by Beth Ehemann
“I sure hope not.” I looked across the room at the bookshelf in the corner that held dozens of picture frames and memories. Some of me, Viper, and the kids. Some of me, Mike, and the kids. Some of Viper and Mike. Hopefully I would be adding to that shelf, not taking pictures off of it.
“So . . .” Taylor said after a minute. “What are you going to do about Viper?”
I picked my water bottle off of the coffee table and took a long drink, trying to think about my answer. “I don’t know what to do,” I finally said as I screwed the cap back on. “The things he said and they way he said them—totally not okay. But I do love him, and I do want him to be here with me. I don’t know, Taylor. It feels like . . . he got on the plane for that road trip as one person but came back as someone totally different. And I miss that other guy, but I don’t know how to find him again.”
Taylor’s eyebrows lifted quickly. “Wow. That was . . . wow. You know him better than anyone though, Michelle. If there’s anyone that’s going to bring him out of this, it’s you.”
Part of me hoped that she was right . . . but not only did I not know how to bring him back, I wasn’t sure how much more rejection I could take.
Driving home from Michelle’s felt weird. Not only was I on pain meds and not supposed to be driving, I hadn’t been home to my house in a really long time. A couple of months, at least. When Michelle and I got serious, I’d started spending a night or two at her house a week, but over the last year that had gradually increased to every night. Since then, I only ran to the house to check on it maybe once every couple weeks or to grab something that I needed. All of my buddies gave me a hard time and told me to sell the house since I was never there, but for some reason I couldn’t. I liked having an escape hatch if need be. But turning into the driveway, opening the garage, and pulling my car in felt foreign.
I didn’t want to deal with my feelings or think about anything that had happened that day, so I went straight into my bedroom and never left.
The next morning I woke up to my knee throbbing. Michelle had texted to see if I wanted my pain meds, but like a stubborn douchebag, I’d said no. As I sat on the edge of my bed, I regretted not going to get them. I regretted a lot of things about the day before, actually. While I still wasn’t sure how I felt about the whole baby thing, my response to Michelle, and the things I’d said to her, wasn’t something I was proud of, nor could I take it back. I’d acted like a first-class asshole, and she’d had every right to tell me to leave . . . and slap me.
As I limped to my bathroom, I prayed that I had Advil or Tylenol in the cabinet; otherwise, I’d have to come up with plan B.
“Boom!” I called out when I pulled the mirror back and saw the bottle of pills. I tossed three in my mouth and swallowed them without any water, then went in search of food. I wandered aimlessly around my kitchen. It felt weird. Every piece of furniture, every appliance, every coaster in the house was mine, but I hadn’t walked around and actually looked at everything in so long, it felt like I was in someone else’s house.
I didn’t even bother opening the fridge because anything in there wouldn’t have been good anyway, and the pantry wasn’t much better. Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I checked the time to see if I could run and grab something to eat before my therapy appointment. I would only have enough time for food or a shower, and I chose the shower.
“Morning,” I said dryly as I walked past Gina, the receptionist at the physical therapy center. I propped my crutches up against the wall and climbed onto the exercise bike. I looked toward the ground and closed my eyes as I pedaled through the pain and stiffness in my knee.
“You’re five minutes early!” Sherman bellowed from across the room, making my head snap up. With his signature jolly grin plastered to his face, he crossed the room toward me and I shook my head with a laugh. He had on a bright orange Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts with white socks pulled up to his calves.
“Sherman, these outfits of yours. Let’s just say you’d lose terribly at hide and seek.” I sat back and wiped the sweat from my brow.
He paused and put both hands on his hips, striking a pose. “I know, don’t I look fabulous?”
A couple women a few stations over laughed. “You always look fabulous, Sherman!” one of them called out.
“Thanks, doll!” He waved as she blew him a kiss.
My eyes slid from Sherman to the women and back again. “You sure are popular around here.”
