by Sarina Bowen
Shit.
SEVEN
LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK
MARCH 2014
Mike lay panting in his bed, limbs splayed all over Lauren. He braced himself on an elbow so he wouldn’t crush her, but he couldn’t bring himself to move any farther away from her very naked, very well-fucked body.
A half hour ago he’d come home from the season’s last big road trip. His suitcase was sitting just inside the bedroom door where he’d dropped it. On top of it rested a bunch of hydrangeas he’d picked up on his way home from LaGuardia.
He hadn’t let Lauren put them in water yet. He’d pounced on her for a preliminary round of fast, energetic sex. Even if his body was spent, he couldn’t stop admiring her beneath him. He pushed a lock of golden hair off her forehead and kissed the ivory skin he’d revealed. “What are you thinking about, baby?”
“Spreadsheets,” she answered quickly.
“What?” he yelped, rolling to the side, taking her body with him. “Jesus fuck. Am I slipping? Spreadsheets, after that?”
Her laugh was a giggle. “Can I explain myself before you get offended?”
“Go for it.” He cupped her perfect ass in his hand and gave it a friendly squeeze.
“I’ve been surfing the real estate listings in the city, right?”
“Right.” They were supposed to look at a few later this week.
“Well. After that spectacular welcome I just received, I started wondering about all the fun we could have in our new place.”
He made a noise of approval. “Okay. I like the sound of that. But what about the spreadsheets?”
“There are two places that look particularly good to me. One of them has a fireplace in the living room, which has some serious potential.”
“Ah,” he said, stroking his fingers up her back. “Like, bear skin rug sort of potential?”
“I’m not doing it on a dead bear. Maybe a wool rug, though.”
He laughed, and it shook both of them, so he wrapped his arms around her to hold on tight. “Okay. Tell me about the other one.”
“The other place has a terrace. That’s a real luxury for Manhattan. I could even grow a few hydrangeas.”
“Do I get a vote? Because I’m going to pick fireplace fucking. We can buy hydrangeas at the flower shop.”
“The terrace has a hot tub.”
“Oh.”
“Oh,” she mimicked, giving his arm a squeeze. “I thought you’d like that. For your weary muscles.”
He liked all of it—every whim she might dream up. They’d been together a year and a half already, and things were only getting better. The new team owner had stunned Lauren by offering her a job in Manhattan, and stunned everyone by moving the team to Brooklyn.
The next chapter of their lives would happen in the city. He was giving up his rental house and Lauren would finally move off her parents’ property. “So where do the spreadsheets come in?”
“I’m building one to help me with the rent versus buy calculation,” she explained. “I need to estimate the tax savings for each property and do a cost/benefit analysis. I still think we might want to rent for a while. Just until things settle down on the team.”
“Oh, it’ll be fine.” He didn’t have any idea if that was true, but he didn’t want Lauren to worry. Worrying was a waste of time, and it prevented people from living in the moment. That was no good.
By definition a goalie needed to be very good at pushing aside the hum of anxiety in his life. Another man might panic when the new team owner started making a lot of changes. Mike had a bad feeling about his ex’s health problems, too.
His entire existence was up in the air, except for Lauren. She was his rock.
“Where shall we go for dinner?” he asked her suddenly.
Her smooth hand massaged his shoulder with a firm grip. “I thought you were taking Elsa out to that pizza place?”
He stretched lazily on the sheets that Lauren had picked out for the bed. The rental house was better furnished these days, with furniture in all the important rooms. The bedding was silky against his skin, but not as silky as Lauren. “The pizza is terrible where I’m headed. Even Elsa thinks so. But she likes to try her hand at that claw game. You know that thing?”
“Sure. All those stuffies look easy to grab, but you can never do it.”
“Yup. Elsa loves pouring dollars into that sucker. And after a while she’s like—Daddy, win this! But I can’t. I think it’s rigged.” He ran a hand over Lauren’s perfect hip. “So I could take you out for a late dinner, after I take Elsa home. Seafood?”
“Sounds nice.” She rolled in to hug him. “Or I could cook.”
“You don’t have to. I could grill a couple of steaks.” That was one of two things he could cook.
“I’ll cook.” She snuggled a little closer into his embrace. “Who knows what kind of kitchen our apartment will have? Might as well take advantage of that monster Wolf range you’ve got downstairs.”
He tugged her up onto his body. “We’re not going to have a shitty kitchen, Lo. I’m not going to cheap out on our place.”
“Hey—I’m not worried. But I’ve overheard the wives who have been house-hunting in Brooklyn. They keep complaining about the kitchens,” she said. “But it’s not the end of the world. I’m looking forward to having a dozen restaurants within walking distance.”
“That does sound fun,” he said, running a finger down her perfect nose. “You and I have more flexibility with finding a place, anyway. The guys keep talking about schools and crap. But we don’t care about those.”
“True.” She put her head down on his chest and said nothing further on the topic.
It took him a minute to realize his error. “I meant yet, Lauren. Unless our future child is a prodigy, we don’t need to do the school shuffle for years.”
“I knew exactly what you meant. I was just thinking what a tough transition it must be for these Long Island moms who are moving to Brooklyn.”
