Monday mornings are the same all over, I reckon. If you’re a bartender, a cop, a trash man, or an associate coach for an AHL team, Mondays are Mondays and daughters are daughters.

“…asked me what my daddy did for a living. When I told him, he was all like, “Uh, well, I only pay attention to real sports.”

Charity’s eyes, the same color of aged whiskey as mine and her twin brother Charles, snapped with irritation. I sat back in my chair, smiled at the dark-haired firebrand, and asked the all-important question.

“Did you tell him he could take a long walk off a short pier?”

She giggled, her smile lighting up my Monday in ways nothing else could. “I may have told him a few things that would make Grandma Marigold wash my mouth out with her famous lye soap.”

“That’s my girl,” I said with a chuckle. Lord, but I enjoyed these Skype calls with my children. Both were attending the University of Georgia, Charles majoring in biology, while Charity pursued a career in political science. My son was happiest when peering through a microscope, and my daughter was the family crusader, her goal to one day be the first female biracial Democratic Governor of Georgia, our home state. Ever since Charity and Charles had made their debut in this world they’d been destined for great things. “As for your Grandma Marigold and her lye soap, I think you’re safe. Now me on the other hand…”

You could say that my ex mother-in-law had been a little put out with me for deciding to “turn” gay after being married to her daughter for close to twenty years. I’d been out and divorced from Bettina, Betty to all of us who knew and loved her, for going on two years now, and Marigold still gave me scorching looks at every family event. Truth be told, my ex-wife had handled my coming out way better than her mother had. Different generation and all, is part of that. Also, Betty told me she had strongly suspected my secret for many, many years. The lack of any viable love life after the twins had been born had been her first clue, she had informed me. I’d been there, physically, on occasion, but emotionally? Nope. And I’d always feel terrible for robbing her of those years. She could have been with someone who really wanted to make love to her, not someone who was going through the motions to make himself feel just a little straighter, as if that were even possible. That would’ve been like asking a frog to turn into a dachshund.

“She’ll come around, Daddy,” Charity told me in that upbeat manner that would, I predicted, carry her into the gubernatorial mansion in Atlanta someday. “The old folks like to cling to their antiquated ways. Change scares them. Oh shit, I have to go. My comparative politics class starts in ten minutes and it’s all the way across campus.”

“Go then. If you speak to Charles, tell him to contact me or your mother so we know what he’s doing over the summer,” I rushed to say. “Or just to let us know he’s alive.”

“Yep, will do. Bye, Daddy. Love you more than peach pie.” She blew me a kiss and then she was gone.

I sighed wistfully then lowered the lid on my laptop. There were days I wished I could crank the hands of time backward just for a few minutes. God knows there were plenty of things I would have done differently, but having my children was not one of them. Marrying Betty during college had been the right thing to do, the only thing to do for a son of a Southern Baptist minister who was so deep in the closet his mail was delivered there. Getting her pregnant hadn’t been such a wholesome thing, but at least it was a heterosexual thing, and so my daddy’s God forgave me that sin. He never did quite forgive me for coming out, my daddy, that is. His God? Well, being raised in the church, I had to reckon that his God was a loving God and made me in his image, so he’d be finer than frog fur with my homosexuality. Least that was how I looked at things. My daughter and I tended to be optimistic.

The door to my office flew open. I glanced up to see Victor in the doorway, tall and lanky, with hair as red as a firecracker.

“I know you weren’t raised in Billow Ridge, Georgia, but where I come from it’s considered polite to knock on the door before you open it.”

Victor rolled his eyes, turned, and hammered on the open door. “Better?” he enquired.

“Much. What brings you this far from the Coke machine?”

He came in, closed the door, and filled one of two chairs facing my desk. “I just got off the phone with Wynne Clark.”

“Okay, I’ll bite. Who’s Wynne Clark? You want something to drink?” I waved a hand toward the small dorm fridge in the corner. A coffee pot sat on top of it and my sweet tea sat inside it. You might take a boy out of Georgia, but you never took the sweet tea out of the boy, or something along those lines.

“No, I’m good. Trying to cut back. Dan says all the caffeine makes me cranky.”

“I kind of doubt you can blame your cranky on caffeine,” I replied with a wry smile.

He returned the smirk. “Exactly what I told him. There ain’t no way they could cram that much crank into a can. So, Wynne Clark is the equipment manager for Boston, and he’s married to the daughter of Delany Pierce.”

“Any relation to Hawkeye?”

Kalinski gave me a flat look. “Please, spare us your Hee-Haw humor,” he sighed theatrically. I shrugged. “No, he’s not related to Hawkeye. He’s the senior vice-president in charge of player acquisitions for the new expansion team they’re setting up in Baltimore.”

“Ah yeah, right.” Going by the tight lines ribbing Vic’s forehead, he had something big to tell me. “And what did your friend Wynne have to say?”

“That the approval is coming down from the brass, and to ready ourselves for the expansion draft.”

“Shit.” I got up and went to the fridge for my bottle of sweet tea. Victor sat there, ankle on knee, playing with his tie, as I took a couple of large gulps. “Seems mighty quick.”

