Page 19 of Family First
He smiled into his mug, his serenity in the face of my irritation making me more annoyed. I slurped my coffee, hoping he had made it improperly, but he had not.
“I’m sorry if you feel left out, that is not the case at all. Of course, I’m not going to just retire and not discuss it with you. That’s what we’re doing. I want to retire, Stan. I’m not like you, I’m a fourth line winger who works hard and loved hockey, until I didn’t. It was a job, and I was damn good at it, but you’re a star, Stan, the Olympics, you were an All-Star pick, you’ve got X Vezina’s under your belt, you’re different to me. I’ve lost the spark, and it happened in a single moment when I came home to paramedics at our house. I’m tired, and my body aches all the time.”
“Mine aches also! Mine is newly chopped and made intoTerminatorhips. I suffer far more than you for many years, but I do not just quit.”
“So, it’s a competition of who hurts the worst?”
My sight flew from my coffee to him. He studied me calmly. “What? No, of course it is not such a thing.” I pulled in a steadying breath as the faint sounds of Mama’s TV filtered through the now quiet house. “We all hurt. That is fact. Hockey makes hurt. But you have so many years of good play left.”
“I don’t want to play anymore, Stan. I want to be with our kids. No one in this house saw the warning signs Noah was displaying.” His gaze grew watery. He turned to stare at the pictures on the mantle, shots of our family over the years. The children as they grew and changed, dogs and cats that had filled our lives with love who were now in pet heaven, a wedding picture of my beloved and myself in Vegas after tying our knots. So many good memories. “My son was terribly sick, and I didn’t notice.”
“I also did not note. I too feel badly for my bad parenting.”
Erik’s hand brushed my whiskery cheek. I had not shaved for several weeks. My playoff beard was still hugging my face even though our dreams of achieving that goal were now over.
“Hey, no more guilt, right? We were all busy. Even your mother didn’t pick up the signs and she’s here with the kids all the time. But that being said, this situation with Noah, even though he will be fine and go on to achieve great things, has opened my eyes, Stan. It scared me. Deeply.”
“It scared me too, but I am not rushing into such a big thing,” I confessed, turning my nose into his palm to kiss his life line. “Why are we making life changes so big at all the once? I am scared of so much changes, Erik.”
He moved closer, took my mug from my hand, and enveloped me in another embrace. “I know. Change is hard. It’s been a long few days. Why don’t we just snuggle and talk about this later?”
“Yes, okay.” I brushed my lips over his, then tucked him into my side, both of us willing to stall a talk that, it seemed, one of us was not willing to have. I was too tired for deep analyzing of my boorish behavior right now. Tomorrow I would begin to pick apart my confused thoughts. Tonight, I wished to hold my husband close and plan other things for the return of our boy to our lives for Noah was coming home on the morrow. That was the important thing. Not my fears, upsets, or creeping worries about my own career. Family first. Always. Had I forgotten this most important thing and if I had what did that say for me and those I loved the most?
* * *
We celebrated the Fourth of July loudly and with many low-carb foods.
The past few weeks had been jumbly big time. All of us were working hard to ensure whatever Noah needed Noah got. Erik and I discussed hiring a cook/dietician to prepare diabetic-friendly meals and snacks. Mama cried when we told her. She said that her old cooking might have killed her little rabbit, which was of course not true, so we had to console her. Finally, after many tears we convinced her that all of us could eat better. Sure, Erik and I ate well because we were athletes. Or some of us were. One of us was. Maybe none of us were? I was confused and guilty still.
But for Mama’s sake we compromised and brought in a dietician to work with Mama to relearn her old ways of preparing foods. While much of what Mama made—soups, cabbage, and salads—were good, much of the carbohydrates we ate which spiked Noah’s levels had to go. He was allowed a little of things, but we were trying our hardest to help him learn new ways of eating. Still, my people did love our potatoes. Also, I had a great fondness for Mama’s pierogi. The foods of Russia are as hearty as the people who live in that rugged land. They eat hearty foods that will stick to your ribs for when you journey out into temperatures that dip to minus forty Fahrenheit as it can in my homeland—you need lots of calories to sustain you.
Living here in America, in the lap of luxury, we did not need to eat like Siberian farmhands. And so, we were learning new ways to cook, which was benefitting us all. Still, I did yearn for pierogi and had stopped once or twice or several times after physical therapy at a small Slavic deli on Walnut Street near the police bureau building to buy some then eat them in the car. I was now back to driving myself to my appointments and walking with canes, which was wonderful, but the ice seemed a million miles away. The therapists could not give me a set time for when I could return to hockey.
“Give it time, Stan,” Lance would say while sending notes to the Railers organization about me and my slow healing. It was frustrating so I ate pierogi to make me feel better, which of course they did. How could mashed potatoes in dough make you feel anything but warm and loved? Still, I knew I was sneaking bad foods so then I would feel guilty. It was foolish. I was foolish. Pierogi? No, they were not foolish. They were gifts from God.
Today I had not stopped to buy pierogi after therapy. I did blow kisses to the deli as I drove past it, but I stayed the course because we were making a trip with the children to West Virginia for the first part of a two-stage orientation for Eva. Margo was not coming as she was off at a week-long soccer camp in New Hampshire with several members of her school team and the coach. So, it was Eva and Noah, Erik and myself. Mama was pet-sitting and enjoying a long weekend alone.
When I pulled into the driveway Erik was just placing the last of our bags into the rear of his new Cadillac SUV. I exited my car, smiling, and made my slow way to my husband.
“I rushed as fast as Lance would allow,” I explained then stood back as he closed the tailgate.
“No rush. It’s not that far and we have all day.” Erik stole a kiss, his eyes glowing with good health. Gone was the haunted look he had carried for so long after Noah’s diagnosis. Now, with things starting to feel a bit more normal, he had blossomed. We had not talked about retirement again, and I had no idea if he even still felt the same way. He’d not said anything to the Railers, so perhaps he had changed his mind. I was not pushing. Things were starting to feel somewhat normal. “I thought maybe you might have stopped at Alexi’s Deli for some pierogi.” My mouth dropped. Erik snickered. “You tend to leave take out containers under the seat of your car.”
“No, I do not leave, I hide.” That made him laugh aloud and I joined in. “I am bad diet man.”
“Nah, it’s all good.” He glanced around the vibrant green yard of our massive home then leaned in even closer to whisper to me. “To be honest, I swing by McDonald’s for fish sandwiches whenever I go to the pet supply store.”
“We are a couple of sneakers,” I snickered then stole a kiss.
“Get a room,” Noah called, charging out of the house, his eyes sparkling with joy at getting away for a few days.
His journey had not been an easy one. We still had days where his sugar spiked or dropped, and other days when he just felt blasé or sad, but overall, he was creeping towards being his old self. Next week, if his doctor okayed it, he would return to skating. Exercise was good for keeping sugar in check, I kept telling myself as I fretted over someone hitting him and knocking one of his new contraptions off or hurting him in some way. He was still too young for the roughest aspects of the game. Just. He would move into the next tier soon though, and that would involve full bodychecking. I knew I could not keep him in bubble wrap, but I dearly wished I could.
“Do you have all of your supplies?” I asked as Erik, and I broke apart.
“Yes, Papa,” Noah sing-songed back as he climbed into the back seat, phone, and earbuds in hand, to wait for Eva to emerge from the house.
“Let me see,” Erik insisted, and I winced. Noah wouldn’t like that interfering from my beloved.
