Chapter 26
After practice that night, Nick rapped lightly on the door to Sammy’s room, then walked in, closed the door, and leaned awkwardly against the wall. “Hey,” he said. He walked to the windows and looked out. His room was bigger, but Sammy got better light.
Well, no he didn’t.
“I had sex with the decorator again. The one who’s doing our living room.” He turned and looked at the empty room and tried to imagine Sammy’s bedroom furniture in it. It shimmered like a mirage and disappeared. Just an empty room. “In my defense, I was wearing a pirate costume.” He gave Sammy a moment to absorb that. “I thought you wouldn’t mind. How many chances does a guy get to have sex as a pirate?” He ran a thumb over the window ledge. “I just thought I should tell you.”
He left the room and went to the kitchen, surveyed the stacked glass containers of chopped fruits and vegetables, and settled for carrying six containers, a fork, and a glass of water to the living room. The furniture had already been delivered, and Alyssa had carted away his old chair. It was going to a homeless shelter, apparently—not the one Vanessa worked with. He set the glass containers down with a clink. He couldn’t imagine Alyssa homeless—and trapped in a car with Ryan. How had that even worked? How had they done homework?
He’d felt homeless when he left the hospital, but he’d had enough money to live indoors. He was emotionally homeless, maybe, but Alyssa had been the real thing. He flopped down on the new sofa and imagined her as a kid, long-limbed and a little scrawny, maybe in a unicorn stage. Had she been the right age for that? He flipped the TV on and popped the lid off the broccoli container. No point trying to cook any of it. A hot meal would be nice, but he ran through smoke detector batteries pretty fast.
He found a documentary on George O’Keeffe and a Colorado game and flipped back and forth between them. He was fine. He had baby carrots. He had a bookshelf with books on the floor in front of it because the little knickknack crap Alyssa was going to put on it wasn’t there yet, and she didn’t want him arranging it himself. As if it mattered where a fake avocado went. Or maybe a fake duck. Would she do that to him? Anyway, he was fine.
O’Keeffe died at the end of the documentary, and Colorado won their game. Neither ending pleased him, but neither was a surprise either. He looked at his phone: 12:11 AM. Which was 6:11 AM Zagreb time. He scrolled through his contacts, felt an old wound ooze as he saw the names: Sammy, Tyler, Eric, Luka, Dragan. He found Dragan’s girlfriend’s number and called. It rang six times, then he heard the familiar voice.
“’Allo?”
“Hey, Mia. It’s Nick Sorensen. Is this too early?”
“No. Is not bad time. How are you, Nick?” Her accent was thick.
“I’m good. Fine. How are you?”
“I’m fine. We’re lying, yes?”
“I guess so.” He was quiet for a moment. “Can I ask you a question? It’s personal.”
“Personal?”
Her English had never been as good as Dragan’s. “It’s a question I shouldn’t ask, but I want to.”
“Like what is my real hair color?”
He laughed. “Like that.”
“Sure. You ask.”
“Do you think you’ll ever get married?” Silence stretched forty-five hundred miles and then back. “I’m sorry if …”
“Yes. I will get married.” She paused, then went on. “I will always love Dragan. I will love him most. But in a few years I will find some good man and make life with him. Now I have question for you.”
“Okay.”
“Why you ask this?”
He rubbed his fingers over his mouth. “I may be having trouble moving on. I thought if you were, it would shame me into it.”
“Moving on? Like you have new roommate? Or best friend?”
“I don’t have either one. But I recently got a second chair.”
“Oh, Nick. You be better. Dragan would not want this.”
“Yeah.” He stacked the empty food containers. “I miss him.”
“Of course.” And then she was crying.
“Jesus, Mia, I’m sorry.”
“I miss little scar on his left shoulder,” she said, sniffling. “Do you remember?”
Nick spun the remote control on his coffee table. “He said he got it from a fishhook.”
“Yes. We made joke about me, I forget how you say, but I fished him.”
“I remember that scar.” But he’d forgotten it. Hadn’t thought about it since the plane went down. “Do you remember his singing?”
She laughed. “O moj Bo?e, at least I don’t have to hear that again.” They were silent. “I would give my own life to hear again.”
