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One of the first things Sidney takes the time to notice about Pittsburgh is how different its cold is from Cole Harbour. He doesn’t think it should be, not with all of the water, but there’s something about the buildings and the city’s steel history that has the ability to chill Sidney to his bones and that’s something he’s just not used to. Not after growing up on ice.
He sits outside of Mario’s warm house just to avoid the mirth of the season. He doesn’t feel it and when he watches everyone’s faces; he just feels the anger he’s been carrying since summer re-coil itself inside his chest and expand. It threatens to overwhelm all of the aspects of himself that he still considers good and he hates that, too. He wishes he could stick to hockey, that he didn’t have to do all of the things that come with being a human creature, but that isn’t possible. His sister is inside, playing with the Lemieux children and if there is any consolation, it’s that. She can smile and she can play and he can shoulder the pain for them both. He can sift through the memories of Christmases past where he’d made cookies with his mother and watched his father struggle with tangled strings of lights that needed to go on the tree. He can sit there and remember how he felt when he opened his copy of NHL ’96 with Yzerman and Stevens on the cover and how he just knew that was what he wanted. Not a video game cover, per se, but that kind of hockey. He can just remember how much that had pleased his father.
He hears the footsteps before he feels the softer down of his coat against his cold cheek. He glances up at Mario and takes his coat to pull on. Mario’s wearing his own wool jacket and takes a seat on the same deck stair that Sidney’s occupying. He doesn’t want company but Mario doesn’t like to leave him alone too long. Sidney wants to be grateful, especially since Mario’s been more than just an owner and team captain. He’s already as much family to Sidney and his sister as anyone could be now. He’s opened up his home and given one that Taylor can embrace and be a part of. Sidney doesn’t think it’s something he could have done on his own, but it’s never anything he’d admit aloud. Especially not after he’d carried his sister from his neighbor’s house the night his parents passed, telling anyone and everyone who would listen that he had it.
He doesn’t have it. He’s nineteen years old, his parents are dead, and the only family he can give his sister is one of strangers to whom he can’t attach himself. He can’t even let himself grieve.
It’s several minutes of companionable silence before Mario clears his throat and says, “Dinner’s almost ready. The girls all set the table. Taylor’s learned how to fold napkins.”
It sounds so stupid to Sidney’s ears. Folding napkins. It’s a minuscule thing that strikes him as so unimportant that he has to choke out a laugh, bitter and low. He feels Mario’s hand on his shoulder as the older man stands. He should apologize but Mario never asks for that. Sidney thinks that he should. His own father wouldn’t tolerate it no matter the reason.
It’s stiflingly warm inside. The entire house smells like Christmas between the food and the tree and the genuine happiness of children. Sidney’s never thought about that before, how it isn’t just a sound or vision. The overload makes him uncomfortable and he thinks if he gives into it a little, he’ll regret it for all of the guilt. He knows he can’t carry that, too.
He wonders if Taylor senses any of it. He tries so hard to be there for her. He kisses her before she sleeps every night he’s home and there isn’t a day that goes by that he doesn’t tell her he loves her. She doesn’t ask much of him, nor does she talk about their parents. Even tonight, she just gives him space and huddles with the other children. It hurts to look at her for how much of his parents he sees every time he does.
Sometimes, though, he feels a twinge in his gut. When Taylor opens her presents and she’s gotten even more Pens gear, she beams and there’s something inside of him saying that faith didn’t pass with his mother and father. He feels Nathalie’s arms around his shoulders and her lips press against his head. He closes his eyes against how he feels she could be just some of what he needs because he knows he still needs a mother. He doesn’t cry, though. She’s helped him with Taylor, been someone to guide him when it came to schools and hiring a nanny and been his emergency contact just in case. It’s support he never expected but it’s more. He just wishes he could give some feeling back. He wishes it could mean everything it should.
What little he has, he saves for Taylor. She curls up with him at night when the lights are all off and the smells are still lingering. His side is warm where she’s pressed against him and she doesn’t talk. He wonders how she knows he wouldn’t be able to even if she wanted to. He also thinks she’s probably stronger than he gives her credit for. She isn’t too young to remember and he just kisses her head before she sleeps.