Page 19 of Play Dirty

I’m notsure I’m doing the right thing by being honest with Marty, but it seems like he wants the truth, so I’ll give it to him. I can only give him my perspective, of course, because I don’t know his wife and I certainly can’t speak for all women. But I can see both sides.

“I don’t know what she did before you met,” I say thoughtfully, “for a career, I mean, but?—”

“She didn’t have a career,” he interjects. “We met when I was playing in the minors and she was in college. She left college so we could get married when I got called up. And that was her choice. I not only offered to let her stay and finish, but I was willing to pay for it, so it wouldn’t be a burden on her parents. But she wanted to come with me.”

“Then that’s on her,” I reply. “If it had been me, I would have stayed and—you wanted honesty here—taken full advantage of you paying for me to not only stay in school but also I’m assuming pay my living expenses.”

“Of course.”

“That’s not your fault.” She shrugs. “But she’s not the first woman to do something stupid because of love. I’m the queen of that, so I’m not judging anyone. As for the rest of it, I don’t know what your relationship was like, but I’m going to guess that after an initial conversation that went something like, ‘hey, do you want kids? Yeah? How many? Three? Four? I love you so much, baby, we’re going to make beautiful babies.’ After that, you just did your thing and continued making babies and playing hockey. Did you ever check in again? Like, ‘hey, how does it feel now that there are two of them running around… does it seem like three will be too much?’ Something like that?”

He looks frustrated. “No. I guess I never did.”

“So that’s on you. But, I will add, she’s a grown-ass woman in a relationship with a man she supposedly loved—why didn’t she come to you? You’re both responsible for the lack of communication.”

“But why?” he asks. “Why didn’t she talk to me? We were both busy, and I was very hands-on when I was home and?—”

“That means you were distracted by the kids and not focused on her.”

He pauses. “Yeah, to an extent, but she was never an afterthought. I always sent flowers, planned date nights, stuff like that. Invited her to meet me on road trips when we were in fun places like New York.”

“What I’m hearing is that she changed,” I say gently. “That what she wanted at twenty wasn’t the same as what she wanted at thirty. And for whatever reason, she didn’t feel like she could tell you.”

“So she cheated with my teammate?” he asks, his face darkening.

“I’m not condoning what she did,” I say, putting my hand on his forearm. “I’m just explaining it as an outsider looking in.”

“Three kids,” he mutters. “We’re fucking up the lives of three innocent babies because she changed her mind. She could have gone back to school to finish her degree. She could have gotten a job or started a side hustle. Lots of the wives do. Yeah, it would make things complicated, but not impossible. And I would have supported her.”

“Were you talking about baby number four?”

He stiffens a little—I feel it.

“Yeah,” he finally admits. “Because four kids was the plan, maybe even five. That’s what I always wanted, and I was honest about that. She never said anything about changing her mind and I’m not a mind reader.”

“You’re not.” I don’t say anything else, letting him mull it over.

I think he’s a little mad about what I’ve said, but he asked me to shoot straight with him.

“So you think this was my fault,” he says gruffly.

“No. I think you grew apart. You got together young and by the time you reached your thirties, you became different people. How old are you?”

“Thirty-two.”

“And her?”

“Thirty.”

“So three kids by, what, twenty-eight? Twenty-nine?”

“Yeah.”

“And you’re out there living your best life playing hockey while she’s home trying to figure out who she is and what’s left for her.”

“What’s left?” He looks so confused, I figure I need to backpedal a little.

“Look, there’s no excuse for cheating. None. If she was unhappy, she should have left. Cheating with your teammate shows that she’s kind of a bitch. Unless there was abuse or something involved, which I don’t believe, she made choices. She chose to leave college, she chose to have three babies that close together, and she chose to be a stay-at-home mom. She even chose to marry a professional hockey player. Those are all her choices.”

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