by Selena Kitt
Ellie
I woke up to the smell of fresh coffee and something delicious coming from somewhere in Cade's ridiculously enormous house. He wasn't beside me in bed so I grabbed the towel he'd left on the pillow and had a quick shower before putting on one of his robes and joining him in the kitchen.
"Ha!" He laughed when he saw me. "You look like a little munchkin in that, Ellie."
I walked over to him and put my head against his chest, smiling and breathing him in.
"Did you sleep well, baby?" He asked, kissing the top of my head, rubbing my back with one hand and maneuvering a pancake around a frying pan with the other.
I had slept well. In fact it may have been the best night of sleep I had ever had in my life. I wrapped my arms around Cade and snuggled into him.
"Yeah, I did. And now I want pancakes."
"Well that is a very lucky coincidence, beautiful one, because I just happen to be making pancakes. Blueberry."
"That's Christopher's favorite kind," I said, popping a blueberry into my mouth.
"Is it? Me too."
I heard the wistful tone in Cade's voice and reached up to caress his cheek.
"Do you want to come back to North Falls with me and meet him?"
"Yes."
I sat down at the table as Cade finished making the pancakes and brought me a big stack. He sat across from me with his own even bigger stack and we tucked in, both of us ravenously hungry.
"Are you sad?" I asked him afterwards as we sat in the morning sunshine drinking coffee and talking.
"About what?"
"Are you sad that you missed out on the first five years of Christopher's life because of me?"
I didn't want Cade to feel like he needed to protect me from his feelings. I wanted him to be honest - it was better than letting things build up and slowly poison us from within. But he shook his head.
"No. I mean, yes, Ellie. I still haven't even wrapped my brain around the fact that there is a five year old boy out there and I'm his father, and of course I'm sad that I didn't get to see the first few years of his life. But I understand why you did what you did. I understand that you were trying to protect him from - well, from me and the way I was living my life."
"Actually, I was more worried about your parents. I thought if they found out they might try to say I was an unfit mother or that he was growing up in poverty or something and try to take him away."
Cade thought about what I'd said. "You know, you probably weren't wrong to worry about that. My parents - man, I know they want the best for me, or at least they think they want the best for me, but it's really only recently I've come to see what insane control freaks they can be. I don't want you to worry about it, though. I won't let them try and pull anything."
"It was Jacob who encouraged me to come out here, you know. He wanted me to tell you about Christopher. All three of them, I swear they're like momma bears with him."
"Have you told him about me?"
"No," I answered, truthfully, "he's lived with me and the boys since he was born and he's never really gotten a feel for the idea of having a father around. As far as he's concerned, he has mommy and he has three uncles and that's enough. He's in kindergarten now and I've sort of been anticipating him asking, you know, when he realizes that a lot of his classmates live with their daddies."
"Do you want me to meet him?"
"Yes, Cade, of course. That's why I came out here."
"Don't lie, Ellie. You came out here for the D."
I threw a blueberry at Cade, giggling and blushing a little, but thankful for the levity.
"Shut up!"
We decided there was no reason to wait and flew back to Chicago early the next morning before driving the rest of the way to North Falls. I called Jacob from the car before we arrived and told him I was bringing Cade with me.
"He's here? He's with you? Is he coming to see Christopher?"
"Yeah, Jacob. How is he today?"
"He's fine, just had a nap and now he's running around the house jumping on furniture and wrestling with Baby Ben."
I chuckled. Christopher was such a typical boy, always wanting to wrestle or play-fight or otherwise engage in all kinds of behavior that gave me anxiety attacks. I felt my heart seize slightly at the thought of how Cade might have been at that age - probably exactly the same.
"Good. Well, don't say anything, I want to ease him into this. OK?"
"Yeah, no problem. Ellie?"
"Yeah?"
"You did the right thing. It'll be good for Christopher to know his dad."
I felt the sting of tears in my eyes and answered a little shakily.
"Thanks, Jacob. That means a lot, especially coming from you. We'll be there in about ten minutes, OK?"
When I hung up, Cade was looking at me.
"Hey - are you OK?"
I nodded, sniffling a little. "Yeah. Jacob just said something about, um, about how it would be good for Christopher to know his father."
Cade reached out and squeezed my knee. "It will be, Ellie. Jesus, I'm actually pretty nervous right now. What if he hates me?"
"Christopher doesn't hate anyone. And as soon as he finds out you're a hockey player he's going to think you're the greatest person who ever lived, believe me."
"Really, he likes hockey?"
"Are you kidding? He was born in North Falls and he has three uncles!"
