4. Chapter 4

Am I curious how long it will take Cassie to walk across the field with those long legs of hers, carrying her target, bucket of balls, and golf club in her arms?

A little.

Do I give into that curiosity and watch her until she drives away?

A little.

But only for strictly mathematical reasons. So I allow myself one good look to calculate how long her steps are, how wide the field is, and how many steps she'll need to cross it.

Because I cannot calculate how to keep her from buying Grandpa's auto shop.

I tried to be polite to her—at least more polite than yesterday. She's just so infuriating. Maybe if she weren't, my joke about her not hitting the target would have landed better. I wouldn't haven't sounded so irritated when I said it.

Or maybe not. The woman has no sense of humor. Or sympathy.

Cassie doesn't care that if she buys the shop, the team I've fostered and grown from four girls to over a dozen won't have a place to practice anymore. That fact should tug at Cassie's heartstrings—if she had any. She doesn't.

"Coach Bear!" Aspen calls in a voice that's both demanding and pleading. "Can you help me with my skates, pleeeease?"

Brighton, Aspen's twin, quickly follows with, "Me too!"

Then half a dozen other girls join in.

"Girls… girls…" My words get lost in Molly's barks and the girls' loud complaints about how hard it is to tie their skates, and questions about why there's no closer place than the shop for them to put all their gear on.

"GIRLS!" I put my fingers to my lips and whistle.

Everything goes still and suddenly half a dozen pairs of frightened eyes—including Molly's—are glued to me. Heat creeps up my neck. I clear my throat while searching for what to say next.

My sister, Britta, is always reminding me that my voice can be scary. I don't mean it to be. I just say what's on my mind, and sometimes it comes out kind of loud.

Not sometimes. All the time.

Before she started losing her memory, Mom used to say I was born with a bullhorn instead of a voice box. When I got embarrassed after saying something too loud, she'd tell me to give myself time; I'd figure out why God gave my gift to me and how I could use it.

I figured out at least one reason for my "gift" two years ago when I started coaching the four girls who first joined my team. Once they got used to my loud voice, they stopped freezing every time they thought I was yelling and started following my directions. When they're on the ice, they can hear me through their helmets and over the noise of the skates, sticks, and pucks. My voice is an asset.

The eight girls who are new to the team this year—bringing our total to almost every ten-year-old girl in Paradise—however, still go wide-eyed with fear whenever I speak above a whisper.

"I told you," I say as softly as possible—for me, anyway. "To be on the team, you need to be able to tie your own skates."

I told their parents, too. The problem is, the girls have to gear up in the apartment. Their parents help them with that, but the girls can't put skates on until they get to the ice. For the first few practices, parents walked their kids out to the bench and helped them get their skates tied. But most of the moms and dads didn't know how to tie them properly, so I ended up doing it over, anyway.

I guess that sent the message I'd take over skate tying, so now they just send the girls out to the bench after helping them suit up. Other than a wooden bench I built and lugged out here a few weeks ago to replace the old, rotting one, there's nowhere for parents to sit and watch. And nobody wants to hang out in the cold watching me teach kids basic skating skills. We haven't really gotten to the hockey part yet.

"I'm working on getting approval for an outdoor shelter next to our rink," I tell the girls. That's also in the proposal I'm waiting for the city council to look at.

I want the shelter big enough to have concessions and enough seating for people to watch the games. But the shop has to be torn down for that. There's not enough room for parking, significant green space, and my shelter if the shop stays.

I have the girls' attention, so I continue. "Then you'll be able to get uniforms and skates on in one place. Until then, let's make the best of what we've got." Because, unless my proposal gets approved, we may not even have the little we have for much longer. Especially if Cassie buys the shop.

I try a smile, which works as well as the tone I thought was gentler. But the new girls' eyes are remain wide and unsure if I'm mad.

I quickly add an "Okay?" to soften my words.

"Okay, Coach Bear. We can make the best of our situation, right girls?" Hazel, the self-appointed captain of my little ragtag team of ten-year-old girls, looks at the others, who all nod in agreement.

I breathe a sigh of relief and send Hazel a grateful smile. "Right, then. Line up on the bench and I'll get your skates done up. Janie, can you give me a hand and start at the opposite end?"

Janie is the one girl who knows what she's doing, and the main reason for this team. Britta saw the same fire in Janie that she had at her age. The difference is, Britta never got to play hockey. That's why she got me to start this team—to give girls the opportunity she didn't have.

I started coaching because of Britta. The passion I've developed for this unpaid job, on the other hand, is all on me. I don't know how it happened, but I love teaching these girls about hockey. Not just because I'm the one giving them an opportunity they wouldn't otherwise have. This isn't about me. Watching these girls improve on and off the ice is inspiring. The skills they learn here increase their confidence in every other aspect of their lives.

