Chapter Forty-Three
JENNA
People race around this place, looking all busy and important, yet no one seems to be able to give me any answers.
Is my boyfriend going to be okay?
That’s all I want to know—seven words that form one of the easiest questions I’ve ever asked. But with the way nurses and doctors are dodging me right now, you would think that I wanted to understand the meaning of life.
I just want to see and speak to Tommy.
My face flops into my hands once more as I lean forward on the uncomfortably hard plastic chair in this godforsaken waiting room.
“How long have we been here exactly?” I ask Holt.
“Maybe two hours,” he replies, pocketing his phone and standing just as Helen pushes through the door with two trays of coffees.
She begins handing them out—one each for Holt, Sawyer, Archer, and Jack. She then approaches me with the cappuccino I ordered but can barely think about drinking.
I take it from her and feel the warmth as it radiates through the takeout cup and into my palms.
“Try and at least drink something, Jenna.” Her voice is soothing and caring as she places a hand on my knee. “The doctor will update us when he has a clear picture of where Tommy is at.”
Her Midwestern accent is way more noticeable than Tommy’s. From what Tommy has told me, she has spent most of her life as an assistant stylist in a hairdresser just outside of Minneapolis.
She’s a caring person and a far cry from Alex, I can see that in her demeanor and the way she winds her gold cross pendant around her fingers.
She told me earlier that when Tommy turned his back and left home shortly after he tracked down Alex, she turned to the church to help her deal with the rejection and pain.
I’m personally not religious—never have been. But I respect anything that helps people deal with the shit in their lives. We all need to find our strength from somewhere.
I blow out a long breath and take a small sip of coffee.
“I just don’t understand how a CT scan can take so long. They said Tommy was an emergency case when we got here.”
The blood covering his face when they bundled him into the ambulance and sped off to the hospital was the last thing I saw of him.
Sawyer is pretty sure he has a fractured arm, multiple lacerations to the face, and possibly a broken ankle, too, judging by the unnatural angle it was in when Tommy was lying on the ice.
But it’s the damage to his head, neck, and spine that’s the real worry circulating around this room.
No one wants to talk about the way Tommy fell or the hit Curtis Freeman put on him.
Well, almost no one. Before Darcy took off for home to get back for Emily, she looked me straight in the eyes, telling me how the hit was like a replay of the one Zach Evans took at the hands of Alex.
The only difference was, Zach collided with the plexiglass before he hit the ice.
Curtis, on the other hand, dropped his shoulder in a premeditated hit at speed, and Tommy went flying over his body, somersaulting in the air before landing on his head.
The way I’d screamed his name when I saw Curtis set off across the ice.
It was obvious he only had one thing on his mind.
His face was twisted with anger. He was determined to halt Tommy’s attack.
I never thought a guy like Curtis was vengeful, but he wanted to put Tommy in his place for the beating he’d handed out earlier in the season. Instead, he put him in the hospital.
“The silence is killing me,” Jack announces, flying up from his chair as he begins pacing the room. “He has to be okay …” He pauses his sentence and then continues pacing. “It’s Tommy, for fuck’s sake. He’s basically indestructible.”
Sawyer pushes a distressed hand through his hair. He got the best view of Tommy’s injuries before the medics entered the ice and crowded the space. “That hit … it was like nothing I’d ever seen before.”
I look at Jack, who looks back at me. We’re both thinking the same thing. Zach Evans pulled through with broken bones and a bad concussion, and Tommy can do the same.
“He’s going to be just fine, Jenna.” Helen knocks her cup against mine.
She can’t be much older than Jon Morgan, which would put her in her mid-forties.
“It’s just the longer we go without hearing anything from the doctors, the more I feel like there’s something really wrong with him.” I chew on my bottom lip and set my coffee on the side table to my right. “What if he never plays hockey again?”
Helen dismisses my concerns with the wave of her hand. She’s barely spent any time with her boy since she arrived in Brooklyn. She must be reeling inside with worry, but much like her son, she doesn’t let her fear show.
Tommy has spent so much time focused on the ways he’s just like his father when, in a short space of time, I can already see how similar he is to his mom.
Her short, dark hair is cropped into a bob style with long bangs and dark brown eyes.
