Hockey Christmas (A Holiday Sports Romance Love Story)

by Naomi Niles

  “How have you been, Mrs. Thomas?” I asked cautiously wondering if I should be asking the question in the first place.

  She looked up and her eyes were a little clearer than they had been a few days ago. Still, I could see the sadness in her eyes and I knew that it was probably a permanent change.

  “I’m doing better,” she admitted. “But I don’t think I’ll ever be back to normal, as they say.”

  “No,” I nodded. “I can’t imagine you would be.”

  “It’s strange, you know,” she went on, her voice dimming a little under the weight of her memories. “I’ve been with him for so long that it’s like … it’s like I’m missing a limb. The strange this is … he was away a lot in the first decade of our marriage because of all the deployments. So sometimes I wake up and it feels like he just away and he’ll be back in a few weeks with new stories from all these far off places.”

  I could see it in her eyes. She probably hated his deployments, she was probably terrified that he wouldn’t come back from one of them, but she still preferred that alternative to the reality she was living now.

  “It can’t have been easy, being married to someone in the Navy,” I said.

  I could feel Dylan’s eyes on my face but I didn’t look his way. I kept my eyes focused on his mother, trying to decipher the different layers of sadness in her eyes. For some reason it affected me on a different level. Her sadness felt personal to me, as though I was as touched by it the same way that she was.

  “Oh it wasn’t,” Mrs. Thomas sighed. “It was very hard … especially early on in our marriage. We even separated once because of it.”

  “What?” Dylan asked looking up at her in surprise.

  “It was a long time ago,” she said. “Before either one of you boys were born.”

  “Still, you never told me.”

  “Because it wasn’t important. We worked through it and I realized that despite everything, I loved your father and he loved me. We knew we had problems but I think we both decided that it was worth it anyway.” She paused for a moment. “Still, it never stopped being hard. Every time he left on a deployment, I was terrified he wouldn’t come back. And every time he was home, I was terrified he would be called back for another mission.”

  I saw it all as though I had lived through it too. I felt her pain. I felt the same worry and fear. She was describing her life but it felt as though she could just as easily have been describing mine.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Dylan

  “You both did well today,” mom said as she nibbled delicately on the fish in her plate. She barely ate anymore. She just picked at her food and moved it around the plate in a show of eating.

  “How about another piece, Mrs. Thomas?” Lizzie asked, extending the plate out to her.

  “No thank you dear,” she said. “I’m full already.”

  It was a lie and we all knew it. She had already lost a lot of weight since dad’s funeral and she threatened to lose more the way she was going. Tyler shot me a worried glance and I returned it with equal fervor. I noticed how closely Lizzie was watching mom tonight and I knew she understood how badly my mother was bogged down in grief. But it was more than that.

  I could tell from the way Lizzie was watching my mother that she was considering what her life might have been like if we had stayed together and she had been the wife of a Navy SEAL. I knew I was imagining it but I couldn’t quite find the details of our life together. It was more like a hazy dream where I couldn’t pick out the intricacies.

  “Did you boys talk to Jason?” mom asked once we had finished our meal.

  “I spoke to him this morning,” Tyler replied. “He’s writing up the final deeds.”

  “I hope you boys didn’t bicker over things,” mom said in her soft tone.

  “Of course not mom,” Tyler’s voice was gentle and I knew he would never let on about the disagreements we had. It had always been the unspoken agreement between us. We would never upset mom with our constant back and forth fighting.

  “Good,” mom replied and she genuinely looked relieved. She turned to Lizzie and smiled. “My boys have been such a comfort to me. I don’t know how I would have gotten through this without them.”

  Lizzie smiled. “They need you as much as you need them.”

  “It’s nice to think so.”

  “No, Lizzie’s right,” I nodded.

  Mom smiled again and her eyes fell back on Lizzie. “It’s so nice to have you over again dear; it’s been so long, too long really.”

  “It has,” Lizzie nodded but I noticed a cloud of doubt pass over her eyes as though she were unsure if she should be there at all.

  I didn’t want her thinking about things too much; I didn’t want her doubting or questioning the time she was spending with me. I rose from the table and excused myself and that signaled to everyone else to do the same.

  “You and Lizzie did so much today,” mom said as we moved into the kitchen. “Tyler and I will do the dishes.”

  I didn’t protest too hard; all I wanted was to be able to spend some time with Lizzie alone. I moved back and cornered her as she entered the kitchen with the remaining dishes. “Let’s go for a walk,” I suggested.

  “Ok,” she nodded easily and we said goodbye to Tyler and mom and made our way out of the house.

  It was a lovely night. The stars were visible and the moon was on full display. We moved out of the driveway and down the dusty path that led to the cemetery. I hadn’t made a conscious decision to go there but it felt right to be walking there with Lizzie. I hadn’t been to the cemetery since the funeral and I was glad I had her with her.

  Slowly I slipped my hand into hers and she gave me a small, distracted smile. “Can I ask you a kind of personal question?” I asked.

  “Sure,” she answered back.