There's not enough room for all the girls on the bench, so a few stand as Janie and I tie skates at opposite ends of the bench, working our way to the middle.

"Don't open that, Cora," I say to the blonde girl who's prying open the door on the emergency box staked next to the bench.

"What's in here?" she asks as the door opens. "What's this rope and other stuff for?"

"It's to rescue anyone who falls through the ice. Don't take anything out of there!" I'm frazzled, trying to get skates tied and keep girls focused and don't notice they all go quiet until Hazel says, "We could fall through the ice?"

I look up to twelve pairs of wide eyes staring at me. I sigh. "No one is falling through the ice because no one is going on the ice unless it's safe. And you'll know it's safe because I check it before each practice and you're not going on the ice unless I'm here with you and I tell you it's safe. Got it?"

They all nod somberly. I know I've given their parents these instructions. I assumed it was their responsibility to tell their kids, but apparently I need to make sure I reiterate rules about safety when I have them.

"Who's that lady you were talking to, Coach?" Hazel breaks the silence when I lean down to double check the laces on her skates.

"You did pretty good here, Hazel," I say, avoiding her eyes and her question. "But remember, tuck the lace through three times to get a tight winch that won't come untied."

I show her again with the other girls watching. When we started, most of the girls wore old figure skates. Then Georgia and Zach donated some money for pads, sticks, and other equipment. That helped convince more parents to not only let their daughters join the team but also pony up for skates and uniforms. Everything was moving in the right direction until the girls voted on Paradise Squirrels for the team's name.

I'm not really excited about that mascot, but at least they chose blue and red for the uniform colors. Pink and purple were their second choice, so things could have been a lot worse. No one is intimidated by a pink squirrel.

I wish every hurdle I faced with this team were as easy to clear as the equipment and uniforms had been. I thought those would be the hardest, but now we might lose our rink, and that's a much bigger issue. This is where I learned to skate and play hockey. The pond has always been here. I thought it always would be.

But with all the development in Paradise over the past few years, land is too valuable to let it sit like Lynette Baker's done with this ground she inherited from her parents. It used to be farmland, but she didn't want to farm it. Everyone in Paradise uses the empty fields and the old irrigation pond for recreation. They have for as long as I can remember.

About a month ago, Zach let me know Lynette planned to sell her fields and this irrigation pond with them. I wanted to be mad at him for encouraging her to sell, but it's the smart thing to do. She'll need the money as she ages, and she'll get a lot for the ground.

I may be scared to go in front of the city council to speak, but Lynette is easy to talk to. I do it all the time. So I had no problem when she put her land up for sale asking her to hold off putting up the pond acreage until the city council decides about my eminent domain proposal. Either way, she'll get money for the pond, although a little less from the city. But she was okay with that, especially when I told her my team was named for her squirrels.

Since Grandpa's property line goes almost all the way to Lynette's pond, I can't build a shelter without it. But the parcel isn't big enough to meet setback requirements for two structures and too small to be split into two parcels—at least that's how Zach explained the local zoning laws.

The shop isn't worth maintaining. It's far enough from the pond that spectators don't have a good view—especially with the tree line blocking half the pond from sight. Plus, it would be in the middle of the park and cost a lot of money to rehab into something else. That's why I want to tear it down.

I thought Grandpa was on my side, but now he's going back on his agreement to wait for the council's decision… thanks to Cassie's interest in the shop. He would have been fine taking a little less for his property if she hadn't shown an interest in buying it. Lynette and Grandpa both know they'll get more for their properties from a private buyer than from an eminent domain agreement, but Lynette is the only one who doesn't care. She's more interested than my own grandfather in what happens to my team.

Without the pond, my girls have nowhere to practice. There's no indoor rink in Paradise, and little interest in building one.

But that's not the only reason I have to fight to keep this pond for them. Pond hockey is harder than rink hockey. Players aren't just up against each other; they're fighting the ice too. The wind-formed ripples in it can trip them up at any time. The puck doesn't always slide straight, and the kids never know what to expect.

Maybe I should want an indoor rink with smooth ice that could be used for a longer period during the year. But this pond ice makes the players tougher. They learn to play hard in any circumstance. They learn to take whatever comes their way and use it to their advantage.

"Coach. Coach. Coach!"

Janie's voice breaks into my thoughts, and I glance down the bench at her.

"You didn't answer Hazel's question. Who's the lady in the field?" Janie puts her hand on her hip. The cage on her helmet covers most of her face, but her stare sends a trickle of sweat down my back.