“You have no idea. Everyone loves me, especially the ladies.” He lifted a hand to the side of his mouth to block them from hearing and lowered his voice. “If you ever need pointers on how to get girls, you just let the Ole Sherm know and I’ll teach you my ways.”
I laughed out loud, so hard my shoulders shook. “Is that so? I’ll remember that one.”
“Okay, you ready to get started?” He clapped his hands enthusiastically. I’d barely had two sessions with Sherman and I could already tell that the man never ran out of energy. He was upbeat and energetic to the point where you couldn’t help but smile when you were with him. It was contagious. And not only was he like that the whole hour with me, he was like with everyone in the center, even other people’s clients. People were constantly coming up to him and giving him hugs or high-fiving him.
Sherman was hilarious to be around, but he was really good at what he did. If I gave him shit about an exercise, he pushed back harder. He explained everything he was doing and never treated me like a dumb jock.
After an hour of more quad sets, what felt like a million straight leg raises, and my new arch nemesis the prone hang, Sherman told me to follow him over to a table in the corner.
“Hop up!” He smacked the top of it loudly.
Confused by what we were doing next, I slowly lifted myself onto the table.
“Lie down and put your leg up on this, please.” He lifted a green plastic wedge up and gently put it under my knee to elevate it.
“What are you doing?” I asked, folding my hands and tucking them behind my head.
“We didn’t do it the first day because you were being a bit of a drama queen, but we’re going to do electronic stimulation of your knee today.” He stuck four sticky things to my knee and attached them to the machine next to him. “What e-stim does is stimulate your quad muscles to contract, stimulate your nerves to decrease pain, and increases blood flow all over, which, as you know, speeds up recovery. Some therapists don’t use it and think it’s a waste of time. Personally, I say it doesn’t hurt, and if it aids in the healing process and gets you back on the ice sooner, why not?”
“This is weird,” I said, staring down at the sticky pads on my knee.
“You’re weird,” he mocked as he put one bag of ice under my knee and one on top of it. “Okay, here we go.”
He pressed a few buttons and my leg instantly felt tingly.
“Whoa!” I sat up on my elbows. “That feels really weird. Is this gonna hurt?”
Sherman pressed his lips together and rolled his eyes. “Really? You’re a professional hockey player and you go by the name “Viper,” yet you’re worried about a little electricity on your knee? Big baby.”
I glared at him and opened my mouth to respond just as my quad muscles started contracting. “Holy shit!” I stared down at my leg, watching the muscles clench and relax, knowing that I had nothing to do with it.
“Trust me, you’ll grow to love this.”
“If you say so.” I lay back against the table.
“You seem extra pissy today. What gives?” he asked after a couple minutes.
I stared up at the ceiling and shrugged. “Nothing.”
I glanced over at him as he arched one eyebrow at me. “We may have only had two sessions so far, but I’m dialed in to you. What gives?”
“I just did something I shouldn’t have done yesterday, and it’s on my mind.”
“Ah,” Sherman said with a small nod. “I’m not gonna ask you to tell me what it is, but I will say this . . . no man ever lay
on his death bed pissed off that he apologized too many times throughout his life, but plenty wish they’d apologized more.”
I swallowed hard and looked back up at the white ceiling tiles. “Look at you, Sherman. You’re like a walking, talking fortune cookie.”
“That’s what they tell me!” he boasted loudly as he threw his arms in the air and walked away.
What he said played over and over and over in my mind. The way I’d acted was horrible and I needed to apologize about that, but I still wasn’t sure that I wanted kids of my own . . . now, or ever.
After therapy, I was starving and knew exactly where I needed to go, even if it meant that I might see Kat. I drove straight to Gam’s.
When I pulled up, the same car from the other day was in the driveway, but I did my best to ignore it.
“Hey!” I called out as I pulled the door open and walked into the house.