  “Did your life turn out the way you imagined it would?”

  It was a loaded question and I knew that, but I was contemplating the answer myself and I wanted to know if Lizzie had the same thoughts when she couldn’t sleep at night. More than anything, I wanted to know that I was not alone in thinking about my life that way.

  “Not even a little,” Lizzie replied.

  I raised my eyebrows. “Not even a little huh?”

  Lizzie sighed as we approached the cemetery. It stood on an elevated slope and so that we were faced with a few lonely headstones that were almost at eye level. She stopped outside the little swinging gate to the cemetery and slipped her hand out of mine.

  “I had something completely different in mind,” she replied slowly. “Something more than the life I have now.”

  She didn’t wait for me to react or respond. She pushed open the little gate and I was forced to follow her through it. We walked down and to the left, right to the back where the larger, shadier trees grew. She went straight for my father’s grave as though she had read my mind. She stopped right in front of the headstone and waited for me to join her.

  There was a small wreath of flowers lying lopsided on dad’s grave. There were white flowers with little purple petals weaved through the wreath. I bent down and adjusted it so that it was sitting comfortably against the pale stone. I couldn’t believe that he was gone; sometimes it felt like I would turn the corner and he would be sitting out on the patio reading a newspaper.

  “It doesn’t seem real does it?” Lizzie said softly, and again it felt like she was reading my thoughts.

  “No it doesn’t,” I agreed. I looked towards Lizzie and took her hand again. “I don’t know if it will ever become real to me.”

  “It will,” she said slowly. “Give it some time. At first it will be like you’re searching, as though you’re still looking for the person you’ve lost to walk into a room and smile at you. Sometimes you might even forget, you might see something that would interest them and you make a mental note to tell them, only to remember that it’s too late.

  “But as time passes, it starts to sink in and you’ll have to
reevaluate then. In a way it’s like losing them a second time because now enough time has passed for you to know that they really aren’t coming back and that hole in your life is always going to be empty.”

  I stared at Lizzie while she spoke. Her voice was soft and her eyes were filled with aged sadness. “Sounds like you’ve been through this before,” I pointed out.

  “No,” she shook her head. “No one very close to me has ever died … but that doesn’t mean I haven’t lost people.”

  I saw the meaning in her eyes and I nodded. “You lost me,” I said.

  “Yes,” she nodded. “I lost you, and for a long time it didn’t feel real. I thought you’d go there, stay a couple of weeks, months even until you realized that you made the wrong choice. I was convinced that after you realized you’d made a mistake, you would have come back.”

  “When did you realize that I wasn’t coming back?”

  “I think it was half way through your training,” Lizzie said. “You called one day and you were thrilled because it was the first time you’d gone through a successful training session. I heard the excitement in your voice and I knew then that you wouldn’t come back. You had gone too far, you had accomplished too much, and above all, you needed to prove to yourself you could do it.”

  “You know me too well,” Dylan said softly.

  “I used to,” Lizzie nodded.

  I led her to one of the trees beside dad’s grave and we sat down together. The moon winked at us from its perch, sending silver rays down on little patches of grass around us.

  “Why did you stay in Texas for college?” I asked. “I thought you always wanted to travel.”

  “I did,” Lizzie nodded. “I still do. But it just never happened for me.”

  “It could have,” I pointed out.

  “I know, but that’s not the decision I made,” she answered. “I was really low after graduation; I felt as though the only person I had left was my mother and I wasn’t sure I could leave her alone. So I decided to stay and build a life in Bastrop. But it didn’t turn out the way I had imagined.”

  “What had you imagined?”

  Lizzie smiled. “I thought by now I’d have been married a couple of years,” she said. “Maybe even have a child or two. That might have been the case, if it hadn’t been for—”

  “Paul?” I asked before she could finish.

  “I chose wrong,” Lizzie said taking responsibility even where she had none. “I was young and mixed up and lonely and I made the decision to marry for all the wrong reasons.”

  “Would you take back that choice if you could?” I asked.

  “Of course,” Lizzie nodded. “But there’s no point in living your life in if’s. I did that once and it almost drove me crazy. Sometimes I feel as though it did anyhow.”

  “You’re not crazy,” I said immediately. “You’re just … stuck.”

  Lizzie looked down at her hands. “I know.”

  “You realize that you don’t have to be in a small town to be stuck in life right?” I asked. “I’ve travelled all over the world and I’m as stuck as you are.”

  “How did that happen?” Lizzie asked.

  I sighed. “War changes you,” I said. “The fight changes you. It puts things into perspective and makes you realize what is really important. But sometimes, by the time you realize it, it’s too late.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I made friends with this guy called Daniel Leigh during my training before I was an official SEAL. We went through the whole damn thing together and out of a group of fifty-three, were we two of eight that made it through and took our oaths. He became my best friend but after the things we had been through … he felt more like my brother.

  “We ended up in the same unit and our first two deployments were stationed in Afghanistan. He was a couple of years older than me and he was married. His wife’s name was Helen and his daughter’s name was Lori. She was only fourteen months and he hadn’t seen her for eleven of those months. He kept a picture of Helen and Lori in a locket around his neck and he looked at it every night and every morning like a prayer.

