by Sarina Bowen
She heard laughter as the elevator doors closed again.
TEN
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
APRIL 2016
The next morning at ten thirty, Mike keyed in the security code on the door of his brownstone and walked inside. He tossed his duffel bag onto the floor and kicked off his shoes. Then he listened.
Violins—two of them. Elsa and Hans were practicing. The piece was something fun and fast, with one violin chasing the other one around the melody. The effect was like two chattering squirrels zipping around a tree.
He just stood there in the entryway to his own home for several minutes, listening until the piece broke down.
“You said to repeat!” Elsa said with a giggle.
“But not there!” Hans argued, his voice amused. “Go back to measure fifty-five. Let’s finish this before I’m old.”
The music started up again, and he walked slowly through the house. He’d overpaid for this place, but it was gorgeous. The Wall Street couple who’d sold it to him had done a modern renovation down to the studs. They’d opened up the rooms to make a clean and bright space, with lots of natural light. It was ridiculously contemporary, though, with every surface painted either a shimmering white or an expensive shade of dove gray. The light fixtures resembled space age bird’s nests. Or something. He couldn’t quite decide what the hell they were supposed to be.
He’d paid a decorator to choose from all the furniture they owned and refinish and reupholster some of it to suit the space. She’d done a good job warming the space up with honey-colored wood finishes and touches of color. He’d probably been a dream client—checkbook open and no patience to sweat the details.
Mike was still smiling as he climbed the stairs toward Elsa’s room. The violins got louder. There was no greater moment in parenting than listening to your kid play Mozart or who-the-fuck-ever and laughing. They’d had some really dark days these past couple of years. But a few things went right, the biggest one being Hans.
It had originally been Shelly’s idea to ask the violin teacher to move in with them. Hans was in his twenties—your basic starving artist. During the week he auditioned for orchestra gigs. On the weekends he’d charged Long Island parents fifty-five bucks for a half hour of his time. Elsa had taken to him immediately, and he’d been her teacher for years.
There had been an awful month at the very end when Shelly was too sick to get any more chemo. The cancer spread to her lungs, and she was exhausted all the time.
They knew she would die, they just didn’t know when.
Mike spent all his free time either watching movies with Elsa—because it was less terrifying to ride out Shelly’s last days when they were looking at a screen—or having frantic, whispered conversations about the future with his dying wife.
“Hans just broke up with his boyfriend,” Shelly said one night. “He’s homeless. He’s flying back to Germany to re-group for the summer, and I’m afraid he’s going to stay there.”
“Fuck,” Mike had said, massaging his temples. Even one more loss in Elsa’s life was one too many.
“What if he moved in here? He already babysits for us plenty.”
This was true. Shelly had hired him to hang out with Elsa during the final weeks of Mike’s playing season. “Okay,” Mike had said without thinking about it too hard. “Should I write him an e-mail?”
“Do it,” she’d said. And the rest just fell into place. And when Mike had moved to Brooklyn last fall, Hans was all too happy to come along. He lived rent free in one of the most expensive cities in the world, and also got paid a weekly salary to be available when Elsa wasn’t in school.
Mike reached the doorway to his daughter’s bedroom, where the music stand was set up. Big blond Hans towered over his daughter, but their body language as they finished their piece was eerily similar. After the last note rang out long and bright, Mike clapped from his spot against the doorjamb.
Elsa whirled around and Hans jerked out of the way to avoid being poked by her violin bow. “Easy, kiddo,” he said.
“Daddy!” Elsa took a second to lay her instrument in its case on the bed. “You’re back!” She ran over and jumped on him, just like she used to do when she was little.
“I am,” he said, catching almost a hundred pounds of Elsa in his arms and squeezing her. She looked taller than she had two days ago. “I’m home for forty-eight hours, anyway.”
Elsa slid down to her feet, frowning. “Your next game isn’t for four days.”
“True. But Nate is shipping us all to some benefit in Miami on Tuesday night.”