Gam looked up from her book and her face broke into a huge grin. “There’s my boy!” She got up from her favorite chair in the family room and gave me a big hug. “I haven’t seen you in almost a week. How are you feeling?”
“I’m hanging in there.” I shrugged. “Still a little sore but getting better.”
She frowned as she looked past me. “Where’s everybody else?”
“Uh . . . home.”
She straightened and looked at me. “How come?”
I gave her another shrug and slid past her to sit on the couch. “I just came from physical therapy, so they weren’t with me.”
Not a total lie.
She followed me with narrowed eyes. “Should you be driving already?”
“I don’t know, but I am.”
“Does it hurt?” she asked as she sat back down on her couch slowly.
“To drive? No, it’s my left leg. It just kinda sits off to the side anyway. Now can we stop the interrogation, please? I’m starving to death.” I pointed to the kitchen with my thumb.
“Oh, I can tell,” she said sarcastically as she dragged her eyes down my body and back up again. “Come on.”
I followed her into the kitchen and immediately tensed when I saw Kat standing at the sink with her back to us.
“What are you in the mood for?” Gam asked, making her way over to the fridge. Kat turned around and glanced at me before quickly going back to whatever she was doing.
I shrugged and pulled a kitchen chair out. “I’m not picky.”
She lowered her head and peeked at all the shelves. “I have leftover spaghetti, grilled chicken, stuffed peppers . . . anything sound exciting yet?”
“All of the above,” I said, half kidding, half not.
“Better in your belly than in the garbage.” She leaned against the counter with one hand and started taking containers out of the fridge with the other.
Kat hurried over and took the food out of her hand. “Let me do that for you.”
“No, I got it,” Gam said stubbornly.
Kat tilted her head to the side and glared at Gam, who retreated like a little kid.
“How’s therapy going?” she asked as she sat down next to me.
“Good. Really good, actually.” I tore the corner off an envelope that was sitting on the table and rolled it in between my fingers. “My therapist is a dude named Sherman. I thought I was gonna hate him, but something about him is just . . . different.”
“Different good?” Gam took a sip of the iced tea that she’d brought with her from the family room. At least I thought it was iced tea, but with Gam you never knew.
“Yeah. For sure. He’s a fun guy.”
“Fun is good.”
“Fun is good,” I agreed. “As long as he’s kicking my ass back into shape so I can go be fun on the ice, that’s all I care about.”
“You’ll be back out there in no time.”
The microwave beeped, and Kat took out the hot plate and set it in front of me.
“Thanks,” I mumbled without looking up at her.
“Want some root beer, too?” she asked nonchalantly.
Gam’s head swooped up to Kat with a frown. “How did you know he likes root beer?”
Kat froze as her mouth dropped, her eyes darting back and forth between Gam and me. “Um . . . I . . .”
“She was in the kitchen the other day when I got one out of the fridge,” I answered for her.
Idiot. Why did you do that? That was your chance to let the cat out of the bag so Kat could walk out the door.
“I see.” Gam nodded, content with that answer. “I keep it in my fridge all the time for him. Nobody loves root beer like my Lawrence.” She reached over and playfully pinched my cheek as I shoveled a forkful of spaghetti into my mouth.
As I chewed, my eyes followed Kat, who hurried to the fridge and returned with a bottle of cold root beer. She gave me a small smile and a quick wink as she set it down.
“I’m gonna go change your sheets,” she said as she rested her hand on Gam’s shoulder. “Unless you want me to do something else instead?”
“Nope. That’s wonderful. Thank you!” Gam rested her hand on Kat’s and beamed up at her.
I waited until Kat was out of earshot. “How are things going? With her?”
“With Kat? Oh, they’re so great.” There was a softness, a contentment, in her voice that I didn’t hear often. “When I found out that you’d hired a nurse, I was irritated and so hesitant about this whole thing, but she’s more than a nurse. She helps me pick up, she takes me places, she keeps me company. I’m so glad she’s here, Lawrence.”