"Just a lady hitting golf balls," I mumble.

Nobody messes with Janie. She's a grinder on and off the ice who fights hard to get where and what she wants, even when it means fisticuffs. (That's hockey slang for fights—something else I'm teaching my girls. The slang. Not how to fight.) Her five older brothers have taught her well. She knows the rules, and she already knows how to skate. She'd be playing on a team in Florence, but her parents work full time. They don't have spare hours to take her all the way to Florence a couple times a week—similar to mine when I was her age. The difference then was Florence only had a boys' team, so I still got to play. Britta didn't.

"Golfing in the winter? That's weird. How does she find the balls if they land in snow?"

Janie snaps her gum between questions while Hazel pipes in with, "Is she pretty? She looks like she might be. And tall too. Do you like her?"

I answer her questions in the order she asked. "Yes. Very weird. I don't care. Yes, she's tall. And not even a little bit."

"Ouch! Coach… too tight!" Cora cries out as I yank her laces.

"Sorry." I quickly loosen the laces, then gaze down the line of girls still waiting for help with their skates. The sun is threatening to set before Janie and I are done. And Janie's losing interest fast.

"Hazel! Janie! Go set up the cones for skate skills. Five feet apart," I order, then wave Cora off the bench and move on to the next girl's skates.

It takes another ten minutes to get the rest of the girls on the ice, and I still have to get my own skates on. By the time I join them, Janie is at the other end of the pond, hitting rocks into an imaginary net. Hazel is ordering half the girls to skate circles around the cones, Cora is hacking a hole in the ice with her hockey stick, and Aspen and Brighton are arguing over who gets to play goalie, even though we're nowhere near needing a goalie.

The other five girls are holding onto each other for dear life, trying not to fall.

And Molly is barking her head off because every time she steps on the ice, she slips.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

I thought I knew what I was getting into when Britta told me about a group of girls who'd come into her coffee shop saying they wished there was a girls' team in Paradise, not just a boys' team whose moms were organized enough to drive them to Florence to practice.

Britta had wished the same thing when we were kids. Everyone in town knows that, including the girls' moms. That's why they'd sent their daughters to Britta when they started asking questions about playing hockey.

They must have remembered how Britta would sit for hours on the old plank bench next to the pond watching me play. Mom had taught her to skate along with me and my brothers, so she knew how to do that. But after my practice was over, I'd teach Britta the skills I'd learned. And she was awesome. She could have played in college—maybe even gone pro—if she'd had the opportunity.

Mom tried to drum up interest with other moms for their girls to play, but she couldn't get enough players to make a full team or find anyone to coach. And my coach didn't want to risk putting a girl on a team of boys that ranged in age from nine to thirteen. Some of the older boys were twice Britta's size.

There was a girls' team in Florence, but Mom and Dad didn't have time to drive her an hour or more each way to practice two or three times a week. Same reason I couldn't play on Florence's better-equipped and sponsored teams that kept recruiting me.

And weekend games were a no-go, too. Saturday was the busiest day for Mom's restaurant and Dad's store, and Sunday, the one day they had off, was for church and catching up on all the things that needed to be done at home.

Not that they didn't want to give Britta and me the opportunity to play "real" hockey. They just had to prioritize more important things. That didn't keep me from making Florence State University's team for the one year I was there. But Britta didn't have the same opportunity.

So Britta and I decided we could give these girls the chance she never had to play hockey on a real team.

That was two years ago. Britta did all the recruiting for our first little team of four that's grown to twelve. Now she's working on getting teams started in the towns surrounding Paradise, so we have someone to play… someday. The coaching is all me.

I don't know how long these girls will stay interested in hockey. The benders who can barely stay upright on the ice look close to tears, and Cora's swinging her stick in circles, singing a song—I think it's Taylor Swift—about being "ready for it."

I have serious doubts any of these girls may ever be ready for hockey.

But Britta needs this.

To be honest, so do I.

A few months ago, Mom's doctor told us she doesn't have a lot of time left. Ever since we got that news, this hockey team is the one thing that makes Britta smile. We all knew the news was coming, but that didn't make it any easier when we got it.

Zach and my other brother, Adam, are both newly married. Mom is irreplaceable, but they've got partners to help fill the hole her passing is going to leave behind. They'll be too busy with their own projects and starting their own families to miss taking care of Mom.

Britta and I have each other and this team.

I'm not letting anything, or anyone—including a certain black-haired, green-eyed woman—get in the way of girls' hockey in Paradise. Because it's not just about the girls or hockey. It's about finishing the one thing Mom couldn't see all the way to success.