Page 27 of Two for Holding
Jax did know his dad.“What about the girls?”
“It’s 10:00 p.m.in Minnesota, baby.They’re asleep.”
“Oh.Right.Did they like the piano?”
Her tone took on a soft, pleased note.“Yeah, sweetie, they loved the piano.No idea what we’re gonna do if you keep sending such big gifts though.You know the living room’s tiny.”
Jax bit his tongue to keep from mentioning (again) that he’d be happy to buy them a bigger house.“So, join up with the neighbors.Make a music studio for the whole park.I’ll pay for it.”
She didn’t say anything, but he could hear the lecture he’d gotten more than once about not throwing money at them.It wasn’t the same as being there.
“How are they?”
“They’re great!Lila wrote a poem about leprechauns, and it got printed in the school paper, and Rosa’s thinking about the basketball team.”
Jax smiled.They were such good kids.At fourteen, Jax had definitely not been writing poetry.He’d been all hockey, all the time, barely paying attention to his baby sisters and eating his parents out of house and home when he wasn’t fighting with them about the electricity bill they could never seem to pay on time.He wished they would let him pay it all back.
“So why are you calling tonight?”
“Can’t I check in on my family?”
“You always call on Sundays.”
“Okay, Ma, you got me.I had a weird day.”
“That why you played like shit?”
“Mom!”
“Just saying.Your pretty captain could barely keep you all in the game.”
Jax drummed his fingers on the backrest of the chair, staring out the window.“Remember what I told you before I got drafted?”
He had been eighteen, and he had been terrified.He’d known the NHL was his best chance at a future where he didn’t spend his whole life working nights at a diner the way his dad did, and after two years of billet families and bus rides in the USHL, he had to make it.Otherwise, the whole miserable experience wouldn’t have been worth it.It had been two long years of missing his family and wearing smelly hand-me-down gear, always hungry because he was growing way too fast and burning too many calories to keep up, pinching pennies so he could afford fries when his team hit up fast-food joints.Two years of pretending to laugh along when his teammates joked about queers and fags, always with the secret, burning knowledge it was him they were joking about.
If he made it, he’d promised himself, it would all be better.He would have enough money to buy as many burgers as he wanted.He would visit home whenever he could.And he would be so good he could date whoever he damn well wanted to.
The night before the draft, he couldn’t sleep.He’d been sharing a hotel room with his parents, and he tossed and turned until his mom made him go out onto the balcony, where he’d cried in her arms for all the homesickness he never told her about.It was the only time he mentioned that when he brought someone home, it would be a man.
She’d said, “Good for you,” and then, a little later, “Be careful.”
Now, six and a half years on, though he hadn’t visited half as often as he thought he would, she said, “I remember every word.”
Jax swallowed.“They found out.In Philly.They… I wasn’t careful.”
“And then they traded you.”
“Yeah.”His throat had gone dry.He cleared it, then cleared it again.“I…I didn’t want to get traded.But…”
“Those assholes.”
“Mom!”
“Well, they are.”
Jax leaned his forehead against the window glass and smiled.“Yeah.Playing them tonight…”
“No wonder you sucked.”
