Page 59 of On Ice

I can hear my mother bristling through the phone even before she opens her mouth.

“If she has an issue with your—”

“She doesn’t.” It’s not my leg that scares Quinn. That would be an easy way to put her behind me, but it’s not that. Not at all.

“Then what could she possibly be afraid of? You’re a kind man. A smart man. You’re employed.”

Well, when my mother puts it like that, who wouldn’t find me a catch? Or maybe run screaming because my mommy is the one hyping me up. The irony, of course, is that we aren’t as close as that makes us sound.

“I had cancer, Mom.” And just like that, I break one of the few unwritten rules for our phone calls. There’s a long pause and I can’t tell if that tap-tap-tapping is my heartbeat or her drumming her fingers on her counters. That was always her nervous response.

“But so does her dad,” my mom says. “She understands what it’s like.”

And that’s why I scare her.

“When I was sick, back at the beginning, when I was just starting chemo, could you have dated someone in remission? Someone who’d lived through what your kid was experiencing?”

“I want to say it wouldn’t have mattered.”

“One of her first questions was about recurrence rates.” I think I hear my mother sigh, but I keep going, ripping the bandage holding my heart together clean off. “I can’t be another thing she worries about. Not when I have nothing to offer her. It’s not fair to either of us, Mom.”

“You have a lot to offer,” my mom insists as I hear the slam of a door and the pounding of footsteps.

Vic’s headed out of town for a slew of away games and it sounds like he’s running late. I can hear him tromping through his own house like a stampede of confused elephants. There’s a rustling sound and I think my mom put her hand over the speaker on her phone because I can hear the murmurings of a conversation but can’t make out their words. Everything sounds like it’s underwater and maybe I should hang up, but I don’t. Vic gets louder and then my mom’s hand drops away.

“Erik, honey, have you talked to Quinn today?”

Half of me wants to pitch my phone across my kitchen. Didn’t I just explain that we aren’t good for each other? That we aren’t together? Wouldn’t it be safe to assume that I haven’t been speaking to her at all? Not by my choice. The other half is tense. Half the distance between me and my mother, me and my brother stems from miscommunication and lack of trust. I can give her the benefit of the doubt. She wouldn’t be asking right now if it wasn’t important. Something happened. Something Vic knows about, but not me.

“I haven’t,” I say, and then there’s another muffled scuffle before my brother is on the other end of the line.

“Erik,” He sounds panicked, I don’t think I’ve ever heard calm, unflappable Vic sound so off-center. Not in years. “When did you last talk to Quinn?”

I don’t want to admit that it’s been almost two weeks.

“Is she okay?” I ask instead, feeling ice bleed through my veins.

“It’s her dad,” Vic says, “Fuck! I need to be at the airport in twenty-five minutes and we won’t be home for five days.”

“Is Sean okay?” I feel like a broken record, only able to skip and ask the same questions over and over again, but Vic is talking to himself and to our mom and he’s not focusing on what I need to know. “Vic! Is he—”

I can’t bring myself to finish the sentence. I can’t put that information out into the universe.

“All I know is he’s having another surgery and Quinn has gone radio silent.” Vic curses again. “She hasn’t been home. Jen can’t get ahold of her, I can’t get ahold of her—”

“Does she know what’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” Vic says. “Jen called me and asked me to check with you. She’s trying a few other friends.”

Okay. Deep breath. Where the fuck is therapist Erik when I need him? Okay. Sean needs surgery and no one can find Quinn. Vic has a plane to catch. I can fix this. I can.

“Give the phone back to mom, Vic, and have her call Jen. You go get on your plane. You need to crush Arizona tomorrow. I’ll handle this.” I take a deep breath myself. “We’re going to find her.”

She’s not alone.

I’ve seen this commercial three times in the past twenty minutes. It’s for hemorrhoid ointment. The one after it is a promo for the Arctic, and the one after that has golden retriever puppies going camping. I don’t know why it’s bothering me so much. It’s not like the volume is loud enough for me to hear what they’re saying, anyway. I could look for the remote, but my arms and legs feel too heavy to move from this seat.

An hour, maybe two. That’s how long I was told surgery would take, not including prep time or coming out of anesthesia. Also not including any complications they might find on the table. I’ve only been sitting here for less than half an hour. I doubt they’ve even started yet. Dad’s probably sitting on a gurney making jokes with whoever they tasked with monitoring him. He’d tried that with me too, but the pinched lines around his mouth were hard to ignore. So was the pale skin stretched tight over his cheekbones.

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