“Hell no!” Elsa complained. “That’s not cool. I’m going to tweet that Nate Kattenberger is anti-family.” Her face took on this slightly evil little smirk that Mike had privately titled the Teenager Smile.
“I wouldn’t do that, honey. Nate is financing our fancy new house and our big trip to France this summer. Besides—as soon as the play-offs are done I’m going to be around all the time. Seriously.” He grinned at her. “You’ll be like—Daddy get out of my room! Get a life!”
Hans chuckled over his own violin case. “You sound just like her.” He picked up the instrument and slung it on his back. “Good practice, Elsabelle. Except you race too fast through the B section.”
“Nope!” she argued. “Your pace drags.”
“Be nice, Elsa,” Mike said, disliking her tone.
“Eh,” Hans winked on his way out the door. “It’s like taking a Mercedes on the autobahn and following the speed limit. She’s the only kid I teach who can play it that fast. I’d let it rip, too.”
Mike followed Hans a few feet down the hallway. “So tonight I was thinking we’d all watch a movie together. Maybe one of those sappy movies Elsa likes. Then hot fudge sundaes?”
Hans turned around slowly in front of his bedroom door. “You are joking right now, aren’t you?” he asked at a whisper.
Mike couldn’t hold back his laughter any longer. “Go!” he said making a shooing motion at the babysitter. “Go out and get drunk and . . .” he only mouthed the last bit: get laid. “I’m sorry about this thing on Tuesday night in Miami. The hits just keep on coming.”
“It’s fine. I didn’t have anything I needed to do on Tuesday.”
“Yeah? Well I don’t think you read the calendar for Tuesday yet. Check your phone.” Hans disappeared into his room. It only took a few seconds until Mike heard him cursing. “Sorry, pal!” Mike said with a chuckle.
Tuesday was the middle school’s performance of Cats. Since Elsa was in the orchestra, Hans would have to sit through the whole thing.
“It has to be Cats?” Hans called from within his room. “Who does that show anymore? Will it be rude if I wear my earbuds and listen to Hamilton the whole time?”
“Then you won’t hear me play!” Elsa complained from her room.
“Kidding, sweetie!” Hans returned.
“Who’s hungry?” Mike called, heading back toward the stairs. “Is it lunch time?”
“Half past ten?” Hans called. “That’s brunch. You can say ‘brunch.’ It won’t make you gay.”
Mike laughed again. “I love you, man. Does that make me gay?”
“I love him more!” Elsa yelled.
Grinning, Mike headed toward his fancy chef’s kitchen to scare up some food for his weird little family.
• • •
That night he and Elsa sat down to watch a movie together. Elsa queued up Amadeus and Mike filled a bowl with popcorn and Milk Duds tossed into it. Last week Mike had ordered Milk Duds from Amazon.com on his Katt Phone so he and Elsa could eat this comforting treat together.
It had been Shelly’s favorite, and he knew his little girl remembered.
“Can I start it?” Elsa asked when he sat down, the bowl between them.
“In a minute. There’s a couple of things I need to t
alk to you about.”
“What?” She stuck her hand in the popcorn bowl.
“I found you a math tutor.”
Elsa pulled a face. “Yippee.”
“This young woman was recommended by your school counselor.” He’d spent the plane ride back from D.C. catching up on all things Elsa. “She’s fun, apparently. You’re seeing her on Tuesday.”
“Fine. What’s the other thing?”
The other thing was even trickier.
Mike leaned forward and pulled a FedEx envelope off the coffee table. “This came in the mail, and I really don’t know what to think about it.” He pulled two sealed envelopes out of the big one. One was fat, as if crammed with several pages. Elsa was printed on the front in her mother’s handwriting. The other was thin, and read Michael.
His daughter picked each one up in turn, examining them carefully. “Where did you get these?” she asked eventually, her voice shaky.
“The, uh, lawyer sent them while I was away. He’d had instructions to hold onto them for a year.”
