I went home. I don’t remember the drive. I remember standing in the laundry room, staring at the corner where Sam dropped his hockey bag every night.
And I remember the moment it hit me.
His gear didn’t smell.
Any mother of a hockey player will understand what I mean. Hockey gear has a smell like nothing else on earth. A wet, sour, locker-room smell that gets into the walls and the car seats and your own hair. For nine years, I had fought that smell with every spray and powder and detergent they made. I had once washed his chest protector three times in one night and given up.
And for weeks, the laundry room had smelled like nothing but fabric softener.
I hadn’t noticed. Or I had noticed, a little, at the back of my mind, and I’d thought, Huh. Good. Maybe the new detergent is working.
