by Mignon Mykel
Shit.
It was the twenty-third of December.
The day didn’t even register in my race to get here but…
“He’ll be fine,” I tried reassuring Anderson, but he shook his head.
Anderson’s mood changed from upbeat to melancholy like the flip of a switch. “No. He had to play tonight. Because of me, my dad is never going to play again.”
My stomach was rolling now for different reasons.
Mikey played tonight?
He got on the ice, and played tonight?
Everyone knew that Mikey’s one superstition, was he couldn’t play on this day…and he did, and look what happened?
“He’ll be fine,” I said again, even though I feared he wouldn’t be.
The door slid open and I turned my attention to the person walking in, wearing Marvel scrubs. I looked for her badge, then saw the RN tag sticking out from behind her identification card.
“Hey. I’m Steph. I’m Anderson’s nurse.”
Anderson nudged me. “She likes Thor. I told her that Iron Man was the best.”
I smiled down at him. “I think Thor’s pretty awesome too.” I brought my attention back up to the nurse. “Hi, I’m Molly. Anderson’s nanny. I’m in his chart.”
Steph nodded. “Yes, I did see that. We’ll be setting his arm shortly, but do you think Anderson’s father will get here soon?”
I looked at the clock. Without knowing when Mikey was called, and where he was in the game… “I don’t, I’m sorry. I do know he was contacted.”
“Okay,” Steph said with a smile. “Well, Anderson, how are you doing? Need more ice chips?”
Anderson shook his head. “No, thank you. I’m okay right now.”
“Alright. Then, I’ll be back in a little while.” She quickly jotted something down on a piece of paper she pulled from her pocket then left after another quick smile to Anderson.
“Ice chips? That’s fancy,” I joked to Anderson before pulling a chair to his bed.
“I can’t eat anything right now,” Anderson pouted. “Callie was going to make giant ice cream sundaes for me and her, after the boys went to bed. I purposely didn’t eat a lot of dinner, so I’d eat the whole thing.”
I laughed, shaking my head. “Only you, kid. Only you…”
We settled in then, turning on the wall-mounted television and finally agreeing on the Disney channel. Anderson stayed quiet during the show, but the moment the commercials came on, he looked over at me.
Gone was his happy expression.
“Why haven’t you been home?”
With a sigh and a tight partial smile, I reached over the bed and grabbed his good hand. “I’m sorry, bud. I needed time to think. Just grown up stuff.” It had been cowardly of me; I knew it when I quietly left the Leeds house, but hearing Anderson’s sad tone just drove that thought home.
Cowardly.
Selfish.
“We missed you.”
Part of me wanted to fight that comment—Anderson missed me maybe, but Mikey? He missed the idea of me. Of having someone there.
Not me.
But another part of me…
He misses you too, Doll. So much.
That odd feeling washed over me, much like at the gala when I heard the small giggle. And Doll…
Only one person in my life ever called me Doll.
Moll-Doll.
Molly-Doll.
And that was Trina.
Thinking of Trina…
My eyes began to water at my betrayal.
At my thoughts last week that I could be happy with what had been hers.
He loves you.
I shook my head and swallowed hard, my eyes focusing on Anderson again. “I missed you too, Anderson.” I reached over with my other hand to ruffle his hair, and registered his eyes widening before I heard the door slide open again.
“Anderson.” Mikey’s voice was breathless, and maybe a little bit wild.
I removed my hands from his son, and stood, ready to face Mikey. I braced myself for the onslaught of hate, but I should have known better.
Mikey stood there, taking in his son in a hospital bed, as I took him in.
He looked worse now than he did nine years ago, coming out of the airport—as if this day, this last hour, had aged him.
He hadn’t even bothered with his dress shirt.
Mikey looked like he tore out of the locker room in a rush. His slacks were on without a belt. One of his dress shoes was untied. And his undershirt tee wasn’t tucked in.
“Just broken, dad. I’m sorry,” Anderson’s voice came from behind me. “It’ll be okay. The nurse was here, and she was cool with Molly but wanted to talk to you before doing anything major with my arm. You think I can get a green cast?” Anderson took the role of adult, and gave Mikey the major rundown, while all I could do was just stare at his father.
Mikey’s eyes shifted then, landing on me.
I was expecting his face to close off.
For him to immediately turn his eyes away and ignore me.
Hell, for him to dismiss me.
I was not expecting the man’s face to fall; his eyes watered and his jaw slackened, as if seeing me gave him permission to break.
My heart tripped in my chest; I didn’t know what to do. I was frozen in my spot.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to do anything at the moment, as the doctor came through the door right after Mikey.
“Mr. Leeds. I wasn’t sure you’d be able to make it so quickly. I’m Dr. Schwimmer. I’m with Orthopedics.”
Mikey tore his gaze from me, cleared his throat, and turned to the doctor. As badly as I wanted to watch Mikey and hear what the doctor had to say about the plan, I gave Anderson company.
“Green, yeah?” I asked him.
“It’s the best color,” was his answer. “Bright green. Neon green.”
“That’s pretty bright.”
Anderson gasped. “Do you think they have glow-in-the-dark green?!”
