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 he’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?”