Page 57 of Just Forever

Ryk will be back tonight, and his next game is on Sunday, so we’ll get the weekend to ourselves. Sort of. My point is, he’ll be home, so we’ll get to eat together and sleep next to each other and just spend time together. He’ll still have to work out, and he’ll drag me running or something else terrible like that, but I promise right here and now to complain only minimally.

I already feel better, the strange moment from earlier fading to the background.

Once I’m back home, I try to study, but I’m too restless to sit still, so instead, I clean the apartment and make dinner while I do the hockey-husband-who-travels-a-lot math in my head.

If your husband, who plays in the NHL, has a game at one p.m., and after the game, it takes him an hour to deal with the press and another hour to take care of all sorts of team-related business, and the team jet departs Pittsburgh at four p.m., what time will that husband finally be home?

As if on cue, my phone starts to ring, and my heart jumps with excitement. I pick it up, but the name on display is not Ryk, instead it’s an unknown number.

My shoulders slump, and I make a face before I pick up the call.

“Hello?” I’m hit with immediate regrets for even answering.

There’s a beat of silence before a brisk voice says, “Am I speaking to a Mr. Lake Bates?”

“Sure?”

“Wonderful,” the same brisk voice says. “Hold for Mr. Bates, please.”

I pull the phone away from my ear and stare at the display in total confusion. Hold for a who?

I listen to silence for a few more moments, and then there’s a click and instead of brisk I now get boisterous.

“Lake, my boy.”

The voices are eerily similar, so for a good little while, I stand frozen and try to figure out what the fuck is happening. John’s dead. And even if he was alive, he sure as fuck wouldn’t greet me like this.

“Hello?” the not-so-dead voice of my father-but-not-really-because-sperm-donor-would-be-more-accurate says into my ear.

“Hello?” I reply, slowly and hesitantly. You know, in case I’m going insane, so then I can console myself that I did it with caution.

“Fantastic to hear from you, kid. It’s been too long.”

Okay, so I’m finally starting to connect the dots.

“Scott?” I ask in the same slow and hesitant voice I’ve been using this whole call.

My ear is hit with the kind of loud, commanding laughter I’ve always associated with Scott. It’s meant to assure all the attention is on him.

“Took you a minute there,” he says with the kind of affable tone people have always gravitated toward.

“Okay?” I honestly don’t know why everything I say comes out as a question. Or, well, I do know. I haven’t spoken to Scott in years. At least ten, I’d say, but it’s not like I’ve been anxiously counting the days.

He’s never seemed that interested in my existence, so I’m not sure why he’s suddenly calling.

I mean, sure, technically he’s my biological father, but neither of us has ever really acknowledged that fact. I don’t think he even knows that I know.

That’s the problem when your mother sleeps with her brother-in-law and doesn’t use protection. The family tree gets a bit messy with all the potential father candidates.

“How have you been?” Scott asks.

How have I been since… I was five? Which was around the last time you asked that question?

“You know. Fine,” I say. “What about you?”

“Busy on multiple fronts.” He launches into a soliloquy about how well things are going for him. I mutter an “uh-huh” every once in a while. By what feels like the seventh hour of faux-modest boasting my eyes start to glaze over.

I still don’t get why we’re even in this situation. Uncle or not, secret father or not, Scott and I haven’t been in contact in years. Why now all of a sudden?

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