Worth the Fall

by Mara Jacobs

  She heard the typing of a keyboard as Scott answered her. “Let’s see. He said he was when I last saw him. But…yes…it says he refilled the prescription two weeks ago, which would have been right on target if he was taking them regularly.”

  Relief seeped into her. But still, you never knew. “You haven’t prescribed any sleep aids, have you?”

  When he had first started seeing her, James had given consent for Alison and Scott to discuss his treatment—which they did on a fairly regular basis.

  “No. No sleep aids of any kind. Has he been having trouble sleeping? Or are you worrying about something else?”

  “Something else. Suicidal thoughts in particular.”

  “I see. He’s not scheduled to come in for another six weeks. Do you think I should get him in here sooner?”

  “No, I don’t think that’s necessary. Not yet, anyway. I’ll certainly let you know if that changes.”

  “Okay. Thanks for keeping me in the loop.”

  “Of course.”

  “And Alison?”

  “Yes?”

  His voice went lower. More personal, less doctor. “Are you doing okay?”

  “Yes, of course,” she quickly answered.

  “Really? You’re taking care of a lot of people right now. Don’t forget to take care of yourself.”

  “Hey, who’s the shrink here?”

  He chuckled. “I don’t have to be a shrink to know you need a break.”

  “I’ve had one,” she said, thinking about being flat on her back on the kitchen table, her legs in the air.

  The table which she’d vigorously scrubbed this morning before leaving for work.

  “That’s good, that’s good,” Scott said. “Make sure you take more of them.”

  Well, that wasn’t going to happen.

  “Thanks, Scott. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  “Sounds good,” he said and hung up.

  Alison set the phone back in the cradle, finished up with James’s file and then turned off her computer. She turned her chair so she could look out over the canal.

  It had snowed again last night (big surprise!), and the area looked like one white blanket. She watched as two snowmobilers raced down the frozen canal. Checking her watch, she debated calling Lizzie to see if somebody was going to check in on Petey during the day, then decided against it.

  She didn’t trust herself to talk about Petey’s recovery with Lizzie right now. Besides, of course Lizzie—or Petey’s mom for that matter—would make sure their precious darling had what he needed.

  She wouldn’t give it another thought, she told herself. And maybe she wouldn’t think about how he was doing right now—the man wasn’t going to starve to death with that loaded fridge. But damn, she couldn’t seem to stop thinking about what he’d done last night.

  To her.

  ***

  Much as it had sucked to have Darío standing guard as he’d showered yesterday, it was better than having his father here.

  Which is what Petey was dealing with today.

  Actually, it wasn’t that bad, if he was being honest.

  They’d gotten through the basics of making sure Petey could get up, showered, and dressed with minimal verbal bloodshed and now sat at the kitchen table sharing coffee and Finnish pastry that his father had brought with him.

  Petey sat in the same chair he had last night when Al had come home. The same chair he’d pushed out of his way so he could hold down her small but curvy body and pound himself into her.

  The obviously well-scrubbed table reeked of Pine-Sol, and was still slightly damp from whatever deep treatment Alison had performed on it.

  It wouldn’t be so easy for her to wipe the memory clean—he’d made sure of that.

  Except he couldn’t erase the memories either. And the one that played the longest and loudest in his mind was of her so casually saying it wouldn’t happen again.

  And so obviously believing it.

  It’s just what she’d done so long ago—the two of them as a couple weren’t logical and didn’t make sense to her, so she never gave it a chance. Never gave them a chance.

  And he wasn’t innocent in it all, he knew that. There was no way his pride was going to let him keep knocking on the door of a girl who didn’t want him for more than a great lay.

  And, oh, it had definitely been a great lay.

  “More?” Petey’s dad said, pulling him out of his Alison reverie.

  He looked up and saw that his dad was pointing to his nearly empty coffee cup.

  “Please,” he said, holding his cup out to his rising father. He took it and his own cup over to the counter where he’d started a fresh pot when he’d arrived.

  “While you’re over there, could you put one of those bean-baggy things in the microwave for three minutes?”

  His father nodded, put the heating pad in the microwave, brought Petey a full cup, then went back to the counter and filled his own. He leaned a hip against the counter and sipped, waiting for the microwave. “The shower and getting dressed make it ache more?” he asked Petey.

  No. But standing on it while he fucked Alison on this very table sure did.

  “A little bit, not too bad.” He took a sip of the strong brew, not meeting his father’s stare.

  “It’s a lot worse than a little bit, isn’t it, son?”

  He always knew when Petey was lying. He just didn’t know what Petey was lying about now. Or if not actually lying, at least not telling the whole truth.

  “Yeah, it hurts like a mother this morning. I think I tried to do too much on it yesterday. Maybe you could bring over that bottle of Tylenol and a glass of water, too.”

  The words were barely out of his mouth before his father was in action. He brought over the Tylenol bottle and found a glass, filled it with water, and put it down in front of Petey.

  “Is Alison even helping you at all? Or is she making you do everything for yourself?”

