.”

“Why were we so sure it was a boy?”

“I have no idea.”

Every idea either of us had had during our time plotting against each other in secret would be thrown out the window. I’d even had Sebastian helping me brainstorm ideas for a mural that I wanted to paint in the nursery. Those ideas would likely have to shift as well.

“Are you okay?” he asked after another moment of silence between us.

“I am. I think. I’m just…I don’t know…”

“I know the feeling.”

He placed his hand on top of mine. The warmth of his hand soothed my nerves slightly.

“We can stop saying ‘it’ and ‘the baby’ now. So that’s a plus.”

“She.”

“She,” he repeated as a small smile played at his lips.

“What?”

“Taylor is going to be psyched.”

“She really is. So is Nicole, she’ll spend all of her spare time buying tutu’s in various colors.”

He chuckled. “At least our daughter will be in good hands.”

His lips curled up as his mouth formed the words.

As afraid as I was of the challenges that a daughter could present, I could see that he was settling into the idea. It was an easier transition than I’d expected. Our baby, our little girl, was healthy and developing well. She was a healthy size and everything had been perfect on the scan. In the grand scheme, that was the only thing that mattered.

We would do our best, and Sidney was right, she would be in good hands with the people in our lives. We had good friends and wonderful family members and she would never be lacking in love from those people.

“Can you imagine my dad with a granddaughter?” he asked.

I chuckled. One of the reasons Taylor had taken up hockey was to have something in common with her father and I could only imagine how Troy was going to handle being the grandfather of a little girl. But I thought it would be good for him. He could do with some softening up. A little girl, especially if she ended up being a girly-girl, would do just that for him and I suddenly found myself looking forward to it.

“When should we tell people?” he asked.

I’d known for weeks that keeping it a secret of sorts had been driving him crazy. We knew that the team knew, but once I’d laid down the law at Christmas, no one had dared mention it in front of him. He wanted to share the news and now that we knew what we were having, he had even more to tell the people that he was closest to.

His teammates were his closest friends. There were guys back in Halifax and ones he’d played with in Rimouski, but he saw them seldom and they spoke only on rare occasions. He shared a dressing room and hotels with the guys he played with. They were brothers more than anything and he wanted them to know.

It was much like it had been when he was trying to keep me a secret. He’d done poorly and they’d all known that I existed. It was just my face that remained a mystery for the longest time. He deserved to tell them in the way that I wanted to tell my closest friends.

“I don’t see any reason to wait,” I replied. “Everything is good, nothing to really worry about. It won’t be long before they notice.”

Hell, it wouldn’t be long before the media noticed, especially after he’d so willingly shown me affection in the room back in Sochi. They’d have an eye on me just looking for a story. Eventually, they’d get one. But I didn’t want to think about that until it happened and I was sure that Sidney wouldn’t want to think about it either. I didn’t even consider bringing it up.

“So…” he said slowly. “You’d be okay with it if I actually talked to the guys about it tomorrow?”

“Do what you have to do, honey.”

He grinned.

It was a load off, one less thing that he had to think about all the time. He wouldn’t have to censor himself in the way that I knew he had been for weeks. I was sure he’d struggled with it less in Sochi. He knew his team there, but not in the way that he knew the team he’d been playing with for years. And then there was the staff to consider. He cherished his relationship with the people that he worked with and they knew him better than most people would assume.

I was glad to grant him that. Glad that we had a point to start from, a bit of news to give to the people that we loved. I could tell that he was relieved and for me that was more than enough to make me feel more comfortable with the challenges that were ahead of us.

He told his team the day of the Montreal game and they’d been nothing but happy for us. I spent my day fielding texts from wives that were glad the subject was no longer off limits. It wasn’t that they spent an inordinate amount of time discussing the personal lives of the Captain and his wife, but it was an interesting subject. He had teammates who had been convinced that he wouldn’t settle down even though he wanted to because he was married to the game. There were more than a few wives who spent time trying to set him up because they worried he’d wind up alone because he was too focused and too picky and didn’t realize it wasn’t good for him. They’d all been relieved to finally meet me, to know that Sidney wasn’t going to live his life alone because he’d realized he didn’t want to go through his life without me.

Now they had more to be happy about. Sidney, like so many others on the family oriented team, was going to be a father. It was another level that he could relate to his teammates on. But more than that, it gave him reason to ask others for their advice and not always be the once doling it out to the players around him. It would help him relate to his friends better off the ice.

