Page 76 of Looks Real Good Now
“Yeah, she’s just letting me know that she is at work now,” I replied.
“High demand for baked goods at this time of year?”
“Well, yeah, it’s the holiday season. There is a lot more demand for baked goods at this time of year,” I replied, trying to keep the sarcasm out of my voice and failing miserably.
“And yet she took the time off?”
“Is she not entitled to take a vacation? She runs a successful business; they can run things without her there. So yes, she tooktime off for the first time in years. I imagine she’s only working now because everyone she hangs out with loves her bakery and she didn’t want to just sit around when she could be helping out.”
Teddy and the team were back in Detroit and there was no way he wasn’t getting a trip to Sweet Nothing in the moment he could. He was probably also desperate for a debrief from Lenny’s perspective.
“She’s got a good work ethic,” he said. It sounded…pointed.
“She does, but she might not have a good balance,” I said, calmly.
“You qualified to comment on that?” He scoffed.
I shifted my body to face him. “Meaning?”
“You went from one extreme to the next, are you sure that you can comment on balance?”
“I didn’t say that I could. But I notice you had no issue with one extreme but seem to take issue with the other.”
His hands tightened around the steering wheel. I took a deep breath and braced for impact.
“You worked so hard for your career and then you gave it all up for a nothing injury. How can you be so okay with that?” He sounded almost pained, like the injury and the retirement, my entire career, had beenhisto lose.
“It wasn’t a nothing injury though, Dad. It was a direct hit on an injury that has been with me for half my life. It was weeks of rehab on a body that was already tired after giving a physical sport so much of me. It was having to, once again, modify the way I handle a stick to try and protect my shoulder. It was knowing deep down that I was lucky to not have had worsehappen to me and realising that by that point, I was tempting fate to take me out in a worse way, which would have ended my career anyway. It was the chance to leave the sport that I love and that has given me so much onmyterms. Why is that so hard for you to accept?”
There was a pause. A silence that seemed to go on for minutes rather than seconds.
“Because it doesn’t seem like you. This time last year, you were talking about all the things that you had left to achieve with your career. You were so excited, and then five months later, you just gave it up? That doesn’t make any sense.”
I nodded my head once and pressed my lips together knowing that I was probably going to regret my next question, but Lenny had been right about one thing. I needed to let him know how his attitude since April had been making me feel and this was the way into it.
“Why don’t you just ask the question that you actually want to ask?”
“Fine. Did Alana ask you to retire? She was never overly happy about you playing hockey and she left because of it. Was it a condition of this out-of-the-blue relationship of yours?”
It was my turn to scoff now. I didn’t quite know what to think about the fact that my dad thought Lenny had that much power over me, and that I was incapable of retiring simply because it was best for me, but that wasn’t the real issue here. Had he always disliked Alana that much? He had seemed happy that she wasn’t my prom date and wasn’t the most sympathetic to how I felt in the days after she left. In fact, more than once, he told me it was probably for the best. It didn’t feel like it was atthe time, but I’d meant what I said to Lenny. We had lived the lives we were supposed to live, and we were better off for it.
“Firstly, we hadn’t even reconnected by April, so she had no input onmydecision. Secondly, Alana was fine with me playing hockey, what she wasn’t happy with was me putting all my eggs in that basket. But she did ice time with me, she came to the games that she could, she sat in that ice rink and waited for me on days she didn’t have after-school clubs. So, she was supportive of my potential career path and if she hadn’t left, I am certain she would have continued to be supportive. Thirdly, you’ve got a lot of nerve telling me that this relationship is out of the blue when she was pretty much the only thing I made time for outside of hockey and school when we were teenagers.”
“You became more focused when she left.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Because she left! It was because ofherthat I even still had hockey. She was the one who supported me through the bulk of the emotional turmoil of rehab when I tore my rotator cuff. She was the one who consistently reminded me that I was still a person if I wasn’t a hockey player. She was the reason I took my time with the whole thing and got back on that ice stronger than ever. So when she left, I became more focused on it because I had two things in high school and they were my hockey team and her.
“And let’s not pretend that even if I was the most focused person in the world, luck played a big part in everything as well. I was lucky that I managed to transfer my college ability to the big leagues. I was lucky that I got to play for the teams I played for. I was lucky to make the Olympic team. I was even lucky enoughto win the Stanley Cup. I gave it everything I had for eight years, and I ran out of steam. And here’s something I don’t think you want to hear, even though it has no bearing on your life, Alana would never have asked me to quit while I still loved it, but if she came back into my life while I was still playing, I probably would have given it all up anyway. Because if I had her, after all this time, I wouldn’t have wanted to spend weeks on the road when I could have been with her.”
I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself down.
“You were managing to make it work with Mel,” he started quietly, a tremor of anger still present in his voice. “Why would Alana have been any different? Why would you have given it all up for that girl?”
My jaw clenched at the way he referred to Lenny, but I took a deep breath and let it go.
“I think deep down I always knew that Mel loved me because I was a hockey player. She loved what came with that. The galas, the money, the travel. She loved the glam and the status of it all. The moment she caught onto the fact that I was going to give that all up, she wanted out. I don’t blame her for it. I just wish maybe I’d been stronger and ended it before it got to that point. And retiring isn’t giving up Dad, it’s ending a career on my terms. Now I have Alana to support me while I continue to figure out what the hell I want to do next.”