  “He told me that he was thinking of finishing out his term and then retiring early. He didn’t want to miss out on his daughter’s life, he didn’t want to miss out on any more time with his wife. He just wanted some peace. He wanted some boredom.”

  “What happened to him?” Lizzie asked softly when I fell silent.

  “He died,” I replied. “Two days before we were scheduled to go back home. He walked into a grenade and we had to pick up the pieces of his body to give him a decent burial.”

  Lizzie reached out and wrapped her hand around my arm.

  “His death hit me hard and I realized that I’d made the right decision.”

  Lizzie’s eyes grew confused. “What decision was that?” she asked.

  I shook myself out of my reverie. “Nothing,” I said quickly trying to back track. “It’s not important now.” She didn’t press me and I was grateful.

  “I met his wife once after his death,” I admitted. “And I saw his little girl.”

  “What was that like for you?”

  “It was … terrible, more terrible than I could have imagined,” I replied. “I could see the grief written on her face, just like I can see it on my mother now. But hers was different; she was resentful because she knew he didn’t have to die. She knew that his death could have been avoided and I knew she would live the rest of her life thinking about the 'ifs'. What if he had never enlisted? What if he had chosen a different profession? What if he had simply given it all up after his first tour and gone back home?”

  “Why did you feel like you had to meet her?” Lizzie asked.

  “I was closest to him in our unit,” I explained. “I felt that she should know how much he had loved her … and how much he had loved their daughter. She probably already knew that but I wanted to make sure she heard the words anyway.”

  “You’re a good man, Dylan,” Lizzie said. “You always have been.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I said tiredly.

  “That’s ok,” Lizzie said squeezing my arm. “I do.”

  I smiled and she leaned in and laid a kiss on my cheek. It was amazing how quickly she could make me feel human again, as though I was still a part of this world and all the little miracles it had to offer.

  “If you could have kids tomorrow, would you?” I asked suddenly, greedy to know her dreams.

  “I would,” Lizzie said without hesitation. “It was ironic, really, the moment I knew I was getting divorced was the moment I realized how much I wanted to be a mother.”

  “You will be one day,” I said.

  “One day is a fairy tale that’s miles away,” Lizzie said with a sad smile. “There’s no point thinking about it.”

  “Whenever it happens for you, I have no doubt you’ll be a fabulous mother,” I said sincerely. She had that instinctive pull towards maternal care. She had always been a loving person; she had always been kind and patient and soft spoken. She was made to be a mother.

  “What about you, Dylan?” Lizzie asked. “Would you have kids tomorrow if you could?”

  I didn’t even have to pause to consider that, I already had my answer. It was a decision that formed in my head the day that Daniel had died. “No,” I said shaking my head. “I would like to have children one day, I’d like to have a family, but now is not the right time for me.”

  Lizzie nodded. “I suppose I can understand that.”

  “I never had to explain things to you,” I said.

  Lizzie smiled. “We grew up together; in a way, we raised each other.”

  I nodded. “If it weren’t for you I don’t know where I would have ended up.”

  “Probably in the same place you are now,” Lizzie said.

  “You’ve gotten more cynical since high school,” I pointed out.

  “I like to think I’ve gotten a little more realistic.”

  I smiled
. “I suppose we’ll just have to agree to disagree.”

  Lizzie’s expression straightened out and she looked at me seriously for a moment. “You’ve come close to death haven’t you?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Were you scared?”

  “Very,” I nodded. “But I wasn’t scared to die.”

  “You weren’t?” Lizzie asked in confusion.

  “No,” I shook my head. “I was scared to die without having lived first. I was scared to die before I’d had a chance to own a piece of land, build a business that was completely my own, get married and have children. I was scared of missing out on the important things.”

  “There’s time,” Lizzie reminded me.

  “Thank God for that.”

  She leaned in and kissed me again. “Come home with me,” she whispered into my ear. “Spend the night with me.”

  I felt heat course through my body. “It would be my pleasure,” I replied.

  Chapter Twenty

  Elizabeth

  The moment I opened the door, Elvis was there, meowing loudly and pawing at my feet. I turned on the lights and gestured for Dylan to come inside.

  “You have a cat?” he asked as Elvis glared at him suspiciously.

  I smiled and picked Elvis up off the floor. “I do,” I replied. “His name is Elvis.”

  “Elvis?” Dylan smiled. “That was the name of our imaginary dog.”

  “I remember,” I nodded. “But I wanted a pet and I didn’t have time for a dog, so …”

  “You got a cat,” Dylan nodded as he reached out to stroke Elvis. Elvis eyed him carefully but he allowed Dylan to continue touching him.

  “He doesn’t seem very friendly,” Dylan pointed out.

  “He’s probably just a little jealous,” I said as I dropped Elvis onto the couch and turned on a few more lights. “So, this is it.”

  “It’s nice,” Dylan said as he looked around. “Cozy and compact.”