“Fuck the season! I want you here with our kids, Ellis!” I don’t mean to yell but my voice is rising. My heart is beating faster than I think is healthy as I imagine coming home from a game to an empty house while my entire world is somewhere else.

“Don’t yell at me!” Ellis stabs a finger against my chest as her voice matches mine.

The sudden volume must wake up Charlotte because her high-pitched wails flow through the wall. Ellis’s eyes fall closed and we both take deep breaths, still worked up.

“Okay stop, let’s just… let me go get her back down and we will talk? Just go wait downstairs for me,” Ellis says, but before I have a chance to argue she turns her back on me and stalks into the nursery talking lowly to our daughter.

I walk down the stairs in a sort of trance. My steps echo around me and I can’t stand the sound of my stupid feet hitting the stupid floor so I flop down onto the sofa dropping my head in my hands.

I’m not an idiot. I know I didn’t handle that conversation well.

I shouldn’t have yelled, not at Ellis. She is not even who I am mad at, I’m mad that I haven’t shown her how much I want her here. But I don’t know what else I could have done. Still, she didn’t deserve my misplaced temper. She gave birth a month ago for crying out loud! I shouldn’t add to her stress with yelling, I should do whatever the hell she tells me to do.

And she is half right.

I think that’s what hurts more. The season is starting and it means I’m going to be away a lot for the next few months. Even if they live here, I am still going to miss too much.

I could miss Charlotte rolling over and I will miss Ellis’s birthday in January. I already know I am going to miss Jack’s first day of school next week because I will be doing press for the first game of the season.

I want to be around my family as much as I can while I can, the niggling in the back of my brain is reminding me about the idea I had to quit hockey a few months ago. I knew deep down that it wasn’t the right time, I would be going back on my contract which would have led to a ton of legal issues. Now though, my life is in a different place. Hockey is not my first priority any more – it’s not even in the top three.