Chapter 4 #2
“No, Cody and I are solid.”
Leaving his equipment bag since they’d be back for game two tomorrow, Mitch grabbed his overnight one and headed for the door, Yano behind him. Out in the hallway, Yano bumped his shoulder against Mitch’s as they headed for the parking lot with three minutes to spare. “So, what’s up?”
While he appreciated Yano’s concern, all Mitch wanted to do was to crawl into bed and hope to wake up tomorrow with a clearer head on his shoulders.
“School stuff mostly,” he told Yano. It was only half the truth, but Mitch didn’t want to tell Yano that he was also feeling lousy over the fact that Alex didn’t like him.
He hadn’t even told Cody yet, and the man had been pestering Mitch to tell him what was wrong since last night’s dinner at Mama Jean’s.
“Classes giving you trouble?” Yano asked. “My sociological theory course is whooping my ass. Don’t ask me why I took a stupid theory course. What good is theory in real life anyway?”
Appreciating Yano’s attempt to make him feel better, Mitch said, “For me, it’s creative writing. Apparently, my writing has no substance.” And neither did he, according to Alex. But he wasn’t going to think about that right now. It made his heart hurt.
“You’re not a writer,” Yano said.
“No shit.”
“So, why’d you take a writing class?”
“Fucking academic advisor.”
Yano made a sound of disgust. “Hate those guys. How do you think I ended up with fucking theory? Know anything about sociological theory?” He turned hopeful eyes on Mitch as Mitch pushed the exit door open.
Coach Bedley was waiting in the dark parking lot under a lamp post, holding a clipboard.
When he spotted them, he tapped his watch, a scowl on his face, and pointed at the bus.
“Nope,” Mitch answered Yano. “Know anything about writing?”
“Enough to know that knoll starts with a k?”
Laughing, ignoring Bedley’s I’m-annoyed-with-you face, they joined their teammates on the bus.
* * *
Weekends at Grandpa Forest’s long-term care facility in Montpelier were always busy, but not quite as much on a Saturday night after dinnertime.
Alex usually kept his visits to the afternoon, but he wanted to watch the GH vs Denver game with his grandpa and, because of the time difference, it didn’t start until nine EST. He didn’t usually watch college hockey, but now that he essentially had nothing to keep him busy while he recuperated, he tried to catch his alma mater’s games.
Alex and Grandpa Forest had talked hockey for as long as Alex could remember.
Back when Grandpa Forest still knew how to use a computer, they’d email each other after NHL games and speak on the phone after Alex’s, back when he was in the major juniors.
Grandpa Forest had always had time for Alex and his mom, even making a point to visit them several times a year.
It would be nice if Grandpa Forest remembered those times, or even who Alex was.
“Judd, come on in!” Grandpa Forest said when Alex knocked on his open door.
Alex swallowed a disappointed sigh and stepped into his grandpa’s room.
Grandpa Forest picked a shirt off the couch and nudged a pair of dirty socks under the couch. “I wasn’t expecting company today.”
No, he never was.
“I brought munchies,” Alex said, holding up a bag of ketchup chips he’d brought back from his last trip home. “I thought we could watch the hockey game together.”
Grandpa Forest laughed. “Little Alex used to love those. Remember, Judd?”
“I remember,” Alex said, dropping the bag onto the coffee table.
Judd was Alex’s piece-of-shit father—Grandpa Forest’s son—who’d left Alex and his mom when Alex was nine.
Judd had cut off all ties not only with his wife and son, but with his father as well.
As much as Alex wished every day that his grandpa would remember who Alex was, even if only for five minutes, he was glad Grandpa Forest couldn’t remember how devastated he’d been when his only child had effectively disowned him and disappeared.
That Alex looked uncannily like Judd was a constant source of annoyance for Alex.
Grandpa Forest stood in sweats and a hoodie, contemplating the table next to the window as if he didn’t know what it was.
Which could possibly be the case. Alex had learned over the past couple of years not to ask open-ended questions and since he had no clue what Grandpa Forest was trying to remember, he didn’t ask what was wrong.
“Is Alex joining us?” Grandpa Forest asked.
Alex swallowed hard. “No, not today.”
“That’s too bad. How’s my boy doing? He must be, what, nine now?”
“Yeah,” Alex said past the lump in his throat. To Grandpa Forest, Alex would be nine forever.
Grandpa Forest stopped trying to figure out what was wrong with the table and sat on the couch next to Alex. “He still playing hockey?”
“Yeah.” Desperate for a distraction, Alex found one in the bag of ketchup chips on the coffee table.
He opened it and offered it to Grandpa Forest. “Do you have a drink, Grand—um, Forest?” The nurses had told him that it was better to address Alzheimer’s patients by their names, but in two years, Alex still hadn’t gotten into the habit.