“If not, I’m sure we can make it happen with paint or something.”
“That means you’re gonna come back to the house, right? Will you come to Christmas with us? Dad’s no fun on the plane. He just wants to sleep, and sometimes the plane doesn’t have the best movies. I think you should come,” Anderson went on, his rambling no match for me. I wouldn’t be able to cut in if I tried. When he was on a roll, he was unstoppable. I let him talk, listening to him and enjoying his words.
I’d missed him.
I’d missed his father.
“Alright, Anderson,” Dr. Schwimmer announced, which finally had Anderson quieting. “You ready to do this thing?”
Anderson’s face finally fell completely, and he resembled a scared ten-year-old, rather than the happy, chatty one he normally was. “Is it gonna hurt?”
Mikey walked over, taking a spot on the other side of the bed. “You’ve got this, bud.” He leaned down to press a kiss to Anderson’s forehead, and I made myself turn away from the show of emotion.
Mikey still looked like he was ready to break into a million little pieces, but he managed to hold himself together, ever the strong one.
“There’s a waiting room outside of Ortho that you guys can stay in, or you can hang out in here,” Dr. Schwimmer said, hitting a button on the wall. Only a few seconds later, and two new nurses came into the room, followed by Steph with a big blue chart.
I looked to Mikey; Anderson was his son. Whatever he wanted to do…
“We’ll come with.”
We.
I swallowed hard and forced myself to meet his eyes. He held them—one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi—then forced a smile at Anderson. “Let’s do this.”
Chapter Nineteen
Mikey
Draz had offered to get someone to give me a ride, but I told him I was fine.
I nearly had a nervous breakdown in the cinderblock hallway though, making my way to the car. It was there that I turned on my phone—s
omething that was far harder to do than someone would think.
Trevor and Callie left messages.
The first, a voicemail saying Anderson had fallen and caught himself funny, breaking his arm—to which Trevor said it was clearly a clean break.
Then, text messages with updates from Callie.
Including one that said she got ahold of Molly.
It was that one that allowed my heart to slow down from its race; allowed me to calm down enough to get to the hospital without adding reckless driving to my list of accomplishments.
Seeing her in the room with my boy…
Shit, it was the rock that crumbled the dam, and if it weren’t for the doctor, I probably would have made an emotional embarrassment of myself.
She was okay.
She was here.
She was okay.
I didn’t care about anything else. Didn’t care that she’d left. That she’d been a ghost.
She was here now, and that was all that mattered.
We followed behind the medical team as they rolled Anderson in a wheelchair out of the ER and toward ortho. One of the nursing staff showed Molly and me to the waiting room. Unfortunately, nearly every seat was taken, but for a single one near the corner.
“You can sit,” I told Molly. There were a couple doubletakes as we moved to the back of the room, but none of the parents or kids said anything. It made little difference to me if someone in this room leaked that I was at the Children’s Hospital; the team would have to release a statement anyway, with my leaving in the middle of a game.
She shook her head. “You probably need to sit more than I do.” Her voice…
Once again, the emotions in my body began to build. The day, the notification, the call, the texts…
I collapsed down into the chair and didn’t think twice about reaching for Molly’s middle, pulling her close, and pushing my face into her stomach. I didn’t cry tears so much as silently sob, my shoulders shaking, as I held her.
When her hands threaded into my hair, I squeezed my arms around her tighter.
She held me, as I held her, her fingers moving through my hair in gentle, soothing motions as my body shook with the pent-up emotion of the night.
After another moment to calm myself—and with the lingering thought that these people probably thought my kid was dying, with the show I was putting on—I pulled my head away from Molly’s stomach. Her hands still in my hair, she stared down at me, her face stoic, but her eyes…her feelings were evident in her eyes.
Without a word, I moved my hands to her hips and pulled gently; she let go of me and willing allowed me to guide her to my lap, where I just wrapped my arms around her again, pressing my face to her shoulder.
We sat there in silence, but the moment didn’t call for words.
Her being her was enough.
…But would she stay?
* * *
I lifted a sleeping Anderson from the car, and Molly slipped behind me, so she could open the door to the house. She held it open as I walked inside, Anderson cradled in my arms like he wasn’t ten. I heard the sounds of the garage door closing, right before the door closed, too. It was a chicken-shit thing to do, but I couldn’t look over my shoulder to see if she followed behind.
In theory, she’d have to—the mechanical door sounded before the regular door—but part of me was afraid she was going to leave again.
It was that part that had me carrying Anderson to his room and avoiding the fact that Molly may be gone again.
I tucked my son into bed after removing his shoes. He’d be fine in his clothes.
Clothing was going to be the least of his worries when he woke in the morning, his arm in pain. The doctor said his meds wouldn’t likely wear off until around five, and even though he gave us a stronger narcotic for the first few days, I wanted to try regular, over-the-counter pain relievers before breaking out the hard stuff.
He was probably going to be more upset about the fact I cancelled our flight to Quebec, than about his deep green cast and the pain that lived behind it, anyway.
