Chapter 43 Echoes on the Ice
The Kane house in late autumn always smelled like pine from the early Christmas tree and the faint, comforting scent of hot chocolate that seemed to linger year-round. One quiet Sunday evening, with snow falling soft and steady outside the windows, the three Kane siblings found themselves alone in the living room while Rowan and Holly finished dishes in the kitchen.
Lily (twenty-four, fresh off her first pro season in Boston, home for a rare long weekend) sprawled on the couch in Rowan’s old Bears hoodie. Everett (sixteen, lanky and voice-deepened, varsity captain) sat cross-legged on the rug sorting through an old box of hockey cards. Clara (eleven, all legs and wild curls, already dreaming of D1 offers) lay on her stomach coloring a picture of the three of them in matching jerseys.
The box Everett was sorting wasn’t cards—it was memories. He’d pulled it from the attic earlier that day: old photos, medals, crumpled programs, and a stack of DVDs labeled in Rowan’s handwriting: “Kane Kids Hockey Highlights.”
Clara spotted the DVDs first. “Can we watch? Please?”
Lily’s eyes lit up. “Oh yes. I haven’t seen these in forever.”
Everett popped the first one into the ancient player under the TV, and the screen flickered to life.
The first clip was grainy home video from fifteen years earlier: a tiny backyard rink under string lights, snow swirling. A four-year-old Lily, barely able to stand in full gear that swallowed her, wobbled across the ice holding Rowan’s hands. She fell every three steps, but every time she got up laughing, red cheeks glowing.
Clara gasped. “That’s you, Lily! You were so small!”
Lily laughed, eyes already misty. “I thought I was huge back then.”
Next clip: six-year-old Everett’s first mite game. He scored a goal by accident—the puck bounced off his skate—and skated straight to the bench looking terrified until his teammates mobbed him. Baby Clara (two, bundled in a snowsuit) banged on the glass from Holly’s arms shouting “Evvy! Evvy!”
Everett groaned, face red. “I forgot about the accidental goal.”
Clara reached over and squeezed his hand. “It was still a goal.”
The videos rolled on.
There was the winter Clara was three and insisted on “playing hockey” with her siblings every morning before preschool. Lily and Everett would take turns in net while Clara shot plastic pucks from her little walker skates, celebrating every goal like she’d won the Cup—even the ones that missed by five feet.
Another clip: the three of them at eight, six, and four, building a snow fort on the pond and turning it into “Kane Family Arena,” complete with a cardboard Stanley Cup they fought over for hours.
Then the one that hit hardest: Christmas morning when Clara was five. She unwrapped her first real stick (pink tape, because she’d demanded it) and immediately dragged both siblings outside in their pajamas to try it on the backyard ice. The video shook with Rowan’s laughter as tiny Clara scored on eight-year-old Everett, then tackled him in celebration while ten-year-old Lily refereed from the “bench” (a snowbank).
Watching it now, Clara’s eyes filled. “I don’t even remember that.”
Lily pulled her into a side hug. “But we do. You were fearless.”
Everett’s voice was rough. “You still are.”
They kept watching.
There was Everett’s first travel tournament win at ten—the one where Clara, six at the time, made a sign that read “GO EVVY #1 BRO” in crooked letters and held it up the entire game. Lily, fourteen, had driven with Rowan to every game that weekend, missing her own practice to cheer.
Then Lily’s state championship at seventeen: the overtime winner, the dogpile, and the moment she skated to the glass where ten-year-old Everett and eight-year-old Clara were banging on it with tiny fists, tears streaming down their faces.
Clara paused the video there, the frozen frame showing all three of them on opposite sides of the glass, connected forever.
She looked up at her siblings, eyes shining. “We’ve always been a team.”
Lily’s voice cracked. “Always will be.”
Everett reached over and pulled Clara into his lap like she was still small, even though she wasn’t anymore. Lily joined the hug, the three of them tangled together on the rug while the fire crackled and snow fell outside.
They stayed like that a long time, crying quiet, happy tears for the little kids they’d been and the grown-ups they were becoming—still the same team, just on bigger ice now.
Later, when Rowan and Holly peeked in and saw their three children asleep in a pile on the rug under one blanket, the old highlights DVD still playing softly, they didn’t have the heart to move them.
Rowan wrapped his arms around Holly from behind.
“Look at them,” he whispered, voice thick.
Holly’s eyes were wet. “Our babies.”
They stood there watching the gentle rise and fall of their children’s breathing, the glow of the TV casting soft light over faces that had changed and somehow stayed exactly the same.
From backyard rinks to pro arenas, from plastic pucks to championship banners, the Kane siblings had skated every inch together.
And in the quiet of a snowy Evergreen Hollow night, with the echoes of childhood laughter still hanging in the air, they slept wrapped in the kind of love that time and distance could stretch but never break.