We pulled up at my trailer and looked at each other, both of us sensing the momentousness of what was about to happen. I leaned in close and kissed Cade.
"Are you ready for this?"
He smiled. "This feels so surreal. I don't even know if I'm 'ready' - but I want to meet him, more than anything."
So we went inside and Cade stood back as all four boys greeted me with hugs and laughter and excited, shouted stories of what they'd been up to while I was gone. Christopher didn't even see Cade at first, but when he did his eyes got big and he took a couple of steps back.
"Who is that man, mommy?"
I watched my brothers look at their nephew and then at Cade.
"He looks exactly like him!" Baby Ben yelled, pointing at Cade as Jacob ushered him into the kitchen with promises of Pop-Tarts.
When we walked into the living room, Christopher clung to my legs, not scared of Cade in particular, just curious and slightly on guard with the huge, strange man in the house. I pulled him onto my lap on the sofa and gave him a big kiss.
"Did your uncles let you get into all kinds of trouble when I was away?"
Christopher grinned and turned to me.
"No mommy! Well I fell off the bed and cut my hand but it's OK! David put a bandaid on it!"
He yanked his sleeve up and showed me the bandaid.
"Ah, you were jumping on the bed. I told you not to do that, Christopher."
He hung his head for scarcely a second before shooting me another grin. "I know. I forgot. Who's that, mommy?"
Cade was sitting in a chair watching me interact with Christopher. I could see that he was emotional, but he sucked it up and smiled back at his son.
"My name is Cade Parker."
Christopher looked Cade up and down carefully and then turned to me, leaning in to whisper in my ear shyly.
"Mommy, he does look like me."
I smiled. "I know! You look very similar don't you? Do you see his eyes are exactly the same color as yours?"
Christopher slid off my lap and approached Cade bashfully, standing up on his tiptoes to look at his eyes when he got close enough.
"Same color."
I could see Cade's starting to well up a little. So could Christopher. He turned to me, unsure, and then back to the man he didn't yet know was his father.
"Why are you sad?"
Reaching out to touch the top of his son's head, Cade responded softly.
"I'm not sad. I'm so happy to meet you, little man."
I watched Christopher grin with happiness.
"Do you know who I am?"
; I sat up slightly but stopped myself from saying anything. Cade was Christopher's dad and I had to step back and let the two of them handle it. Christopher shook his head and I held my breath.
"I'm your daddy, Christopher."
My son looked back at me for reassurance and I smiled encouragingly.
"You're my daddy?"
Cade blinked and I watched a tear roll down his cheek as he struggled with his emotions.
"Yes I am. And I am so happy to be your daddy. Can I have a hug?"
Again, Christopher turned to me for reassurance, which I gave. The he reached up and wrapped his arms around Cade's neck, completely trusting. Jacob, David and Baby Ben, who had all been waiting just around the corner, listening to how things were going with their beloved nephew, came into the living room and Christopher turned around in Cade's lap to scream at them excitedly.
"This is my daddy!"
Everybody laughed and I felt my shoulders relax. Jacob walked over to Cade and Christopher and reached out his hand, which Cade shook.
"Hey, man. Nice to see you back in North Falls."
"Nice to be back, Jacob. Look how big you are, you're making me feel old."
I knew, and so did Cade, that Christopher was too young to fully grasp what it meant when we told him that Cade was his daddy, but he seemed in his innocence to understand that it was something special, something good. He stayed glued to his daddy's lap all night as the five of us laughed and talked and Cade showed the boys various clips of his games online. At one point I left them all there to fix something to eat in the kitchen and David came in.
"Do you need any help?"
"Yeah, can you take out the frozen corn and peas and throw them into that pot?" I asked, indicating a saucepan of boiling water on the stove.
"Christopher seems really happy."
"He does, doesn't he? How about you, Davey?"
He stirred the frozen veggies into the boiling water and thought about my question.
"I'm happy Christopher is happy. I just, Ellie, I wish we had a dad like that."
I turned to my little brother, whose voice was beginning to change just the same way Jacob's already had a few years ago.
"Yeah, David, so do I. But we didn't."
"We had each other, though, didn't we?"
"Yes, we did. Some people have nobody. Some people have a lot of money and nobody to love them. I would rather have someone to love me."
"Me too."
When the pasta and vegetables were ready I mixed them together with a couple of cans of cream of broccoli soup and a package of grated cheese and put it in the oven to bake. Hockey Game Casserole, the boy's favorite dish. I thought about the sushi I'd had in Los Angeles, wondering if the fact that the boys had never eaten anything like it meant they were as deprived as a lot of people in North Falls probably thought they were. I reckoned those people were wrong.