We all had reason to be happy about that.

Still, when they invited us out to celebrate over dinner, Sidney turned them down. His arm was wrapped around my waist after he’d slipped back into his suit as we joined a few others in one of the back halls of Consol. He shook his head and said that he’d rather spend his last night in Pittsburgh at home with his family.

I couldn’t help but smile.

He stopped for takeout on the way home and once we were settled in on the sofa, we didn’t move much at all for the rest of the night.

It was my last shot at falling asleep in his arms for a while and I didn’t want anything to interrupt that. We turned off our phones and the tv and laid there in bed wrapped up in each other. We didn’t need to speak but every few minutes his lips would brush mine until we both drifted off to sleep. It was much better than dinner with the team and their wives as there was nowhere in the world I would have rather been in that moment.

They left the next day for Chicago and it wasn’t long before I was on my way as well. My father and Taylor were already at the hotel when I arrived in the city. Troy and Trina wouldn’t be far behind and we would all be seated together at the outdoor game.

Sidney slipped away from the team that evening and took us to dinner as a family. I could tell that he’d pulled some strings, getting us seated in a back room of the restaurant, but I didn’t see fit to complain. If he wanted a little privacy, I couldn’t blame him. It would save on awkward exchanges with others and I could tell that wasn’t something he wanted to field when he had so little time to spend with us.

We didn’t talk about the game that would be played the next night. And much to my surprise, Troy didn’t bring it up. He didn’t mention the stats of either team or what the commentators were saying about the chances of the boys or their opponents. He seemed perfectly content in carrying on a normal conversation with his family.

We ordered dessert and even Sidney agreed to share my cheesecake.

It wasn’t until he pulled his wallet out of his pocket to pay that we mentioned anything about my appointment earlier in the week. But he smiled as he took the picture out of his wallet and handed it across the table to his father.

It took Troy a moment to respond and when he did it wasn’t with words. He simply looked across the table and made eye contact with his son.

“A lot clearer than the last one, huh dad?” Sidney said; his arm draped casually over my shoulders as he took another bite of the cheesecake on the table between us.

“Much.”

“When did you have it done?” Trina asked.

“We went on Wednesday,” I said quietly. “It wasn’t quite time for it when he left for Russia and I didn’t want to go without him. So we waited until we were home.”

Sidney reached across the table and tapped the words across the top of the image.

Trina looked quickly and smiled. “A girl?”

“So it seems.”

He was still smiling. I hadn’t seen him quite so at ease in a long time. I was glad to see it, to feel the way that his thick muscles were loose and not pulled tight out of stress and worry. He was looking forward to the rest of the season as it moved forward and he was ready for us to look ahead in our lives. He was ready to be a father, completely accepting of what lay ahead. His ease made me feel safer than I’d imagined I could. I no longer worried the way I had. I didn’t have anything to fret over and it made things between us better than they had been since we’d said our vows the previous summer.

Taylor squealed slightly and demanded the image.

“You can’t keep it,” Sidney warned. “That one is mine.”

Even Troy let out a quiet laugh at the warning tone.

He wasn’t lying. It only left his wallet when he chose to show someone and while it had made its rounds in the dressing room at Consol, it wasn’t going to be far from him at any point in time. He preferred to have it tucked safely away where he knew he could always find it.

She stuck her tongue out at her older brother and he laughed in return. “I can see the baby,” she mused. “But how can they tell it’s a girl?”

“It’s more about what they don’t see than what they do,” my father replied.

She nodded in understanding and handed the picture to him. We gave them all a moment before Sidney reached forward to take the image back and put it back where it belonged.

“So, I’m the godmother, right?” Taylor asked with a grin.

Sid shook his head.

“Am I in the running?”

He shrugged.

“Oh come on!” she complained. “Who better than her Auntie Taylor?”

“I can think of a view,” he quipped.

“You two,” Troy muttered.

I couldn’t help but laugh as they went back and forth. They were just playing, teasing one another.

“We’ll just see what happens,” I said through my laughter.

We didn’t stay out late and Sidney returned to the team hotel after pulling me aside for one last kiss. It had to last until he was back at home and that wouldn’t be for another ten days. We’d see him briefly on game day, but there wouldn’t be much personal time and I wasn’t banking on us getting any time alone.