Grandpa Forest snapped his fingers. “Drinks. I knew I forgot something. I’ll be right back.”
The kitchen was at the end of the hall. Grandpa Forest was liable to forget where he was going before he got halfway there and there was a high probability that Alex would find him aimlessly wandering the halls, so he said, “I’ll go. Maybe put the hockey game on?”
“Good idea.”
When Alex got back from the kitchen a few minutes later, it was to find Grandpa Forest engrossed in a game show.
“Look at these guys.” Grandpa Forest waved a hand at the TV. “They’re never going to win the money.”
Alex placed their water glasses on the coffee table and sat next to his grandpa.
On the TV, the game show host repeated the question for the next family member. “Top five answers are on the board. One more strike and play goes to the other team. If a witch wasn’t paying attention to where she was flying, what might she crash into?”
“The CN Tower!” the game show contestant yelled.
Next to Alex, Grandpa Forest muttered, “That’s too specific. Buildings. The word you’re looking for is buildings. Or trees. Or planes.”
“Think a witch can fly as high as an airplane?” Alex asked.
Grandpa Forest shot him a baleful grin. “Don’t see why not.”
Alex chuckled and stole the chips.
They watched the rest of the game show, then Grandpa Forest flipped through channels until he happened to land on the GH vs Denver game.
“Want to watch the game, Judd?”
Alex forced a smile on his face. “Sure.”
Tonight’s game was much more exciting than last night’s, which had been about as interesting as watching paint dry.
The entire team was playing much better tonight, as if someone had lit a fire under their collective asses.
Mitch played like he was a force of nature, his determination evident even through a TV screen.
Last night, while watching the game in his rental cottage, Alex hadn’t been able to keep himself from wondering if what he’d said to Mitch on Thursday at Mama Jean’s had affected him so deeply that it had hindered his play.
Then he’d called himself all sorts of stupid—he and Mitch were barely acquaintances.
There was no way something said by a relative stranger would affect Mitch that way.
Yet Alex couldn’t help remembering the crushed look on Mitch’s face when Alex had walked away from him. For the second day in a row, Alex called himself all sorts of stupid, this time for treating Mitch as badly as he had. He just hadn’t known how to get the other man to back off.
“Uh, a simple ‘I’m not interested’ probably would’ve worked just as well,” JP had said when Alex returned to their table and told him what happened.
Alex winced. Yeah, he’d been unnecessarily mean. Hell, he’d told the kid he had no substance. Alex had no excuse for what he’d said. He was a writer. He understood the power of words.
On screen, the game was tied 3-3 in the third period. Both teams played ferociously, each of them wanting the win. The Mountaineers probably wanted it more, though, after yesterday’s blowout.
However, it was not to be. With forty-eight seconds left in the game, Denver sent a backhand shot into the net. After that, it was game over, although GH put up a fight until the final buzzer sounded.
“You know, Judd,” Grandpa Forest said, “you might not have made it past midget hockey, but Alex, he’s got the heart of a hockey player. He’ll make it big one day, you’ll see.”
Alex’s breath faltered and the wetness behind his eyes appeared instantly.
Three years ago, he and Grandpa Forest had sat on the outdoor patio of a tiny café in Montpelier at the beginning of Alex’s senior year.
It was the day Grandpa Forest had told Alex how bad his Alzheimer’s was getting, although he hadn’t stopped recognizing Alex until almost a year later.
He’d never gotten to see Alex play in the NHL.
“Alex, my boy,” Grandpa Forest had said on that late summer morning, the sun reflecting off his bald head, “this disease, it’s going to kill a part of me, a part of me I fear might include you.
” He’d clasped one of Alex’s hands in both of his aged ones.
“I want you to know that no matter what you decide to do with your life, if you choose horse ranching, or dentistry, or teaching, or something else entirely instead of hockey, know that I will always be proud of you. Keep being the generous and kind person I know you are and you’ll go places, my boy. ”
Grandpa Forest would be ashamed of Alex for what he’d said to Mitch yesterday.
Turning his face away, Alex discreetly knuckled the tears out of his eyes, his heart aching for that lost part of Grandpa Forest that had taken Alex with it.
“Judd!”
Alex jolted at the shout and shot out of his seat. “What? What’s wrong? Do you need the nurse?”
“Your arm’s broken, son.”
“Oh.” The fight went out of Alex and he dropped back onto the couch. “Yeah. I fell.”
Grandpa Forest lifted Alex’s casted arm and brought it up to his nose. “Why is there a purple penis on it?”
Snorting in amusement, Alex said, “Because my friends are stupid?”
“Ah. Boys will be boys in every generation, it seems.”
Wasn’t that the truth?