As bad as I wanted Kat gone, it was obvious how happy Gam was to have her around, and Gam’s happiness was the most important thing. That meant Kat was there to stay.
It had been three days and not a word from Viper. I picked up my phone to text him at least a hundred times, but every time I pulled his name up, I got mad all over again and put my phone away.
I’d been to my first doctor appointment, and while it was too early to hear the heartbeat, I did see it on the ultrasound. Even though it was a tiny, grainy white blob, my baby’s first picture hung proudly on the fridge. Thankfully Matthew hadn’t noticed and asked about it yet, and I had no idea what I was going to tell him when he did, but I needed to figure it out fast. The one thing he had noticed was that Viper was gone.
“Momma, did Viper go on a plane to play hockey?” he asked as I sat on the couch folding tiny pairs of Thomas the Tank Engine underwear.
“No, buddy. Viper went to his house for a few days,” I answered as nonspecifically as I could.
“Oh.” His eyes dropped to the coffee table and thought about what I’d said. I braced myself for more questions but was grateful when he decided to run off to the playroom down the hall instead.
“Shhhh! Maura’s taking her afternoon nap,” I called after him.
Kacie had called a couple of times over the last few days, but I’d avoided her. I’d been avoiding everyone, really. I didn’t know what to say or what to think, but as she called again, I knew I couldn’t avoid her anymore.
“Hello?”
“Hey! What’s going on? Where have you been?”
“Hey. I’ve been here, just busy. How about you?” Every nerve in my body was on high alert. I had no idea if Viper had talked to Brody and told him anything, but if Brody knew, Kacie knew.
“We’ve been busy, too, but we’re hanging in there. How’s Viper?”
Kacie wasn’t the type to beat around the bush. If she knew something was up, she wouldn’t have asked how he was.
“Honestly, I have no idea,” I answered with a big sigh as I sat back against the couch.
“What does that mean?” she asked, her tone turning serious.
I turned and peeked over the couch to make sure Matthew wasn’t anywhere near me. “We had a fight—a big fight—a couple days ago, and he left.”
“Wait. He left? Left where?”
“I don’t know. We haven’t talked since.”
“Holy shit! What did you fight about?�
�
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, knowing I needed to just let it out. “I found out I’m pregnant, and the news didn’t go over so well on his end.”
“You’re pregnant?” she asked softly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t tell anyone. I’ve been so preoccupied with Gam, then Viper, and everything just kinda ran together, and it was never a good time.”
“Well . . . congratulations. I’m happy for you!” I could tell she was grinning by the tone in her voice. Kacie was a true friend who would always have my back, no matter what. “I can’t wait to squeeze that little nugget. When are you due?”
“Not till June. I’m only eight weeks.”
“So what happened when you told him?”
“Well, I didn’t really tell him.” I lifted my feet onto the coffee table and crossed my ankles. “I was running errands and forgot my phone. He intercepted the appointment reminder call from the doctor’s office.”
“Oh, shit,” she said in a low tone.
“Yep. And when I got home, everything just kind of exploded.” I spent the next several minutes filling her in on our fight and the last couple of days of radio silence.
“Michelle, you should have called me. I would have gone to the doctor with you.”
“It really wasn’t that big of a deal,” I said, half lying. The appointment really wasn’t a big deal, but I would have loved for someone to be at the ultrasound with me, sharing in my excitement—and my tears as I drove home alone.
“What can I do for you? You have to let me do something.”
“Nothing. Really. I’m fine.”
“When is your next doctor appointment?”
“In a month.”
“Will you at least let me go with you to that?” she asked as if she had read my mind. “I don’t want you going to your doctor appointments alone.”
“Fine,” I agreed. “But you have to promise to turn around during my weigh-ins.”
She let out a loud chuckle. “Girl, you’re talking to someone who delivered two five-pound babies at once. You don’t even want to know how much weight I gained with that pregnancy.”