  Oh, she was helping him out plenty. And, he guessed, also making him do it himself. He chuckled. “Al’s fine. She’s been great putting me up. And putting up with me.”

  His father harrumphed. His parents had never been huge fans of Alison, bristly as she could be.

  And of course they’d always hoped that he and Lizzie would one day come home from Detroit and announce that twenty years of best friendship had suddenly blossomed into romantic love, and they’d be getting married.

  Every parent wanted their son to marry a Lizzie.

  But this son wanted Alison.

  He nearly choked on the Tylenol as he clarified his own internal thoughts. To fuck. To make all of her sexual fantasies come true. To finally get this itch he’d had for her out of his system.

  But to marry? Well, no, that would be disastrous. The two of them forever in harmony?

  Not going to happen.

  No way did he want to spend every day in a constant battle of the minds that he was destined to lose.

  After basically spending his whole life in one long physical brawl on the ice, he wanted to spend his Chapter Two in a mellow, peaceful existence.

  There’d be no peace with Alison.

  Holy shit, had she figured that out eighteen years ago?

  Of course she had, it was just the dumb jock who took decades to figure out something so easy to see.

  Damn, he really wished he’d gotten the painkillers after all.

  He got the Tylenol—five of them—down finally. “Besides,” he said, “she’s gone most of the time for work and dealing with her parents. Between you and Mom, Lizzie and Katie, and even Darío, I’m more than covered without Alison.”

  He had a million puns in his mind about covering Alison, but he let them all slide by. This was no time to get a hard-on thinking about her.

  “Well, as soon as you’re able to do stairs you can come home until your renters leave at the end of the semester.”

  Well, shit, how could he not have thought beyond Alison’s house? It would be three mo
nths until his house was available.

  “I figured I’d go back to Detroit as soon as I could travel,” he said, making up the option on the spot.

  “Why?”

  “That’s where I live.”

  His father waved a hand, dismissing Petey’s words. “You don’t live there. You have a condo there to throw your stuff during the season. You live at rinks during the season. You live here.”

  He couldn’t argue with that.

  “At the very least, I need to go back and tie stuff up. Get my shit together. I suppose put the condo on the market.”

  There was a question in his voice. “Although in this market, I might just want to hang on to it for a while. Lizzie hung on to hers.”

  “You said she spends time down there each month for business.”

  “Yeah, that’s true.” A sudden shadow seemed to envelope him. Holy shit—what the hell was he going to do for the rest of his life?

  He was set financially because he’d made good investments. Though he’d lost his share in some of the recent economic crises, he was diversified enough, and young enough, to be able to ride it out, and his portfolio bounced back.

  But there was no way he could just sit around and make investments for the rest of his life. He’d go mental.

  Maybe he would hand out buckets of balls to kids after all.

  “How do you think an indoor driving range would go over here?” he asked his father, then immediately regretted it.

  His father narrowed his eyes at him. “Why?”

  Petey tried to be nonchalant in both the shrug he gave and his tone as he said, “Just an idea Darío had. It seemed like a good one.”

  His father’s posture relaxed. “Oh. Darío. Yeah, that would make sense. He’d have somewhere to practice. I think it’s a great idea.” He paused, took a sip of coffee and then added, “For Darío to do.”

  He knew he shouldn’t ask this, knew he’d regret it, but still he said, “Dad, what do you think I’d be good at for a second career?”

  “Why would you even think you’d need a second career? I thought you said you were fine financially?”

  “I did. I am.” Early on, Petey’s dad had taken control of his finances. When Petey was twenty-eight, he’d cut his father out of that part of his business. They’d had a doozy of a fight over that and had even gone several months without speaking. It had eventually blown over, but they were both careful not to bring up Petey’s money.

  He’d offered to buy his parents a home on the water, a second home in Florida for when they retired or any number of things, but they’d always declined.

  His dad didn’t want his money. He just wanted to control Petey’s life.

  “Son, we’ve talked about this. Broadcasting is the next logical step for you, if you want to keep working. So, if you want to get rid of the Detroit condo, that’s fine. You can just fly out of here for games. But maybe you should hang on to it. It’d be a much more convenient hub.”

  Petey thought this particular path had been axed a long time ago. It certainly had been for him. “Dad, I’d make a terrible broadcaster.”

  His father looked shocked. “What do you mean? You’d be great. Nobody knows the game better, and you know all the current players. Your analysis of them is always spot-on.”

  “Yeah, and like a mine field loaded with F-bombs.”

  His father gave another wave of dismissal, a movement Petey knew well. “They help you with all that stuff.”

  “Exactly! They’ll make me less me to so I’ll be presentable for the public.” He leaned forward, arms on the table. His hamstring strained from the brace and last night’s exertion, but the knee was okay.

  “Dad, I don’t want to be in broadcasting.” He said it in the no-nonsense voice that he’d developed for conversations just like this.

  It was the voice he’d used on Alison last night to make her come apart.

  “You’ve got time to think about all this. No need to decide anything right now. Just get your knee back in shape.”