“A year,” Elsa repeated slowly.
“Apparently that’s what she wanted.” Mike didn’t have a clue if Elsa was in the right frame of mind for this kind of bomb. There were days when Elsa was feeling much better, and other days when it seemed as if Shelly had died just a week ago, and everything was raw and hopeless.
He’d almost shoved these letters in a drawer to worry about later. But it seemed mean to withhold her mother’s last gift.
“I’m not reading it tonight,” she announced, flipping the Elsa envelope onto the coffee table.
“Okay,” he said quickly. “That’s fine. Can you do me a favor, though?”
“Sure?”
“Tell me when you have read it? I’ll read mine too, then.”
“All right.” She handed the Mike letter back to him. “Yours is thin.”
“I noticed that.” He shoved it into the FedEx envelope for now. He had no idea what Shelly wanted to say to him. While Elsa had been too terrified to acknowledge Shelly’s imminent passing, he and his wife had already said their I’m sorrys and good-byes. What was there left to say? He was half afraid he’d only find a note inside that read: Don’t fuck this up.
And was it awful that he’d seen these envelopes and thought that it was just like Shelly to get the last word?
Whether Elsa was struggling with the contents of the letter, he couldn’t tell. She pointed the remote at the TV and pressed Play. “Let’s watch this thing.”
• • •
The movie was long and he found himself nodding off near the end. When his eyes fell closed, he drifted to the memory of the previous night. The win on the ice. And then the kiss on the sidewalk.
He hadn’t meant to kiss Lauren. But when he’d held her in his arms it just felt right. He’d never been as drawn to anyone on earth as he was to her. Hell. Hopefully she wasn’t too upset with him for making her talk to him again.
When the movie ended, he shut off the TV and followed Elsa upstairs, where they got ready for bed in their respective designer bathrooms.
His was on the third floor. The master suite was the least lived-in part in the house. There was plenty of furniture, but no pictures on the walls and no personal touches. He hadn’t turned the decorator loose on this floor, because nobody else ever saw it.
After brushing his teeth, he jogged back down one flight to say good night to his girl. She was in her bed already, but poking at her phone, which she put down guiltily when he came in.
“Good night, honey.” He sat down on the edge of the bed. “Tomorrow I’ll have training in the morning. But we can go out for dinner together later. “
“Okay. Can I pick the place?”
“Within reason.”
“Did you lock the doors?” Elsa was still a little weirded out by living in the city. She often asked about locking the doors.
“I sure did.”
“Hans isn’t coming home tonight?”
“Doesn’t seem like it,” he said quickly. “Probably crashing at Justin’s. The trains don’t run as frequently at night.”
Elsa rolled her eyes. “I know they sleep together, Dad.”
Yikes. He didn’t know what to say about that, and not because Hans was gay. What were thirteen-year-olds ready to hear about sex? He had no fucking clue. The fact that it was solely his job to successfully parent this child was beyond comprehension.
“Daddy?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think it’s serious with Justin?”
“Uh . . . maybe?” Good answer, champ. Really eloquent. “Hans tells us a lot of funny little stories about the places he and Justin go, but he doesn’t really tell us how he feels about him.”
“I noticed that,” Elsa said, picking lint off her comforter. “But Hans wouldn’t spend so much time with someone unless he cared. I’m worried that he’ll leave us.”
“Ah.” Hell. He might. “Hans will leave someday no matter what, right? But he’ll always be our friend. You can still have him over for Thai food and orchestra gossip.”
“Mmm,” Elsa said, looking put out. “I don’t want him to go.”
“Why don’t we wait until he wants to go to worry about it? He has a pretty sweet deal here right now. He lives rent free with two people who are pretty great. Who would want to leave us?”
“True.” She smiled up at him.
“Hey, Els? Can I ask a favor?”
“Sure.”
“If you happen to, uh, run into Lauren again before the play-offs are over, can you just give her a smile?”