“Not all of them are doing it,” he pointed out. “Some players will commute from Long Island. Chancy’s wife said ‘no way, no how’ to moving.”
“He’ll be retired in a couple of years, anyway,” Lauren pointed out. “Looks like Coach is trying to deepen the bench on the left wing to get ready.”
“Yeah. This kid Castro is gonna be good.”
“Agreed.”
Their pillow talk frequently involved shop talk. When he was with Shelly, she used to complain if he talked about hockey to her, but Lauren didn’t mind at all. It’s who you are, she’d said once. And I love who you are.
“I have to get up,” he said, and then didn’t.
“I know,” she agreed, and then didn’t slide off him.
“I love coming home to you,” he whispered.
She kissed his neck in agreement.
He wrapped his arms around her to draw out the perfect moment of quiet just a little longer.
• • •
The drive from his rental house to his old one took about four minutes.
Although he’d moved out a year and a half ago, it was still a little weird to drive up like a guest to the house he’d bought with Shelly. He parked his car at the curb instead of pulling into the garage like he used to.
Same car. Same driveway. New routine.
A few times during the past eighteen months, Lauren had come along when he spent time with Elsa. But it wasn’t easy. Even after all these months, he and Elsa were still trying to settle in to the daddy-doesn’t-live-here-anymore routine. And he’d never say this out loud but Elsa did not exactly crave Lauren’s company. His daughter was tight-lipped and brittle whenever his girlfriend was around. At eleven, she understood what Lauren and Mike were to one another, and she didn’t like it.
Lauren had noticed it too, and it made everyone feel bad. So h
e’d stopped including her in these pizza outings. And Lauren made herself scarce whenever he had Elsa overnight. Like last Thursday—Shelly had gone to see a specialist in Baltimore. They’d told Elsa that Shelly was having a girls’ night out with friends. But it was really some kind of biopsy.
He hadn’t told Lauren the truth, either. In the first place, Shelly had specifically asked him not to talk about her health with anyone.
Lauren could keep a secret. But there was another reason he hadn’t told her. He felt superstitious about it. If he said “something terrible is happening,” then it would.
The possibilities were too awful to contemplate. He hoped that in a year this would all just seem like a bump in the road. Maybe the doctors in Baltimore were about to give Shelly some good news. Somebody would. She was young and healthy.
Uneasy, Mike sat there behind the wheel of his car, watching his (former) house for movement. But Elsa didn’t appear. Since he’d rather not sit in his car all day, he got out and walked up to knock on the door.
Knocking on his own door felt pretty weird, too.
Shelly answered, but it took her a good long time. “Michael,” she said, her voice rough. “Elsa won’t come out. I’m sorry.”
“What do you mean?” He leaned on the doorframe and looked past her. “She’s not ready?”
Shelly slowly shook her head, biting her lip. He was momentarily distracted by the fact that she looked exhausted. “Elsa says she won’t go. I’ve been working on her, but she won’t come out of her room.”
“Why?” Elsa was always happy to see him.
Shelly looked up the stairs, as if the answer lay up there. “You could try to talk to her.”
Irritated now, he stalked past her and went upstairs, taking them two at a time. The familiarity of the carpet under his feet tugged at his gut. And his old house smelled the same—like Shelly’s favorite hand soap. Every time he’d taken a lengthy road trip with the team, coming back had been just a little weird. His family’s lives happened out of his sight a great deal of the time. He’d felt like an intruder sometimes.
As he reached the second floor, the last stair tread squeaked. As it always had. Annoyance flared in his chest. Elsa could have spared him this awkward little trip down memory lane.
His little girl’s room was straight ahead, and he opened the door without knocking. Elsa sat cross-legged on the bed, a stuffed raccoon in her lap, her bony knees jutting out. Too thin, his subconscious prodded. And when he got a look at her face, his heart squeezed. She was awfully pale, with circles under her eyes.
His anger died as quickly as ashes dampened in the rain. “Elsa?” he asked softly. “Sweetie? Are you sick?”
She looked up at him as if he’d said something completely idiotic. “Not me. Mom.”
“Well, I know about that.” He sat on the bed. Shelly was in the middle of her second chemotherapy regime. Her cancer hadn’t responded to the first one.
“She throws up all the time,” Elsa said in a quavering voice.
“That sucks,” he said softly. “You and me can go and have some pizza, and give your mom a few hours to nap.”
Elsa shook her head. “I don’t want any pizza.”
“But we’re going to play the claw,” he tried, bringing out the big guns. “Maybe today’s our lucky day.”
As he watched, her blue eyes slowly filled up with tears. “It never works, Daddy. You know that. We’ll never win.”
That was the precise moment he realized things were far worse than he thought. He pulled Elsa into his lap and she hugged him like he was a life preserver in the middle of the Atlantic. “You won’t come out with me today?” he asked softly.
She shook her head. “I don’t want to leave Mom alone.”
“Maybe Tad is coming over to keep her company.”
“Tad bailed,” she said.
“He . . . what?”
“He left and he’s not coming back.”
Fuck. “Is Mom sad about that?” he asked, hoping the answer was no.