I knew he wouldn’t kiss me again like he had in Sochi. That had been a one-off. I would just have to keep the thought of his lips on mine fresh until they got back from the road. It wasn’t like I hadn’t done it before and at least I knew where he would be and he’d never be quite as far as he had during the games.

We would make it work just like every other family in the NHL did.

It was my first time watching Sidney play outdoors aside from my viewings of the Winter Classic on television. But that had been different. Then, I was just a fan. Now, watching him play carried a different weight and watching him play in such a big game with such an enormous crowd was something to behold.

I tried not to think, letting the roar of the crowd drown out any of my worries. I didn’t want to think about the way his head had snapped back when he’d taken a shoulder to the side of the skull. I didn’t want to think about the fact that they last time he’d been on the ice outdoors it had run the distinct risk of ending his career.

But Sidney was well past thinking about such things. He didn’t worry about the physicality of the game. He didn’t spend his time worrying about his head or his jaw or any other part of him that he risked during every game he played. He worried about taking the chances he got, about making the plays the way he was expected to. He worried about his game, not his health.

I just assumed that as his wife, it was my job to worry about his health more than he did. I could remember my mother being that way with my father. He’d been the cardiologist and she’d been the one to warn him about his cholesterol when he dug into the biggest steak on the menu of a restaurant.

But I didn’t want to worry.

I wanted to enjoy the game.

It was hard not to while flanked by a few of my favorite people. My father was to my left and Taylor to my right. Trina was wringing her hands, apparently as nervous as I felt but I tried not to spend too much time looking at her. She’d be fine once he got his first shift out of the way and we wouldn’t have to wait long as he started the game against Chicago’s top line.

They played their asses off from beginning to end but they didn’t walk away with the win.

We saw him briefly that night. A few players and the wives that had made it to Chicago went out for dinner before the guys got ready to leave the next morning. There were congratulations from some of his teammates that I hadn’t seen the night of his initial announcement, but the conversation quickly turned to other things.

Rumor had it that Geno and Oksana were on the outs but no one was sure why. Vero laughed brightly as the story came to light. She, like me, wasn’t Oksana’s biggest fan and had long grown tired of the way they were on and off. No one dared ask if their together or not together battles were a part of the way Geno seemed to stall when he was stressed. But we all knew it was a question that could be answered. He didn’t play as well when he was stressed out and more often than not, their relationship seemed to be the cause of his rough patches.

It was the only real gossip we focused on that night. Other conversations turned to the way that Kody Dupuis’ team was performing and how big Alexander Letang had gotten since we’d all seen him last. Sidney wrapped an arm around my waist as his teammates and their wives discussed their families.

For a long time he’d spent most of his time with the younger guys, the ones that weren’t married and didn’t have kids or the new guys that hadn’t brought their families with them. Mostly it had been because he wasn’t sure how to respond to the way they talked about their families. But he had a family of his own and his view was changing. Soon, he’d be able to tell stories about our daughter and somewhere down the line there would be sports and activities and other kids to talk about.

He could listen with a sense of ease that he hadn’t had before and I was more interested in watching him listen than I was in listening myself.

He’d found a niche within his team that he hadn’t expected to have.

As a player, he never felt like he was on the outside. He was the one who saw the game better than anyone, the one who thought of very little aside from his sport. But he hadn’t had the same comfort socially no matter how close he was with his teammates.

Then he’d met me and he was suddenly one of the guys with a girlfriend to talk about and dates to go on that weren’t set up by someone else or doomed to fail from the start. That had grown when we’d gotten married and he’d been able to talk to the other married guys on the team when things didn’t seem to be going right. He’d finally been in a place to ask for advice every once in a while. But he still hadn’t quite found his place.

But he was there now. He was going to be a father and the stories about long nights with no sleep and sick kids would finally truly hit home. He was going to understand why his teammates had changed when they brought their children home from the hospital, why suddenly their outlook on life and the game at shifted.

There was finally something in his life, possibly a few things, that outranked his sport by a wide margin. There was no contest. I could see it in his eyes.

Sidney was a hockey player, but that was his profession. It didn’t have to be his identity and now that he knew that was the case, he was finally truly at ease. And in his suddenly relaxed state, I found myself calmer than I’d ever been.

We were both ready to take on whatever life could throw at us.

At least we thought we were.