Chapter Text
Derek didn’t look up when Ma entered the room, not even to receive her kiss. He pushed Barbie forward and knocked a plastic pancake across the floor with her hand.
"Hi, Daruk. Did you have a good day?" Ma asked in Gujarati.
"We watched the Rangers. Daddy taught me all their names."
"That's great, sweetheart. Are your toys having a party?"
Derek finally looked up, a frown on his face. "No. They're playing hockey."
"Hockey, huh? Where's the puck?"
Derek used Tigger's tail to move the pancake past Teddy. "Tigger has the puck. Tigger's the best defenseman in the NHL so he always has the puck unless Messier or McCarthy has it. Or Mal- Maha- Manny."
"Malhotra?"
"Malhotra," Derek repeated. "Oh! Or Armstrong. Did you know he's called Derek, too?"
"Is he? That's a good name."
"Yeah." Tigger's tail whipped the pancake across the room. Derek grinned, oblivious to Ma's wince when it bounced off the baseboard of the opposite wall with a ping. "He scores! Tigger Nurse gets the hatty putting the New York Rangers five-no above the Islanders. Islanders captain Bubble Bear goes off the ice crying." He bounced Leila's blue teddy bear to the side of the room.
"Did they win?"
"That's only the end of the first. They need some cookies now."
Ma raised an eyebrow. "Come on, then. Maybe the players need some juice too? They've been playing so hard."
Derek followed her through the hallway and sat Tigger on one of the barstools at the kitchen island before clambering into the next one along. Ma put a plate in front of him with two homemade cookies and a cup of orange juice.
"What do you want to do tomorrow, sweetheart? I'm picking you up from nursery school."
"Watch the Rangers."
"May I watch the Rangers, Derek. And no, babo, they've not got another game until Friday."
Derek looked up from his cookie with shining, hopeful eyes. "May we go there?"
"It's too late. After your bedtime."
"But after Friday is Saturday."
"You still have a bedtime at the weekend. We can watch it on TV on Saturday."
"When can I- When may I go to a real game?"
"When you're a little bit older."
"When I'm five and a quarter?"
"When you're six," Ma told him, and Derek took the kiss she pressed to his forehead as a promise.
A grin spread across Derek's face. "Daddy said I can join a hockey team when I'm six, too. I wanna be six now. How long until I'm six?"
"Want to, Daruk, not wanna. It's March now, and your birthday is in February. You can work that out."
"March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December..." Derek stared at his hands, all ten fingers splayed. He had run out of fingers, but he'd also run out of months.
"January, sweetheart. We go back to January after December."
"That's too many. It's too far." The now-empty juice cup clattered to the floor.
"Derek." Ma said, warningly. He stuck out his lip in a pout. "It's eleven months. Less than a year. You'll be six sooner than you think."
Derek pretended to feed Tigger the second cookie, then shoved it in his own mouth, chewing over it and the idea of being six. "Can we go skating? Tomorrow?"
Ma smiled at him. "Okay. We'll go before we have to pick Leila up from school."
A smile on his face, Derek jumped down from the barstool, and picked up Tigger. "It's time for the second period now."