“She cried and cried. I could hear her when I was trying to fall asleep.”
Mike closed his eyes against a sudden burning sensation. He hated this for Elsa. All this fear. “You know, things are kind of rough right now. I sure am sorry about that. But I don’t think Mom wants you to hide in your room feeling sad. You can still have pizza with your dad. And maybe ice cream.”
“Pancakes,” she said. “I want you to make pancakes.”
“Okay!” he said, leaping at this idea. Anything to get Elsa feeling better. He wondered if he had any pancake mix left from the last time she stayed over with him. They could swing by the store . . . He stood up, lifting her against his chest as if she was still a preschooler. “Let’s go fire up Daddy’s giant stove.” He’d have to warn Lauren that they were on their way.
“No. You have to make pancakes here.” Her blue eyes begged.
“Here? Mom might not like that.” I won’t either.
“She doesn’t eat anymore. Ever. But if you make pancakes she’ll eat. I just know it.”
His heart sank all the way to the floor. “That’s why you want pancakes?”
She nodded. “It will totally work.”
“Um . . .” He set Elsa down on her feet. “You go look for pancake mix in the kitchen, okay? I’m going to talk to your mom.”
• • •
He didn’t get to dine with Lauren that night.
Pancakes and bacon were made and consumed. Shelly choked down a pancake with obvious difficulty. But she did it for Elsa.
Then she quickly opened a kitchen window, and cold air filled the kitchen. She and Elsa pulled on sweaters which were already stashed on the backs of their dining chairs.
When he gave Shelly a curious glance, she mumbled that the smell of food cooking was something she couldn’t really tolerate lately.
Mike wondered what Elsa had been eating, then. The answer was revealed when he opened the freezer to find stacks of frozen kids’ meals. Unease coated his gut. Shelly had always prided herself on making everything from scratch. No wonder Elsa was terrified. Food from a box was the equivalent of Armageddon in this house.
That night he put his little girl to bed the way he’d done a million times. Well, not a million. He traveled too much for that. But it felt good to tuck her in knowing that he’d eased her mind a little.
His child was suffering. In all her eleven years, he’d never seen her so scared. Not even when she broke her arm and had to have surgery to repair the break.
Mike kissed her forehead one more time and closed her bedroom door quietly. Shelly was waiting for him, sitting at the bottom of the steps.
He sat down beside her. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey.” She didn’t look him in the eye. “I have a couple of things to tell you. You want the good news or bad news first?”
“The good news.” And please make it good.
“Divorce papers are done. I got mine from FedEx today, and yours went to the clubhouse.”
“Wow. Okay.” For a split second his heart soared. He knew it weighed on Lauren to date a technically married man. Then reality kicked in. “What’s the bad news?”
“I got some test results from Johns Hopkins.”
His spine tingled. “And?”
“Same as Sloan Kettering, only they put a number on it.”
“A number?”
“The five year survival rate for this kind of cancer at this stage. It’s . . .” He heard her swallow roughly. “Twelve percent.”
His stomach dropped all the way to his shoes, and he almost asked her to repeat it. There’s no way twelve could be right.
How the fuck could that be right?
She sat very still beside him, not breathing. And he had a déjà vu moment. Twelve years ago they’d had a different but equally terri
fying conversation. I’m pregnant, she’d said at that time. He didn’t think there was anything as scary as that.
He’d been wrong.
Now his throat closed up as it had done the other time, too. “I’m so sorry,” he croaked out.
“Me, too,” she whispered.
His mind whirled, trying to adjust to what it might mean. What she’d said was so big he knew he’d need a couple days to get his head around it.
He might be making a lot of pancakes this summer.
“Take Elsa away in June,” Shelly said suddenly.
“What?” he gasped, playing catchup. “Where?”
“Doesn’t matter. Ontario. Disney World. Take her on vacation. I can’t do it right now. Too many treatments. And there will be more specialists. She’ll end up just going to day camp if she stays here with me. I’ll have to get my parents to move in with me to get her back and forth.”
The tightness in his chest doubled down. Shelly’s parents were jerks. They’d shamed her for getting pregnant when she was a teenager and shamed her again for having an affair and getting divorced. Elsa didn’t like them all that well, either.
His little girl’s summer looked grim.
“I’ll think of something,” he said. But would he? If he couldn’t get Elsa to leave the house for pizza, she wouldn’t be bamboozled into a three week vacation, no matter how exciting.
“We’ll talk tomorrow,” Shelly said quietly. “Or the next day.”
“Okay,” he said, hearing in her voice that he was dismissed. He stood up, spotting his car out the front door, waiting at the curb. When he’d parked it there a few hours earlier, things in his life were completely different.
He left Shelly alone there in her quiet house, grateful to escape to his, where Lauren was asleep on her back, a book open on her chest. She’d been trying to wait up for him.
He climbed into bed beside her, carefully removing the book and shutting off the light. He stretched an arm toward her sleeping body. But something made his hand pause just over her arm. All he had to do was roll closer and hold her.
She would wake to his kisses, and sink into his embrace. They could make slow, sleepy love to each other, and he could leave the day’s troubles behind.
