Page 7 of Scoring Chance

“He shoots; he scores!” I yell. I give him a high-five.

“Hey, Dad.” Lena looks up and gives me a smile. She's fourteen, so it's not the beaming grin of her younger siblings. There's a little bit of a wariness to it, a little something that she's always holding back, as is her teenage way.

She started high school this year, and I hate that I have unemployment stress hanging over my head—that I can't fully be there for her. But luckily, she has a good head on her shoulders.

“Dean and Davy have permission slips that need to be signed. Also, Lulu refused to have any meatballs with her spaghetti tonight. She says she no longer eats them,” Lena informs me.

“You’re not eating meatballs anymore?” I ask her as she runs up to the couch.

“I’m a chickatarian!” Lulu proclaims.

“It means she only eats chicken,” Lena tells me, a tired smile on her face.

“Thanks for watching the kids tonight.” I kiss my oldest on the top of her head. There’s only so much affection she’ll let me show her nowadays.

I’m grateful that Lena is old enough to look after the kids for the one night a week that I have practice. Luckily, my friends chip in to help with watching the kids when they can. Lots of play dates.

"Are you wearing a new perfume, Lena?" I ask her.

"Oh, just trying something from one of my friends at school." My little girl is growing up so fast. I can’t keep up. "Is it okay if I go to a friend’s house on Friday night? Michelle is having a few of us over to watch a movie.”

“Sure. That’s fine,” I say.

"Dad, check this out," says Davy, moving the puck.

He snaps a shot, and it nicks the edge of the wastebasket before sputtering onto the bookcase.

"Dang.” Davy sighs.

“Next time,” I tell him.

Dean tries to grab his stick. "Hey, can I try?"

"No, Dean, you hate sports." Davy holds tight to his hockey toy. Even though it’s a toy plastic stick, he regards it with sanctity. Davy loves the sport as much as I do, and he’s kicking butt in his junior hockey league.

"I bet I can make this hockey stick disappear. One, two, three!" Dean swipes it from his brother and throws it behind the couch.

"Hey! Stop—" Davy swipes the prank gum from Dean’s front pocket.

"Dad!" Dean yells.

"Dean, your brother cares a lot about his hockey gear, just as much as you care about your magic tricks. So don’t touch each other’s stuff.” As a dad, 80 percent of my job is conflict resolution.

I plop on the couch. It's exhausting having four children and being a single dad. It just is. Doing it solo wasn’t the plan. Katie and I made a great team, and since she passed two years ago, I’ve been trying to keep everything together, keep the plates spinning. It’s like trying to play hockey by yourself. No way can you beat your opponent that way.

Oddly enough, once I admitted to myself that things were hard, then everything got better. I was no longer deluding myself into trying to be this superdad. Just make it through the day. That’s my mantra.

Des is my only friend who is proudly child-free. He thinks I’m suffering in silence. I've learned I can't really talk to him about the nitty-gritty parts of parenting, because he thinks it sounds like the worst thing ever. Anecdotes about dirty diapers or stomach bugs that go round and round in our household are funny in retrospect, but to Des, it sounds like a horror show.

The stressful parts of parenting are always temporary, and then you're left with the good stuff. I’ll have an incredibly stressful moment with my kids where I want to scream followed by watching them do the sweetest thing which makes my heart swell until it’s about to pop out of my chest. And that can all happen within the span of fifteen minutes.

This right here is a good and bad moment. All my kids are gathered around me. They’re healthy and happy. And now I have to break the news to them. My heart dips.

"So everyone, we need to have a talk—a family talk."

Their happy smiles immediately go away. Except for Lulu. She's too young to remember her mother. But the other ones—they know. They know what happens when I shift into serious mode. It's never good news.

I hated having to be the one that told them that their mother passed away.