Leaving his door open a crack, I headed back toward the middle of the house, where the lighting in the kitchen was dimmed. I could hear Molly rummaging around in the cupboards and when I cleared the hall, saw her standing on tip toes in front of the cabinet that housed meds and prescriptions. We kept things placed on the second shelf when Anderson was younger, so he wouldn’t reach them.
Funny, Molly could hardly reach them herself.
How had I never noticed that?
I took a moment to watch her, and after she pushed aside a box of band-aids and an orange prescription bottle, I went over to help.
“What are you looking for?” I asked, standing directly behind her.
If anything, she went up on her tip toes further. “There’s a grape liquid Tylenol up there somewhere.”
I reached over her, moving another bottle. She dropped down to the flats of her feet, and I found the bottle she was looking for, adding it to the small pile she assembled.
The liquid Tylenol, as well as two different flavors of chewable Motrin.
Molly turned then and, avoiding my eyes and instead focusing on my shirt, she said, “He usually responds to Motrin better, but he’s never had something of this magnitude. You may have to alternate them, to keep on top of his pain. Like the doctor suggested. He likes the chewable Motrin; don’t bother finding the chewable Tylenol. He doesn’t care for it.”
I stared at the top of her head, as she told me how to care for my boy.
Where would we be without Molly?
Dammit, why didn’t she see that she belonged here?
I feel her, but I don’t see her.
I frowned at the memory—or whatever it was—but it was true.
I felt Molly in this house.
But she didn’t exist. Not on the walls. Not for the world to see.
“Molly.”
She stopped talking but didn’t look up. She did, however, take a breath that had her shoulders slumping forward.
Tired of being a coward, and aching to feel her skin again, I cupped my hands on either side of her face and tipped it up, forcing her to look at me. Her lips tightened, and it was only a matter of seconds before her eyes took on a glassy sheen.
“Talk to me,” I whispered. “Please.”
She shook her head in my hands.
“I don’t know what I did, baby, and it kills me to know that something spooked you. Why? What happened, Moll?”
She tried to cast her eyes downward, and knowing I wasn’t going to get anywhere—yet—I changed tactics. “Thank you for being there tonight.”
“Of course, I was,” she barely managed to whisper. I dropped my hands from her face, gently kneading her shoulders, my thumbs brushing circles under her collar bone.
Behind me, on the kitchen island, a phone buzzed. I was going to ignore it, but it buzzed again.
With my hands still on Molly’s shoulders, I looked over my shoulder, spotting her phone. The screen was lit up, and her screensaver was a picture of her with Anderson.
Molly has pictures of her and him on her phone. You should tell her to print them. Then put them in the house.
Trina’s voice was clear as day in my head.
Confused, I looked back to Molly, who was also looking toward her phone, but the expression on her face was tired.
“It’s been acting up,” she mumbled, shrugging from my hold. “Goes off for no reason. Must be time for a new one.”
Still confused, feeling the frown on my face, I reached for Molly’s hand. “Molly? Why did you leave?” I felt the nudge to ask, as if her answer was more important than I realized.
“Mikey…” she said, obviously tired.
“Why did you leave?” I pushed again.
With an exaggerated look to the ceiling, she sighed heavily before shaking her head, “Because I told you I loved you and, in your sleep, you told Trina you loved her. Like last time. You won’t ever love
me, not at the same capacity you loved her. And I don’t have it in me to compete with that.”
In a rush, my dream of Trina came back to me.
As well as her sweet, sure words: There’s no one better for you than Molly.
“That’s…” I shook my head, trying to clear it but trying to find a way to tell Molly what I thought had happened. “Moll, it’s crazy, but I had a dream about Trina that night.”
Molly stepped away, picking up her phone and turning off the screen, blacking out the image of her and Anderson. “I’m going to head home,” she answered, and I could hear how upset she was.
I needed to make her understand.
“Not like a dream, but like she was talking to me. She talked to me, Molly. Said she talks to you too.”
Molly offered me a sad, almost pathetic smile, and shook her head. “Okay, Mikey.”
“No. Listen, Moll. Please. Just listen.”
“You can’t love me like you loved her!” Molly finally broke. “Not how I love you,” she added her body finally shaking as she gave in to what she clearly thought was a breaking heart.
That wasn’t how I wanted to hear her tell me she loved me.
And I’d be damned if that was the only time I heard it.
I pulled her close to me again, and she didn’t push back.
She also didn’t wrap her arms around me, keeping them to her sides.
That was okay. I’d hold her enough for both of us.
I held her tightly to me as I bent my head, talking low in her ear. “I love you, Molly. So damn much. And I know without a doubt in my soul that Trina would approve of us. I promise you. I’d told Trina I loved her in my dream, and it felt like it was the last time. I swear, Moll, if I ever do it in my sleep again, you have permission to wake me up and slap me, but fuck, I don’t want you to doubt what I feel for you.
“I love you so much. This week has been hell, with not knowing where you were, and you not talking to even Anderson. Hell. Please hear me.”
We stood there in silence.
The longer she said something, the bigger my fears grew.
She couldn’t trust what I’d said.
She would still leave.
And then she confirmed that thought.
“I have to go.”
* * *
I wasn’t sure when I finally fell asleep.