Tommy definitely got his height from Alex since Helen is petite and slight in build, but her broad smile and full lips remind me so much of my boyfriend.
It’s hard for me to admit, but Helen radiates a kind of warmth and kindness I’ve never seen in my own mom.
I wonder if that’s always been the case or if the mistakes she’s made along the way have shaped her into a more compassionate person.
Whatever past events in life got her to this point, I feel like Tommy was right to extend an olive branch.
“I can’t picture a day where my Tommy isn’t playing hockey,” she whispers. “It’s all he’s ever known. All he ever wanted when he was a boy.”
I pick up my coffee and turn the takeout cup around in my hands. “What was he like when he was younger?”
She just smiles, more warmth glowing on her cheeks. “He was inquisitive and fiercely independent. But he had a lot of friends at school. He was one of the popular kids.” She chuckles. “Especially with the girls.”
I nod along, laughing quietly. “Oh, I can imagine. And what Tommy wants, Tommy gets.”
Helen looks a little uncomfortable at that, and I wait to see if she’ll say anything more.
“When Tommy makes a decision, no one can stop him. He made the choice to board that plane to New York and find his dad … and when he came home, he was never the same. He moved out and into temporary accommodation shortly after he turned eighteen and then went off to college after he was drafted to play for Detroit.”
“He told me he was deeply hurt that you didn’t tell him the truth about who his father was,” I say.
She drops her eyes to the floor. “I was pinned between a rock and a hard place. I found out I was pregnant with Tommy after a wild night at a bachelorette party in St. Paul. We’d wound up at some bar where the Blades were drinking, and the rest is history.”
She turns to look at me. There’s no denying her beauty. I can see why she was—and maybe still is—a hit with men.
“Alex told me we’d exchange numbers and it wouldn’t just be a onetime thing.
I really liked him, and I was so damn young, not even legal to drink.
” She snorts a soft laugh. “When I found out I was pregnant, I got in contact with him, and that’s when I saw the ugly side of that man.
He wanted nothing to do with Tommy or me, and he paid me off to keep my silence.
It wasn’t a whole lot more than the legal amount, but I was short on cash, and I just knew Alex wasn’t the type of father that Tommy needed in his life.
I hoped I would eventually meet someone who would be a good father figure to him.
” She clicks her tongue. “I guess I’m just bad at finding decent men, full stop. ”
This time, I reach across and place a hand on Helen’s knee, and I look up and smile at Holt. He’s watching us both from across the other side of the room.
“Yeah, that’s it. I’m going to spontaneously combust if I don’t get some answers in the next thirty seconds.” Jack stalks toward the door right as it opens inward, and he grinds to an abrupt stop.
Relief floods my veins when the doctor we initially spoke to on arrival walks into the center of the room, closely followed by Coach Morgan, Jensen Jones and Emmett Richards.
The doctor tucks his pen into the top pocket of his white jacket and takes a seat on the coffee table.
Holt, Archer, Sawyer, and Emmett all come to sit on our side of the room so they can hear what the doctor has to say.
Jack tips his chin at Emmett. “Thanks for coming, man. I know you have a lot of shit going on at home right now, but Tommy will appreciate you showing up for him.”
Emmett looks as concerned as I feel, pulling off his backward cap and turning it around in his hands. “I know what it’s like to suffer a serious injury that has the potential to change the shape of your career and life. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else than in here with my teammates.”
Emmett casts his eyes around the hospital like this place is all too familiar to him, and I see a flicker of sadness in his eyes.
From what I know about the veteran Blades defenseman, he largely keeps to himself, but there’s been the odd story in the press about his marriage and how it’s allegedly on the rocks.
When he comes out to Lloyd’s for postgame drinks, he’s often the first player to leave and head home since his wife has never been keen on socializing with the team or their families.
When the doctor clears his throat and begins to speak, every pair of eyes in this room is laser-focused on him.
“Mr. Schneider—”
“Williams,” Jack interjects. “He plays under Schneider currently, but he’s in the process of changing his last name. Schneider has no place inside these four walls. I should know what it feels like to carry the name of an asshole father.” He huffs out an angry breath.
Helen’s head whips up to me. Obviously, Tommy never told her his plans for next season.