“Why?” Elsa made a face like she’d tasted something bitter.
“Because I’m asking you to,” he said quietly. “It’s not her choice to work with the team right now. But Nate asked her to step in because Becca is taking a temporary leave.”
“Becca is great, but I don’t like Lauren.”
Mike took the sort of calming breath that one takes while speaking to a teenager. “You don’t really know Lauren, honey. You haven’t seen her for two years. But she and I used to be close, and it’s important to treat her with respect. Maybe you’re not a fan of everything that happened when your mother and I were separated. But none of that is Lauren’s fault.”
“That’s not what I heard.”
His blood pressure notched up. “What?”
“Mrs. Chancer said Lauren stole you away from Mom. That she’s a sneaky little bitch who doesn’t know that karma is real . . .”
“Elsa,” he snapped, cutting her off, because he couldn’t stand to hear any more. Anger crackled through him, and he had to take another deep breath and remind himself that Elsa was only repeating what she’d heard from the hockey wife with a mouth the size of Long Island.
“That’s what she said.” Elsa defended herself. “And more.”
Shit. “Okay, listen to me,” he said as calmly as he could. “None of that is true. Lauren didn’t do a thing wrong. She was in no way responsible for the time that your mother and I spent apart. That was all me and Mom, okay?”
His daughter eyed him sulkily. “Then why did you leave in the first place?”
Mike closed his eyes and tried to think. He wasn’t going to throw his dead wife under the bus on this one. And they were both responsible for their shitty marriage, anyway. “Your mom and I had some troubles. I know you didn’t like it, but you don’t get to blame Lauren for it. Or . . .” It actually took him a moment to come up with the name of the tennis instructor. “. . . Tad. Or anyone.”
“I didn’t like Tad either.”
He smiled suddenly. That makes two of us. “You don’t have to like him. But you can’t be rude to him, and you can’t blame him for what happened. I mean it—be polite to Lauren. She’s important to me, and she doesn’t deserve any scorn from anyone.”
/> Elsa scowled. “Okay. Whatever.”
That was the best he was going to get from her tonight. That was obvious. So he kissed her on the forehead and told her to sleep tight.
Then he went up to bed alone, the way he always did.
ELEVEN
BAL HARBOUR, FLORIDA
APRIL 2016
Lauren flew to Florida with an extra suitcase full of dresses and accessories. Not only had she promised Ari some wardrobe assistance, but she was having a fashion crisis of her own, too.
Waiting at the baggage claim, she felt eyes on her back. When she turned around, Mike Beacon was watching her from across the room.
Damn it. That was not what she needed. When she pulled her two suitcases off the carousel at the same time, a hand reached out to help her with one of them. She stiffened, but it was only Jimbo, the youngest member of the travel team.
“Is that all of your bags, Miss Lauren?” he asked politely.
“That’s all. Thank you.”
“I’ll grab this one,” he said helpfully, adding one of her bags to the rolling trolley he was assembling.
“Thanks,” she said again, pulling the other one after her toward the door. She walked right past Mike, feeling his eyes following her out the door and into the Florida sunshine toward the bus.
Hell, they were still at the airport and she already felt butterflies in her stomach. This party made her nervous. Really nervous. Not only would Mike be there, but the Atlantic coast of Florida had way too much history for her. There was no way to feel the sunshine on her face and ignore the ghosts of her own happiness swirling around her.
On the bus, she busied herself with planning tasks for the next series of games. There would be two games in Tampa, followed by two games in Brooklyn. Only through constant alternation of host sites could home ice advantage be shared. The winner of the Stanley Cup would be the team who could perform at its peak for four best-of-seven series in a row.
Play-offs season was exhausting. The end.
Her phone rang. Checking it, she saw her father’s face on the screen. Yikes. She and her dad weren’t close, and she didn’t often enjoy their phone calls. On the other hand, taking his call on the bus gave her a perfect reason to cut it short.
