Chapter 32: The Whole Family

A year ago the room had voted twenty-two to nothing, and Ty wore the gold C again.

He had sewn the framed patch back on himself, badly, at our kitchen table.

Now the Ironmen had made the final, and nobody in Cleveland believed it until the last second of game six.

I watched it from section 101, row A, in the first seat on the aisle.

The laminated pass hung around my neck.

It said FAMILY, in Ty's handwriting, because he had refused to let the team print anyone else's.

Shelby sat on my left in a navy jersey that said DOLAN 17 with ELI'S MAMA stitched under it.

Pete sat on my right, with a beard he had combed for the occasion.

My daughter was on my lap, thirteen months old, in a tiny jersey of her own.

She was chewing on the number.

"Mama Lena," Eli said, from the seat on the other side of Shelby, "he's got the puck."

"I see him."

"He's going to score."

"Don't jinx him."

"I can't jinx him," Eli said. "I'm a good luck charm. Dad said."

He tugged his left earlobe twice.

I felt my own hand go up to my ear, and I laughed and let it.

With nine seconds left, the Ironmen were up one, and the Wolves had pulled their goalie.

The whole arena stood.

Ty took the face-off and won it clean, and the puck went to the wall, and a defenseman cleared it down the ice.

The horn blew.

The building came apart.

I held my daughter up in the noise, and she squealed and bounced, and Shelby grabbed my arm and screamed into my shoulder.

Pete was crying and not hiding it.

Down on the ice, the players dog-piled on their goalie.

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