“Not really. They’ve been working big time on it behind the scenes. They have a rink already completed and the league is hot for this city to join the ranks.”

“When will we feel the pinch?” I held out the plastic bottle of tea.

He shook his head. “Training camp, probably. The official announcement will be made before playoffs begin for the pros, so sometime later this week. Final picks will be televised early July. After that, they’ll be making the final agreement to share Boston’s AHL players with Baltimore. That’s how they handled it for the new Vegas team. They share an AHL feeder team.”

“I recall that. So Boston and Baltimore will both be working from one feeder team… ours.”

“Right on the nosey,” Vic said, and tapped his long nose.

I padded back to my desk, sat down, and stared at the silver pin on Victor’s blue tie. This news wasn’t totally unexpected, the league was looking to grow into new cities. Baltimore already had a good sports vibe with professional baseball and football teams. The city could easily support hockey and basketball. So, no, this was no surprise. It was just bad timing, as it would shake up every team in the league with whispers and rumors about which players would be put on the chopping block. In Cayuga, we’d feel the sting as players now playing there could be shuffled to either Boston or Baltimore affiliates. I moved my attention from Vic’s tie pin to his hazel eyes.

“You worried about Dan being called up?”

His ginger eyebrows knotted. “That would be petty of me.”

I let the question float off, his reply and the tightening around his lips answer enough. I imagined his world would be turned upside-down if Dan went to Boston or Baltimore to play. His whole life was here in Cayuga, as was his son, who, from what I’d seen, pretty much made up one half of his life, his husband being the other. Victor didn’t make friends easily. He tended to be a little brusque. I liked him most of the time, but I knew how to handle him, for the most part. I used to have a cousin cut from the same cloth. First thing one learned with a man who thrived on confrontation was to deny him that which he thrived on. In other words, if a person didn’t rustle up like a rooster to his rustling up, he’d move along and get back to pecking in the dirt.

“By which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?” I offered up, then wished I could pull it back, even though it did fit the moment.

“Are you quoting the Bible at me?”

“Just a little something from Luke. Forgive me, I was raised on scripture. Old habits and all that.” I plowed on before he could get his dander up over religion. Me and my faith were on a long and tempestuous journey. “Let’s just put this on the back burner for now. I’ll take your news to Dewey and we can discuss it at the daily meeting, but I feel we need to focus on the playoffs. Agreed?”

“Yeah, agreed.” He shoved up out of the chair. “I’ll join you in the conference room in fifteen minutes with game films.” Out he went, without a goodbye or any other such fare-thee-well.

My mother would have run him up a pole for such a thing. God, but I missed her. She’d been the only person that tempered my father when he went off on one of his tangents.

“Right, well, enough wallowing in the past,” I told myself, took a slug of tea, and began working on the line suggestions for the game tomorrow night against the Binghamton Broncos. We’d made it to the first round, and my attention had to be on hockey. No amount of wishing could bring my mother back or make my father’s disgust lessen. I’d worked damn hard to be where I was professionally and personally, and the only way to go now was up and out. I was already out. Proudly so. So, up it was. Calder Cup championship coach had a real nice ring to it.

The village of Cayuga was a joy. It was vastly different than the small town in rural Georgia where I’d grown up, and yet, it was quite similar. Most small towns have a similar feel. Everyone knew everyone and their business, which could be good or bad, depending on if you were up to no good or not. By my best estimate there was perhaps six hundred or so folk who called Cayuga home, although some of the bigger towns flanking us held more. The town took its name from indigenous people and the lake that was named after them. I enjoyed walking home from the Rader to my tiny little house that overlooked Cayuga Lake. That lake was a thing of pure beauty. I’d spent just about every night sitting on my back porch, tea in hand, drowning in the sheer splendor of a million stars over the longest of the Finger Lakes. If only there had been a man seated on the glider beside me…

My routine was such that most folks in the tourist town had come to know me from my strolls every afternoon. Lots liked to poke fun at my accent, which was fine. I’d done my fair share of teasing any wayward Yank who had wandered into my state back in the day. One of my favorite places to stop and dawdle was a small ice cream shop, packed full now that summer was in full swing. It was called the Cayuga Creamery and boasted over fifty flavors of hand-dipped ice cream. I’d been working my way through all fifty, one cone per day, on the way home. Today I had to wiggle into the small shop with the pink walls. Summer brought tourists to the vacation homes along the lake and I smiled at the cash flowing into the small business. No one had been happier than me to see them open their doors come Memorial Day. I always did have a soft spot for a frozen treat.

“Coach Hart!” Lydia yelled from behind the counter. People in line turned to look at me. I knew I stood out with my dress shirt and suit trousers while everyone else was in shorts, swim suits, or sandals. “You deciding?”

“Yes, ma’am, I am,” I yelled back.

That always made Lydia chuckle. She was as round as she was tall, and smiled all the time. Her skin was pale as vanilla ice cream but her hair, sweet Jesus, her hair was as red as the lone fire truck over at the Cayuga Fire Station. Sometimes that hair overtook her, as it was kinky and wild, and barely contained under that hair net.