I relaxed the rules for the evening and let everyone eat supper in the living room. Mostly, I watched my boys - my brothers, my son and the only man I have ever loved - hanging out together, laughing, shouting, wrestling and horsing around. The warmth and love in the air was almost palpable. Cade looked up at one point and caught me watching. He knew what I was thinking, I could see it on his face. He blew me a kiss and then bent down to plant another one on his son's head.
At ten o'clock, when I'd managed to herd everyone except Cade to bed, I poured each of us a glass of cheap grocery store wine and we sat down in the living room.
"Well?" I said, slightly anxiously.
"Well what, Ellie? What can I say?" He looked around the room and then leaned in to kiss me. "Look what you've done, with almost nothing, with almost no money. Those boys are solid, aren't they? That's because of you, you know. Your strength, your sacrifices, your love."
"Cade, I had to, there was no one else-"
He held up his hand, stopping me. "I know, Ellie, but you didn't have to do it. You could have half-assed it or taken off - hell, at one point I wanted you to take off. But you didn't and I love you for it. I love you for my beautiful son and for everything you've done for him, as well as for your brothers. You have a good heart. The best heart."
I put my wineglass down, crawled into Cade's lap and rested my head on one of his burly shoulders.
"Thank you, Cade. That - it means a lot. You have no idea."
Cade shook his head. "No, Ellie. Thank you."
Limp with relief and exhaustion, I fell asleep on his lap and at some point he carried me into my bedroom because I woke up in bed the next day to the smell of pancakes (of course) and the clamor of a kitchen full of boisterous boys.
Cade
The week I spent in North Falls with Ellie, her brothers and Christopher was eye-opening. When we were in high school I'd always thought of her home life as a grim, ongoing disaster, and one I couldn't rescue her from. Because I'd barely seen her since then I'd just assumed it was still that way, but I was completely wrong. The boys were thriving. The family Ellie had helped create, the one she stood firmly at the head of, was happy - much happier than my own or that of anyone I knew. Christopher was still too young to understand the differences between people who had money and people who didn't, but Jacob, David and Baby Ben all knew damn well that if they ruined one pair of shoes the next one was coming from the second-hand store for five dollars and not from the sporting goods store at the mall for two hundred. And none of them resented it. Somehow, Ellie had managed to raise them with a sense of realism and a lack of entitlement that was so rare I'm not even sure I'd ever seen it before in young people, including myself.
Phone calls from Kings' staff and teammates started getting more frequent as the first week stretched into the second. I knew I wasn't going to be able to stay in North Falls for much longer as people got antsy about my absence from physical therapy sessions and understandably if mistakenly worried about me falling back into old habits. I could have told them I was in North Falls with the love of my life, the beautiful son I'd only just found out about and the rest of the family, but no one would have believed it. Well, almost no one. My mother texted me one night as I lay in bed with Ellie, cuddling.
"Hello, Caden. I'm starting to worry about you. Are you in North Falls with that woman?"
I groaned.
"What?" Ellie asked, looking up.
"My mom. She's all stressed out because she doesn't know exactly what I'm up to."
"Let me see."
I considered not letting Ellie see the text but she knew what my mother was like and since there was no question as to whose side I was on, I passed her the phone. She made a face as she read it.
"Ugh, Cade. What are you going to tell her?"
"The truth, Ellie. Do you think I'm too scared of my mom to let her know where I am?"
Ellie shrugged and I let it go. She had every right to wonder whether or not I was still under my parents' thumb. When I'd composed a reply, I showed it to Ellie before sending it.
"I'm in North Falls with Ellie Hesketh, yes. I'll be back in Los Angeles soon, no need to worry about me."
Ellie looked at me. "Cade, you know she's going to freak out, right?"
"Yeah, probably. My mom can freak out all she wants. I'm here, with you, and she's going to have to deal with it."
"OK."
She didn't sound entirely convinced. I couldn't blame her. After she fell asleep I lay there in bed, thinking. I had to go back to Los Angeles. It felt like ten years ago all over again. But things had changed in those ten years. Ellie's brothers weren't small anymore. Jacob was months away from being a legal adult. Was it possible to do things differently this time? To bring Ellie and our son and the boys with me? I was scared to even hope for it. North Falls was all any of them had ever known. I knew what I had to do. I'd known it for years, actually, but it wasn't until Ellie showed up at my front gate that it became something that could conceivably happen rather than the fantasy it had previously been.
