Thrown Off the Ice

by Taylor Fitzpatrick

He wants to see if Liam’s hair starts thinning like his dad’s. If he goes gray, like Mike has, or if it stays the sandy brown it’s always been. He wants to see if he needs reading glasses. He wants to see if his sense of humor is as childish in his

sixties as it was when he was eighteen, as it still is now. He wants to see if he puts on weight in retirement, gets softer. Wants to see him with those wrinkles everyone associates with excessive smiling, because if anyone would get them, it’d be him. He’s already got the start of them, but Mike wants to see them etched deep.