“I don’t know what’ll be worse for them. Me in the flesh and blood or me as a ghost.”
She laughs. I don’t.
“Oh, come on, sweetie.” She reaches for my hand. “The only way to get through this is to laugh. If we lose laughter, we lose everything.”
“I just don’t like thinking about you not being here.”
I rub my nose to avoid sniffling, but it happens anyway.
“They told me five years ago that I wasn’t going to make it to Christmas.” She places her hand on my cheek, allowing me to lean into it. “I’ve witnessed four Christmases since then… and I plan on witnessing my fifth this year.”
“And every Christmas after.”
“I gotta go at some point.”
“Not until I’ve played my first game with the Red Wings… and gotten married… and had kids. Got it?”
I feel the tears welling in my eyes as she brushes her thumb against my cheek.
“Got it.”
You’re one of fourteen kids?” Ember stares at Fletcher as if he told her he was born with a tail.
“Yeah.” He laughs because his large family is normal to the rest of us. “Four older siblings and nine younger siblings.”
“Wow,” she takes a bite of her food, “I don’t know how your moms did it. I mean, my mom could barely handle my brother and me.”
Ember’s almost exactly how I remember her. The same light ivory skin from spending most of her childhood indoors, same dark-blonde hair, except now it’s longer, making it easier to cover her face.
Except she’s not covering her face. That’s new. The few times she came to our games to support her brother, her hair was down, hiding her face from the crowd. Or she was in a hoodie, even when it was too warm for one.
But today, it’s like she doesn’t care.
We’ve technically all known Ember for years. It’s hard not to know her when you play hockey with her brother, but we neverreallyknew her. She always seemed like a figment of our imagination; the second you took your eyes off of her, she’d disappear.
But today, she stuck around.
Kicked my ass a few times atNHL 17too.
You would think it’d be easy to beat her since I actually play the game of hockey, but she kicked my ass three times before Brinley got us for dinner.
“I don’t know how they did it either,” Fletcher replies. “I guess they never planned for all of us kids, though. Both of my moms’ had 2 kids from previous relationships, then they had me and my sister through a donor, and slowly, the rest of the family came.”
“His moms were foster parents,” Declan chimes in. “They always tried their hardest to help kids get back to their birth parents, but sometimes it just wasn’t possible.”
“They never planned on adopting any of the kids they were fostering, but most of them weren’t babies, so—”
“Not many people would consider adopting them,” Ember says. “So, your moms did.”
“In many ways, they were already a part of the family; a piece of paper just made it legally official.” Fletcher sits back in his chair.
“I don’t want to be that person, but did you ever,” Ember sighs, “did you ever get upset that they did that?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “They always asked us before they considered fostering more kids, and we knew there was a chance it would turn into more. I don’t know who I’d be if I didn’t have all of them.”
“And by the time Fletcher was in Kindergarten, his older siblings were in college, anyway. So, the house wasn’ttoocrowded,” I pat Fletcher on the back.
“Your moms sound pretty amazing.” Ember smiles.