I’d had enough of crying for a while—hers, my own, and everyone else’s, too. Dad wouldn’t cry over this—not in front of his teammates, at least—so I should be safe from tears for a bit as long as I could escape Mom’s hovering and get to him. Dad played pro hockey for the Portland Storm. Game-day skates weren’t open to the general public, but Mom and I didn’t count as part of the public around here. We were family. Ever since I’d started chemotherapy treatments for my leukemia a few weeks ago, the Storm’s general manager and coaching staff had been allowing me to come and watch the closed practices in addition to the off-day practices. Mom always came with me. Sometimes it seemed as though she believed she could make me better just by being with me, which was ridiculous. Even these awful drugs might not make me better, so how could she? I wasn’t exactly going to keel over and die while she wasn’t looking, but she didn’t like to let me out of her sight these days, as if she needed the physical reminder to know I was still alive.