“You ever hear anyone so polite?” Lydia asked the teenager she was tending to. The lanky kid never replied, he just kept his eyes on his phone.

A soft blush warmed my ears. Maybe it was a Southern thing, those manners Lydia so admired, or perhaps it was a generational thing. Lord knows, my son was lax on the simple social graces such as replying to an email, text, or someone talking in his face.

The line moved quickly. I perused the big board on the wall that listed all the flavors. Yesterday, I’d had black cherry, and the day before cookies & cream. By the time I was smiling down at Lydia, my choice had been made.

“I’d like a single scoop of the butter pecan today, Miss Lydia.”

She giggled and waved a hand at me, her cheeks now the same color as her hair. “Oh, you go on you with all that Southern charm! If I were fifteen years younger you’d have your hands full, Coach! I wager every young girl in this town has her hat set for you!”

“Oh now I’m not so sure about that, ma’am.” If she were a little more male then her hands might’ve been much fuller. I could’ve corrected her assumption that I was straight, but there was no point in throwing around my private matters. Perhaps that too was my upbringing. God knew Kalinski was quick enough to slap people in the face with his bisexuality. Me, well, I’d been raised to keep myself to myself. I didn’t hide the fact that I was gay, hell, I’d hidden it for too damn long. I just didn’t feel the need to push my sexuality onto folks. Even when I was married to Betty, I’d been one of those who avoided public displays of any kind. A kiss on the cheek in public was about as far as I’d generally gone with my wife.

Lydia scurried off to dip my ice cream. The sound of excited children and tired adults filled the small shop. A warm wind blew in when the door opened, carrying the smell of the lake and the cry of gulls. When my cone was presented to me, I fussed over it. Lydia grinned and rang me up. I paid her and slipped in a tip for the double dip that she always called a single.

“You and them Cougars bring us a win tomorrow night!” Lydia shouted as I made my way through the crowd to the door.

I lifted my cone in reply, then pushed out into the heat. The sun was hot on the back of my neck. I shifted my suit jacket higher on my forearm as I moseyed along, licking at the rapidly melting cone as I made my way home. Early June up here was delightful. Warm but with low humidity, the trees were lush and green, the sky a robin’s egg blue, and the scent of metallic lake water rode the breeze. I paused by the fire station, under a massive oak, to try to get ahead of my cone and read the big local bulletin board. Fingers now coated with sticky, buttery ice cream, I lapped like a mad man to keep the mess from my shirt.

A pair of young boys raced past on bikes. I nodded at them when they shouted something about the Cougars, then returned to the bulletin board. Flyers in hot pink and bright yellow flapped in the wind. Most were yard sales. One blue one had information about a new knitting group at the red-brick Methodist church across the street from my house. I’d always wanted to learn how to knit. Betty’s mother made the finest scarves and sweaters I’d ever owned. Maybe once hockey was over, I’d drop into the knitting group.

A lilac-colored paper flitted and danced in the breeze. I licked my index finger clean, then pinned the paper to the board with my finger so I could read it. It was an announcement for the annual Cayuga County Music Festival. There were bands and performers listed; many were folk singers or bluegrass, which I adored. Throw me some blues, soft Southern rock, folk or bluegrass, and I was one happy man.

The festival was this Saturday, which worked out well. We’d be back from Binghamton late Friday, with a game here on Sunday at one. Juggling my messy cone with my jacket, I managed to get my phone out and make a note about the festival to remind me.

I lingered under that tree until I had my treat under control, and then I ambled along, chewing on the cone before I turned at the library, inhaling the lake air as I grew nearer. My house was on a small kicker road that led to the lake. It sat alone, looking down at a sandy boat ramp, with neighboring homes only now filled with tourists. During the winter it had been quite lonely. All the summer homes had been locked down tight, and it had just been me and my satellite TV on the nights that we were home. Travelling used to be a burden, but now it was a blessing.

“Good Lord, Lancaster,” I chided myself as I unlocked my front door. “Shake off the doom and gloom. At least you’re not in the closet anymore.”

I had to admit that I’d made a fine point. Damn, I was a clever man. I might not have anyone to share my life with right now, but at least I was out from under that miserable cloak of lies I’d wrapped around my shoulders for close to thirty years.

The lake called. I washed my hands in the kitchen sink, peeled off my rink attire—all coaches and players were to show up in suits, per the head coach’s decree—and filled a glass with sweetened tea. I grabbed my laptop on the way out. The sliding door opened effortlessly, and I stepped out onto my small porch, glass in one hand, laptop with game films for me to review yet again in the other. Cayuga Lake glistened, the sun glinting off its surface, the water lapping at the shoreline. Sighing in pleasure, I settled down on the glider, sipped my tea, and spent the next two hours looking at film of the Binghamton Broncos’ offensive capabilities while sneaking peeks at the lake. In the end, the lake won, as it always did. Sundown found me still on the porch, smiling into my now empty glass of tea. Life was pretty okay. I reached over absently for Betty’s hand and found only the warm laptop.

“Well hell fire,” I sighed and let my gaze return to the lake. Okay, so life was still pretty okay, despite the fact that I was sitting here holding hands with my Dell. Maybe I needed to put more effort into dating…