A week had passed since Eva and Pavel had come to us. Parenting three children was much different than parenting one. Pavel woke up every night with bad dreams, which meant that Eva and Noah also woke up because Pavel was crying so loudly. Erik would comfort Noah, Mama would counsel Eva, and I would try to calm Pavel. Seven days of such fractured sleep did not do wonders for our performance on the ice. Erik had taken to falling asleep in the whirlpool after practice. Coach Madsen found me once napping at my cubicle, my pads and skates on, just lacking my sweater. I’d been in the process of wrapping my wrists with tape, the tape dangling from my left wrist when Coach had tapped me on the shoulder.
I snapped awake, shouted something to my mother in Russian, and then blinked when my teammates all laughed at me. A blush crept into my cheeks.
“Go home and sit on celery,” I told the chuckling baboons. They only laughed harder.
So yes, three children were much harder than one at night. Also, now that Eva and Pavel were beginning to settle in, they’d started bickering. It had been nothing big at first, but then simple things would set them off, or more honestly set Eva off. One moment she was carrying her baby brother through the house, singing to him in Russian; the next she was slamming her door in his face and calling him a crusty butthole, which made him cry. I planned to speak with Galina about Eva’s up-and-down moods before we ran to the new counselor Sacha had set up for the family. He explained that part of the process was to ensure the children were adapting well. Then there was schooling to set up, but we needed a nanny first. How we wished Noah’s old babysitter was available, but she had gone back to college. Even though she’d not spoken Russian, her help would have been valuable, and Noah knew her. Our sweet rabbit was not his usual self with so many strangers in his house. One who cried often, and the other who slammed doors and called people crusty buttholes.
A puck slapped me in the helmet, right above my eyes. It startled me but didn’t hurt too much. I snapped back to our morning skate, eyeing the men at center ice.
“Who hit me in the forehead with a puck? I am not ready yet for making star saves. I have not had talk with pipes yet, and my brain is slippery slow. Who shoot this at my face?!” I yelled because now my head was aching a little, and I was mad at myself for thinking of nanny things when I was in net. “Tell me! I am no making jokes. I will find who shoot me in the head, and I will sit on your face until you pass out from bad goalie pants on nose!”
The large huddle of men parted, and there, in a white no-contact jersey, was Ten.
“Yeah, that was maybe kind of me,” Ten called.
I threw the puck aside and skated from the net, arms open, and grabbed my best friend up from his skates. He made a squeaking sound. I kissed both his cheeks, patted his face with my glove, and rubbed his head gently with my blocker.
“Is so good for you coming back! Is head good?” I left my catching mitt on his head as I spoke.
“Dude, my head is really extra good.” Tennant laughed, reaching up to move my mitt from his helmet. I stared at him, into his eyes, and poked him in the belly. He gasped at the poke.
“Okay, is just making sure doctors are making right call.” I patted his back, then pointed my blocker at the rest of the Railers. “No one makes hits on Tennant.”
“We know what the no-contact jersey means, Stan. We’re not assholes,” Dieter said, shoving at me playfully, then skating back to the bench.
“Well, you kind of are D,” Adler threw out.
The men chortled and nudged each other with shoulders and elbows as they all returned to the bench for a drink. I held on to Tennant’s arm for a moment.
He turned big green eyes up to me. “What’s up, bruh?”
“I have two new children now. They are here, in America. Eva and Pavel Lyamin. I would be much honored if you and Jared would come over for dinner soon, so to meet your godchildren.”
The happy-go-lucky smile on Ten’s face slipped. He cleared his throat and held out a gloved fist. “It would be an incredible privilege to come meet Eva and Pavel, but, dude, are you sure you want me as their godfather? Don’t you want someone older? Like with more kid experience? Someone like Jared?”
“No,” I said as I rapped his gloved fist with mine. “You are my dearest best friend. You take me into wing when English was bad and teach me groovy cool words. You join me into the Pokémon group, make me feel like member of team. You are brother I never have. And I would only ever ask a family member to be godfather of my most precious possessions.”
Ten blinked, then dragged the back of his glove across his eyes. “You honor me, my man. I am totally there for you and those kids.” He hugged me hard, kissed me on the cheeks, just as we did in Russia, and then skated off, his arm dropping around Erik, to chat and joke.
God blessed me many times over by bringing my Erik back to me, then giving me a wonderful, inclusive team and adding three beautiful children to my bounty. Oh, and Mama and Galina of course, and even Arvy, who was a good brother-in-law. He had better be. The first time my sister comes to me crying, his liver will be plucked out by vultures in hot desert. I know people who can make liver plucking happen.
The following Sunday we had an afternoon game, a matinee, which was good because Erik and I could be home for the nighttime routine before we left for a five-game Canadian road trip. Tonight, we would sit down with the children for spaghetti and meatballs and tell them that we were going away but only for a short time. We also had to explain to Eva that Sacha had found us a tutor and a nanny. The nanny, Anna Sanarov was a smiling woman with red hair who would begin the morning we left for Toronto. I wanted to call her Red, like the Russian redhead in the woman’s prison show, but Erik vehemently objected. I liked Anna, and so did Erik. Also, Mama approved. That was most important, for Mama ruled the house. We two men thought we did, but no, Mama did.