  His father backing off could have been concern over his health and knee, but Petey wanted to squash any thoughts his father might be harboring. “I was serious the other night before I fell, and I still mean it. I’m done playing, Dad. The only difference now is the timeline.”

  His father looked away from him, drinking his coffee and staring out the window where the snow softly fell.

  He didn’t answer Petey, but he didn’t argue with him either.

  In Petey’s eyes, that was a success.

  Seventeen

  We are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love.

  ~ Sigmund Freud

  Eighteen years ago

  “What do you know about this place?” Petey asked Alison as they drove to Green Bay.

  “I made some calls to doctors in the area, and this place’s name came up a few times.”

  “How’d you get the numbers?”

  “I spent a long time in a phone booth in Chassell one day.”

  “Why Chassell?”

  “I didn’t want anyone to see me and wonder why I wasn’t using my home phone.”

  That must have been why she had him meet her in the parking lot of the casino in Baraga, a half hour from their hometowns. She’d left her car there and joined him in his truck, overnight bag in hand.

  As if reading his thoughts, she said, “No one will notice if I leave my car in the casino lot overnight.”

  She was the smart one, no doubt about that.

  She didn’t say another word for an hour.

  “You know,” he finally said, “I never really said—that day in your car—how sorry I am. All I can think of was I stayed inside you too long, and when I pulled out, the condom—” She held up a hand to stop him, though she continued to look out the passenger window. All he could see was her neck and ear.

  “I’ve thought about it,” she said. Of course she had. “And that’s probably what happened. And I’m the one who didn’t want you to…who wanted you to stay…” She turned even further away from him. “It’s not your fault,” she said so quietly he barely heard her.

  “It’s not yours, either,” he said, but she didn’t answer. “Al? You know that, right? We were careful.”

  “Not careful enough,” she said with a deadness in her voice that chilled him.

  He wanted to say so much. To tell her that she could still change her mind. Just one word from her and he’d turn the truck around and drive straight to Houghton City Hall and get a marriage license. It would be hard—really hard—and it wasn’t how he wanted his life to play out, but he’d do it if that was what she wanted.

  But no, she’d told him what she wanted. And he had to respect that.

  So he kept his mouth shut and drove.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked as they neared Iron Mountain. They’d been on the road for two hours, with two more to go before they reached Green Bay.

  “Yes,” she answered. “But I don’t know if I’m not supposed to eat. I forgot to ask when I made the appointment.”

  “Didn’t they tell you?” She didn’t answer him. “Al?”

  He glanced over at her. Her shoulders silently shook. Well, shit. He pulled in to the parking lot of some insurance company on the Iron Mountain main drag. Cutting the engine once he parked, he turned to her. “Al? Talk to me.”

  She shook her head, still not looking at him. He put a hand on her shoulder and gently tugged. Slowly she turned toward him. Her face was stained with tears that ripped his heart out.

  “Al,” he whispered, trying to gather her to him. She resisted, scrambling back in the seat, away from him.

  “I know it’s the right choice. For me. Right now. I know it’s the thing to do…” There was a slight upward inflection to her voice at the end. Was she questioning it? Questioning him?

  Now. Now was the moment he should say what he was thinking. Tell her he was going to turn the truck around. Dry her tears and tell her that they wouldn’t hav
e to go through with it.

  But should he? Could he?

  Wasn’t this ultimately her choice to make? Yes, the child was his and he was involved, but could he make this choice for her?

  He kept quiet.

  After a while she swiped her hands over her face, sat up straighter and said, “They probably did tell me whether I could eat or not before, but I didn’t catch it. Let’s err on the side of caution and I won’t eat. I don’t want to get there and have the whole thing delayed by a day.”

  He started up the truck. “But you can run through a drive-thru for something for you. I don’t care,” she said.

  “I’m good,” he said and put the truck in gear. No way in hell was he going to scarf down a Whopper while she sat hungry and crying beside him.

  She shifted in her seat then, and a flash of red against her white shorts caught his eye.

  “Al?” he said, pointing toward her crotch and the red stain, which seemed to be growing before his eyes.

  She looked down at herself and then quickly back at him, her eyes wide with fear. “I’ve been having cramps for the last hour, but I just figured they were, you know, cramps.”

  “But you shouldn’t be having cramps, should you? I mean, not period cramps anyway?”

  It was the only time he’d seen her look anything but brilliant. In fact, she looked downright stupid as she put the logic together.

  God, they were so young and stupid. How had he thought for even a moment that they’d be able to handle a baby.

  And yet, people did it all the time. His parents had.

  “No, you’re right. I’m not—” She doubled over, holding her stomach. “Holy crap, that hurts,” she said, breathing seemingly hard for her.

  Petey turned the truck around and pulled out of the parking lot back onto the main drive. He drove a couple of blocks looking for one of those blue “H” signs that would lead them to a hospital, or possibly someone walking along the street that they could ask for directions.

  He saw a sign first and followed the direction it pointed. He made a couple turns while he murmured, “It’s okay, it’s okay,” to Alison. Finally, he pulled up at the emergency entrance to the hospital.