“Yeah.” They both sniffed. “It really was bad, though.”
She laughed. “You make me laugh and cry. Thank you. But I get ready for work now.”
“Do you need anything? You have enough money?”
“I have job. But thank you for question. All your questions. I like to think of Dragan. It makes my makeup bad, but I like to remember.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Okay. Thanks for taking the time.” They said goodbye and he carried the food containers to his sink, dumped them in, and decided to wash them in the morning. He wouldn’t have if Sammy were there. Sammy would have sprayed him with the kitchen sink hose if he’d left dishes around. But Sammy wasn’t there.
The next morning he met his counselor again. He’d given up on trying to discuss hockey. She wanted to talk about his feelings, and he had things he could tell her about. Progress. She would be happy, and he could get out of there. Maybe if she gave the coach a positive report, he’d let Nick stop going. And that really would be best for everybody.
At ten o’clock Dr. Williams motioned him in. Nick sat in the big chair again. He figured it looked defensive, but he was a big guy. Let her write down whatever she wanted—he was going to be comfortable.
“How have you been?” she said warmly.
“Great!” he said. She raised an eyebrow. Overselling it, Nick. “I made progress on multiple fronts.”
She sat back and folded her hands at the wrists. “That’s wonderful! Tell me.”
“Well, I scored a hat trick in the game against Toronto …” The wrinkle over her nose creased slightly. That wasn’t the thing to lead with, apparently. “I went to a party, and I talked to an old friend. Oh, and all the furniture’s been delivered, so my living space is almost normal.”
She gave him a slow clap. “That’s all fantastic! What did you enjoy the most?”
He tried to suppress the smirk working at the corner of his mouth. It was definitely burying his treasure with Alyssa. Although that hat trick was a pretty close second. “Um, not sure I can prioritize.”
“Sure,” she said. “Who was the old friend?”
“Um, Dragan Novak’s girlfriend. He was on his way to propose to her when the plane went down.”
“She wasn’t on the plane, right?”
“No. He sent a limo for her. It dropped her off at the designated spot, but he never showed up. So she knew. I think about that sometimes—her standing there by all these white flowers and lights reflecting in the water and knowing something happened.”
Dr. Williams let him squirm for a minute. “How is she doing?”
“She sounded pretty good, really. I made her cry.”
“Did you cry?”
He tapped his fingernails hard into the arm of the chair. He didn’t want to talk about this. “Did I tell you last time that Gretzky scored ninety-two goals in an eighty-game season?”
“Okay,” she said. “Let me ask you this—do you still think you should have died?”
He sucked in a breath. She wasn’t afraid to ask straight questions. “Yeah. I guess I do.”
“Did you ever think that maybe you’re not the one whose path went wrong? That maybe the other guys should have lived?”
He blinked a couple of times and looked out the window. Finally he said, “Oh, and one of the guys from the team invited me to Thanksgiving. I’m not going to go, but it was nice of him.”
She twisted her lips, making sure he knew she’d caught the change of subject. “Why aren’t you going?”
He shrugged. “It’s a pity invite I think. Thanksgiving is family time.”
“Maybe he thinks of you as family.”
Nick snorted.
“Did you think of Sammy as family?” Dr. Williams asked.
He paused. “Well, yeah. But that’s different.”
“So you can love, but not be loved?”
He gave her a sour look.
“What are you going to bring to the dinner?” she pressed.
“I really don’t plan to go.”
“But it’s a feast. It’s meant to be shared.”
He brightened. “That’s a good point. I do enjoy food.”
By the end of the session Dr. Williams had persuaded him to start keeping a journal, and he’d told her about Sergei Fedorov’s five-goal game. She’d smiled and said, “Maybe you should tell that to the journal.”
“The journal already knows,” Nick said, grabbing his jacket. “It’s a pretty well-known game.”
She laughed and said, “See you next week. I want you to tell me what you’re going to bring to that Thanksgiving dinner.”
As he left her office, Nick thought about that. He still wasn’t sure he was going to accept Devin’s offer, but if he did, he should take beer and meat. You could never have too much beer and meat.