There’s going to be an ice hockey game. Beartown Ice Hockey against Hed Hockey. The rest of the country is barely aware that it’s taking place; no one cares except for here. But here everyone cares.
Some people can’t understand things unless they’ve experienced them for themselves. The overwhelming majority of the world’s population will live their whole lives in the belief that a hockey game is just a hockey game. That it’s just a silly game. That it doesn’t mean anything.
They’re in a fortunate position. They don’t have to go through all this.
* * *
What would you do for your family? What wouldn’t you do?
* * *
Hog has never had any business cards, but if he did, there would be four things on it: “Hockey player. Car mechanic. Father of three. Ann-Katrin’s husband.” She still sings in his head, she still dances on his feet, he’s never going to let her stop. He finishes work in the garage, just like on a normal day, even though things will never be normal again. When he goes into the house, Bobo, his eldest, is washing the dishes. It was Bobo who went to the undertaker’s and organized the funeral and cremation. Then he came to grips with everything else. There’s food on the table, the younger kids are already eating, and Bobo has done the laundry. Everything his mom used to do. Hog gulps hard when he sits down at the table, so that the younger children won’t see him shatter. Then he says to Bobo, “You should go and play in the game.”
Bobo whispers, “I’m needed here . . . I’ve still got washing and—”
“Harry Potter!” his little brother says, even though his sister hushes him.
“Yes, I’ll read some Harry Potter tonight. Like I always do,” Bobo promises, blinking as he stares down at the washing-up bowl.
Hog chews, directing his own blinking at his plate. “This is good. Really good.”
“Thanks,” Bobo whispers.
They say no more until the younger children have gone to brush their teeth. Then Hog gets up, washes his plate, and hugs Bobo as he whispers an order in his ear: “I can read that damn Barry Trotter tonight. It’s about time I learned how to. You hear what I’m saying?”
Bobo nods silently. Hog holds his cheeks and says, “You and I are going to get through this, because Mom will never forgive us otherwise. So go and play your game now, because Mom’ll be watching from wherever she is. Not even God or the angels or whatever else there may be could stop her watching her eldest son’s first game on the Beartown A-team!”
* * *
Bobo packs his bag. When he walks out of the door, Hog expects the other children to beg and plead to be allowed to go, too. But they don’t. Instead they stand on the steps with their hockey sticks and a tennis ball and ask, “Do you want to play, Dad?”
* * *
So Hog watches his eldest son go off to his first A-team game, and then he plays hockey with his two younger children in the garage. They struggle and sweat and chase the ball for hours. As if it were the only thing that mattered. Because it is, at that moment. And that’s the whole point.
* * *
What would you do for your family?
* * *
Peter Andersson goes from room to room in the house before he sets out from home. Kira is sitting in the kitchen with her laptop and a glass of wine.
“Do you want to come to the game?” he asks without much hope.
“I need to work,” she replies, predictably.
They look into each other’s eyes. At least they do that. He moves on and knocks on the door to Maya’s room. “Do you . . . I . . . I’m going to the game now,” he whispers.
“I have to study, Dad. Good luck!” she calls from the other side of the door.
Mother and daughter say that because it makes things easier for him. They’re giving him a chance to pretend that everything’s fine. He knocks on Leo’s door, too, but Leo isn’t home. He’s already gone to Hed. He’s planning to watch the game from the standing area.
* * *
Peter knows he should stop him. Punish his son. But how do you do that when all you’ve ever done is nag your son to go to hockey games with you?
* * *
Ana is standing in front of the mirror trying to choose an outfit. She has no idea how she ought to look. She’s been to a thousand hockey games but never one where Vidar has been playing. It’s a stupid fantasy, but she wants him to turn toward the stands and catch sight of her. And realize that she’s there for his sake.
Her dad is stumbling about in the kitchen downstairs. He knocks something over, then something else. She hears him swear. It aches so deeply in her, all his drinking. She throws on some clothes without picking them as carefully as she planned, because she wants to be out of the house before her dad gets so drunk that he needs help. She doesn’t want to let the bad version of him steal this game from her. Not today.
He calls out to her when she reaches the door, and her first thought is to pretend she hasn’t heard him, but something in his voice brings her up short. It’s too clear, too steady—it’s unusual. She turns around. Her dad has showered and combed his hair and is wearing a clean shirt. The kitchen behind him has been tidied up. There are bottles in the recycling bin, and he’s tipped their contents down the sink.
“Have a good time at the game. Do you need any money?” he asks tentatively.
She looks at her good dad for a long time. The bad one seems so far away right now. “How are you feeling?” she whispers.
“I want to try again,” he whispers back.
He’s said that before. It doesn’t stop her believing him. She hesitates for just a moment, then says, “Do you feel like going for a walk?”
“Aren’t you going to the game?”
“I’d rather go for a walk with you, Dad.”
* * *
So that’s what they do. While two whole towns head to a hockey game, a father and his daughter go for a walk in the forest that has always been theirs. Him, her, and the trees. A family.
* * *
Bobo cycles through Beartown carrying an invisible backpack of stone. He arrives late at the pickup spot, but no one seems to care, and Zackell hardly seems to notice that he’s turned up. Amat sits next to Bobo on the team bus to Hed but doesn’t know what to say. So they say nothing.
The parking lot in front of Hed’s ice rink is full of people, and there are lines even though there’s still a long time before the game starts. The rink is going to be full, the towns are in an uproar, the hate has had plenty of time to grow. This is going to be war. The bus is silent. All the players are wrestling with their own demons.
Only when the A-team members have gotten off the bus and gone into the hall, along the corridor, and into the locker room and are all sitting down does one of the older players get to his feet. He walks over to Bobo with a roll of tape in his hand.
“What was your mom’s name?” the older player asks.
Bobo looks up in surprise. Swallows hard. “My mom? Ann . . . Ann-Katrin. Her name is . . . her name was . . . Ann-Katrin.”
“With a ‘K’ or a ‘C’?” the older player asks.
“?‘K,’?” Bobo whispers.
The older player writes “Ann-Katrin” on a strip of tape. He sticks it onto the sleeve of Bobo’s jersey. Then he repeats the process and fastens the tape onto his own sleeve. The roll of tape passes silently around the locker room. Bobo’s mom’s name is on every arm.
* * *