Sacha was still working with us, but we saw less of him now. That wasn’t a bad thing for me as he was very handsome and manly, and I worried Erik’s head might be taken with him.
The tutor, a slim Russian/American man by the name of Professor Peter Minkoff, who was retired, would start tomorrow. He would ease the children into a school-like routine while teaching them English so they could go to public schools. Pavel was having trouble learning any new words, and I wondered if he were even trying. I suspected he clung to Russian, as it kept him close to his guardian and all he had left behind. Or perhaps I was far off base. I was no child psychiatrist. I was only a man who played hockey.
Which was what I should be thinking on now. The current game against Philadelphia had been a slow one. Philly had been traveling and had come into our city late last night. They were tired and not nearly as gritty as usual. Our team was well rested but sluggish. Maybe the lethargy of the Philly team had infected the Railers. I couldn’t say, but neither goalie was working too hard. Weak shots on goal, no net front presence, and a tight defense left me standing there thinking about meatballs. Then the tide turned quickly when one of the Philadelphia forwards skated into our zone after an icing had been whistled the other end of the ice. He slapped the puck into the net.
“Hey, fish-face asshole, what is with that shit dick move?” I shouted at the man in orange, then spun to fish the puck out of my net. My teammates took offense, as they should have. That was an unwritten rule of the game. There were many, such as take off your gloves before a fight, don’t ice the goalie, never turtle during a fight, always try to get your teammate that third goal, heavyweights fight heavyweights, and you never shoot the puck on the net after the whistle blows. There are more, but those are a few. And fish-face asshole had shot the puck on the net after the whistle.
Dieter got right up into fish-face’s space, shoving him into the boards while reminding him that his behavior had been tacky. I think his exact words were, “Yo, shit for brains, what the fuck was that bullshit?!” but the fans at home were making so much noise I might have misheard.
The knot of players to my right spiced things up like hot chili peppers. The next ten minutes were lively, and we managed to grab a win with a sloppy goal that Adler deflected into the Philly net with less than forty-seconds left on the clock. I got many head pats and forehead bonks on the ice. Erik rubbed my helmet in a special way that meant something romantic just between us.
We hurried home to Hershey two hours later. I opened the front door, and the smell of garlic and the sound of children talking filled our home. I looked over at Erik as we stripped off our coats in the foyer.
“Listen to that. That is the sound of a happy house,” I said and then stole a kiss, a good one too; one that left him pink in the cheeks and short of breath. “Come, let us do dinner time!”
I led him past the living room—which was covered in toys and dogs—to the kitchen. Lucy, my cat, was the first to see me, and she ran over to rub on my legs. Noah spotted us from the floor, where he and Pavel were seated with blocks. Eva was chattering at Mama while they worked on a tossed salad.
“Da! Pa!” Noah shrieked and threw himself at Erik. I got a loud kiss from Noah, then he padded over to kneel beside Pavel. “Blocks for dagoons fall over! We make towers for dagoons, Da. Da, cat throw up mouse head. Gam say Rush words at Lucy. I say Rush words for Lucy. Meatballs! Meatballs! Meatballs!”
“What are we making here?” I asked in Russian.
He placed a block on top of the wobbly stack he and Noah had built. “Tall towers for dragons to sit on,” the boy replied, peeking up at me through unruly dark bangs.
I ruffled his hair and placed a tiny plastic purple dragon on the top of the tower. Pavel gave me a shy little smile that made my heart expand. I then stood, smiling at Eva, who smiled back. Mama barked at me to set the table, and I snapped to attention, giving her a salute that made Eva giggle.
Once we were all seated—Noah strapped into his booster seat—Mama made a fast prayer, and then we started eating.
“Meatball! Da, me like meatballs,” Noah announced after getting his dish readied by Erik and placed before him.
“Children, we have things to tell you,” I shouted over the chitter-chatter of three kids and my mother, who seemed to talk steadily now that she had three children and two men to keep in line. She was always telling someone something.
Eva and Pavel looked up, Pavel with spaghetti strands dangling from his lips that he sucked up with a slurp, making Noah laugh. Noah then sucked a strand, and Pavel giggled. That went on for a few moments, with Eva even getting in on the slurping fun until Mama gently chided them not to be rude.
“Erik and I are going to Canada for a long trip for hockey.” I said it in Russian for the two oldest. Noah was too busy slurping and smashing meatballs with his fingers. Also, he was used to us traveling. Eva blinked. Pavel stopped eating and stared at me as if he’d been struck. “Long, like eleven days, little ones,” I quickly said.
Some of the panic left their faces. “You come back?” Pavel asked in terribly fractured English, his eyes darting from me to Erik.
“Yes, of course,” Erik said, reaching over the table to pat Pavel’s thin arm tenderly. “You’ll always have someone here who loves and protects you. We promise that. Your new babushka will be here all the time and Aunt Galina in the evening. And the new nanny, Anna, and Professor Pete. You’ll never be left alone ever again.”
I translated for the wary young boy with the trembling lower lip. Once he understood, he relaxed and went back to slurping Mama’s zesty spaghetti. I reached under the table and gave my man’s thick thigh a squeeze.
I loved my Erik so much at that moment. Just when I thought I could not love him more, he did something so wonderful that my affection for him tripled yet again. Such a wonderful family we had. Life was nearly perfect. I just wanted one small little thing to happen, and then all would be magical.