CHAPTER3
LOGAN
Her words detonate the quiet bomb deep inside me, letting fly the hot emotions, the riot of chaotic half-formed thoughts, giving life to the shrouded murmur dormant deep in my heart, the one that I hadn’t dared acknowledge. The one that was true.I have akid. Nicky is mine.
“Nicky is my daughter,” I say the words to make them true. My heart thunders and the seething emotions that boil up are indistinguishable and paralyzing. Rage mixes with joy, circling around hope and euphoria, dodging uncertainty and fear.
“Yes.” She reaches out then, touching my arm; fear, alarm, and hope, shine in her eyes, but none of it masks the guilt and abject self-loathing. Words continue to tumble, and I’m half-listening, trying to shake loose my feelings for her, my reaction to her, but all I’m getting is … quiet.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t tell you sooner. You deserved to know from the start—I know I was wrong to hide it, to go along with Dave’s crazy idea. He insisted, but I didn’t have to listen to him. I was so… scared of what you’d say, what you’d do. That you’d think I got pregnant purposely… because I didn’t. I wanted you fair and square.”
“Fair and square?” She’s making no sense.
“I wanted you to want me for me, not because I was pregnant. I wanted to know that you loved me and didn’t care about any of the other girls. I wanted to believe that when you went away to college, to the NHL, that you wouldn’t forget about me. About us. But that was never going to happen because—”
“Because you saw Sharon kissing me. And you believed the worst and never spoke to me again.” Anger surfaces now, blocking out the hurt, the sense of loss, the longing. Outrage at not having any idea that I’d had a child all these years shakes me, shakes away the momentary quiet of wonder from a moment before, sweeping through me and making me quake. She takes her hands off me, fear lighting her eyes now.
“I was wrong,” she says. Her face closes up. The raw confession and sorrow hid away, covered by her defiant streak, defending her from imminent attack; From me.
“You ran off with a stranger and had my baby?” I ask. “Is that what you’re telling me? Because you didn’t believe me? That I loved you and I was loyal to you? You found it easier to believe that Sharon made a pass at me and not the other way around?” I whip her with the words I need to say, see the pain lash her face, and feel no satisfaction.
She pushes her hair aside again with a shaky hand but doesn’t look away or back up. “Yes. I’m sorry.” Her eyes glisten as we stare each other down, but she doesn’t back off. After a few beats, while my muscles scream with coiled tension, I blink.
“Like I said,” she adds quietly, “I was young and foolish.” Then she clamps her mouth shut, not bothering with further explanation or excuses, reminding me of myself six years ago.
I hadn’t bothered with explanations then. I told her once that I hadn’t kissed Sharon, that Sharon initiated the flirtation. I didn’t tell her I knew Sharon had been drinking and was hurting because she’d been turned away by my teammate; I didn’t say that I was trying to be gentle with her because I felt sorry for her. That I only meant to allow a hug for comfort, had been surprised when she kissed me instead, then panicked when she ground against me. I didn’t tell June that my dick had been asleep, bored until she walked into the room. That I had absolutely no interest in anyone but her.
I expected her to know all that without being told despite her insecurity, which had been unfair of me because I knew about her growing annoyance and insecurity about girls throwing themselves at me. It had become apparent the week before when I took her with me to a party at Dartmouth. It was an orientation party for the hockey team recruits, and I was the only one who brought their girlfriend. They gave me shit, but I didn’t give a shit and told them to go to hell. The host, the team captain, had generously supplied an abundance of coeds for the party and mocked me, made June feel uncomfortable and unwanted. He was a dick who never went anywhere after graduation. I stood up to him and defended her, but I should have known there’d be trouble even though June handled the situation with her usual defiant sass that night.
“You should have told me, June.” My voice matches her quiet. “I can’t believe you didn’t.” A bubble of unreality surfaces because in spite of my certainty in the truth of what she says, me having a child—a six-year-old girl to be exact—is too far from my life, too foreign, too big a left turn to make real, even leaning on the edges of my blades putting up a wall of ice spray, I can’t make the turn, can’t get the notion to take hold. Not completely. I grasp it, and then it slides away like a loose puck disappearing under a goalie’s pads.
“I … don’t have any excuse,” she says, her eyes pleading now, the tears still there on the precipice, but she holds strong. “The explanation is that I was already married to David when I found out. We were living in New York City. I knew right away the baby was yours. I think that was the most desperate moment of my life, sitting in the bathroom alone staring at the pink line on the pregnancy test.” She stops and looks away, swipes at her face, and my instincts make me reach out, but I stop myself, remembering the time and place is all wrong. Another surreal moment of disbelief hits me. My heart’s muscle memory of June makes me ache for her, makes me want to hold her, but there’s a wall of absurd horrible history stopping me. I have no idea what to say, and after a beat of silence, she continues her story. I don’t know if it matters, but I want to hear it, understand, and let the possibility of a new status between us fill in the painful cracks of the past.
“I was so close to running away to the bus station and going home to you then. But I was so afraid of what you’d say, what you’d think. I was convinced I’d already lost you because I’d behaved so badly, running away with another man…so soon. That’s what broke me.” She shakes her head, and I see a teardrop finally release. It takes everything in me to still that old impulse to console her yet again, but I do. She squares her shoulders and continues, her voice less shaky now. “It was easier to tell David. He insisted he wanted to be the father of my child but only on the condition that I not tell her real father, insisted that I could have nothing to do with Nicky’s biological father.”
“Did you tell him who I was?”
She nods. “I had to tell him. He was my husband. And if I wanted to stay married, I had to keep Nicky from you. I understood why. He didn’t want another man interfering.”
I’m not another man. I’m her father.”I’m the man who was supposed to be the love of your life.
“He was committed—”
“Were you committed? ToDavid?” I’m having a hard time digesting how she could run from me and attach herself so quickly and permanently to another man. The knowledge breaks me down. The knot of emotion rises from my gut, and I can feel my own unshed tears. I know they’ll stay unshed, like always. I’m defective that way. Had it pounded into my sorry soul that real men don’t cry. Not even when they need to, they punch walls instead. Sometimes they punch opposing players on the ice even when it’s a damn stupid idea.
We both know I’m asking if she loved David because I wondered how the hell she could have married the bastard a month after breaking up with me, after what we had. After all, I know she loved me. What we had was so real I still feel it to this day, even after betrayal and absence.And new fresh knowledge of another far worse betrayal.
Did she throw it all away because she thought she caught me kissing her friend? Sharon.
I’d been horrified that she didn’t trust me. Truly afraid, like the bottom had fallen out of all my confidence because she was the one sure thing in my life; her love was the solid ground I stood on. The one thing that I could always count on, that I knew was true and real.
Sure, she had moments, confessed about some jealousy. In my mind, what we had was so big, the idea of jealousy wasn’t real. We were eighteen. What did I know about proving myself to her, about insecurity and instilling confidence? I trusted her completely with my heart and soul, with my whole life. I’d invested everything I had in her, in us. And I’d made the mistake of believing she’d done the same.
She’s silent, and I see the pain on her face, identical to the pain in my chest.
I ask her again, “Were you committed to David?” Still not brave enough to ask point-blank if she loved him.
She doesn’t answer me, stares at me pained and silent, her eyes pleading and boring into me. What did she want from me? Forgiveness?