Coleen

The idea had hit me a week ago, right in the middle of folding towels at the athletic complex.

Hayden’s birthday.

I knew the date by heart. March 21st. We’d gone to the same high school, so I remembered him skipping class one year because his dad had dragged him to some hockey-related dinner, and the guys in my math class had joked about how even birthdays were second to hockey for Hayden Michaels.

Now, years later, he was mine. And I wasn’t about to let his ...