Chapter 15
THE OLYMPIAN
Neither of us had brought up Barry’s week-long roommate trial when a week came and passed.
Sharing the bathroom wasn’t horrible, though I think he pooped exclusively downstairs—the walls were thin, I would know if he was going upstairs.
I had no proof that he was even human in this way.
He did at first try to use the downstairs shower, but between the shower head being basically nipple height on him and the water pressure being mostly a gentle sprinkle, the upstairs one was the better option.
He took showers in the evening, after games or practices, because sometimes the quick shower at the rink didn’t quite do the trick.
Having him around really had been helpful.
He cleaned up after himself way more than I did—the dishes were always done—and he even refilled the soaps last week.
The food prep was a help, too. He didn’t mind lending a hand with projects when he got home, staining the shelves I was making for the living room, or sanding the doors on the dresser I was stripping.
I figured Barry would get sick of sleeping on a too-short blow-up mattress in my living room, Junior usually sleeping laid out against him.
He probably had an expensive-ass bed at his apartment and eventually he would want to return to more luxury living, but even after almost three weeks of this, he didn’t seem to tire of staying with me.
Having a roommate who traveled half of the time was great in that I was basically back to living alone when he was out of town, but not great in that when he was gone, I had to start cooking for myself again after the prepped meals ran out.
Also, I could tell Junior missed him, which was increasingly concerning to me.
Missing Barry was not a habit either of us should get into, temporary fixture in this home as he was.
Every day when he was on the road he sent me pictures: his breakfast, a pigeon outside his hotel window, one of the rookies bouncing a soccer ball on his head, an ice pack on his sore leg after a hit.
It was like he didn’t want me to forget about him in the days he was away, even as I had ever-present evidence of him growing in my abdomen.
I started sending pictures back, though fewer than he did: the sun rising through a window in the diner, a completed fish puzzle, Junior sleeping in various places around the house including on top of his folded air mattress in the corner of the living room, me waving in the team’s gym mirror wearing the maternity jumpsuit Dad got me with HARVEY JANITORIAL on the chest.
Barry
New outfit!
Hannah
Nice, huh? Really fashion forward around here.
Barry
I like them
I stowed the phone in my pocket, sure that he really did.
I didn’t think he was still mad at me from our Thanksgiving chat, but then again, he’d been gone for many of the days since. I guessed, if anything, he felt like he could be mad about me almost not telling him or just be glad that I ultimately did.
I was glad too. He brought a certain energy to my days that was missing before—a friend. And it was very helpful having him around. I could admit this much.
The team travel was split up, sometimes just a few days, other trips almost two weeks.
He printed a schedule of the home and away games with indications of travel and put it up with sticky tack in the kitchen.
I found myself looking at it while I ate breakfast, counting days till he came back, and secretly looking forward to the two-week home stand where he wouldn’t have any away games at all.
I snapped a picture of the calendar, my finger pointing to the two weeks where there were neither home nor away games and texted it to him.
Hannah
What happens in February?
He responded within a minute.
Barry
Two weeks where the sorry suckers from each team get pulled into other games. All stars, the Olympics, whatever.
Hannah
When you say sorry suckers, you mean like the best of the best or what?
Barry
I wouldn’t say that.
I shook my head, licking a scoop of Barry’s chia seed pudding off my spoon.
Hannah
So you’re one of the sorry suckers?
Barry
Sometimes.
Then a few seconds later:
Barry
Unfortunately.
I did some quick Googling, finding pictures of him on the Canadian Olympic team, grinning with his arms around other hockey players, ostensibly from around the league.
Hannah
You’re an Olympian?????!!!???
I didn’t know how Jeremy left this one off his deep dives of Barry Wright’s hockey career he constantly went on about.
Hannah
Where is your medal?????
Is it true that they give out thousands of condoms at the Olympic Village???
Barry started and stopped typing twice.
Barry
Medal is at my apartment. Should I have brought it to display in the basement?
I laughed aloud at the thought of this, and Junior meowed at my ankles.
Hannah
Maybe!?
Barry
If I’d known you’d be so impressed I would’ve worn it to dinner or something.
Hannah
My family would flip. Like it would be embarrassing.
Barry
To answer your other question, yes they give out lots of condoms and they always run out. Lots of protected sex going on there.
I didn’t like the thought of Barry hooking up with hot Olympians, but I would not be saying so.
See, maybe if I was an Olympian I wouldn’t have offered to have unprotected sex in the first place.
I was asleep on the couch Saturday afternoon with a sitcom’s laugh track going on the TV when Barry got home from his trip.
I didn’t wake up when he walked in, but his vibes must’ve been strange enough to disturb me, because when I opened my eyes, he was standing by the couch watching me, shifting from one leg to the other.
His phone was in one hand. I know it was the same size as mine, just with a more professional case (no kittens and hearts), but it looked so much smaller in his palm than it did mine.
The baby was going to look minuscule in his arms.
“Welcome home,” I said sleepily, then hoped he wouldn’t read into calling my house his home. The softening of his eyes told me he absolutely did.
“My mother is coming over,” he said suddenly.
I did a lot of blinking, attempting to understand this.
“Coming over where?” I asked. “She lives in Canada.”
The blanket around my shoulders was very soft, so soft that I could just fall right back to sleep if Barry stopped talking.
This was the blanket he slept under, and it smelled like him, too.
Like his shampoo and his body wash, it was more his blanket than mine at this point, even though it was mine to begin with.
“Here. To your house.” Barry nudged my foot. “Right now.”
I forced my eyelids all the way open this time and held out a hand for Barry to pull me up to sitting. He did, and I do believe it was his grip (the very same grip I’d just been considering around his phone) on my wrist that woke me up fully.
“Thanks.” I rubbed a hand over my eyes before stopping short. “Did you just say your mom is coming here?”
“She’ll be here in ten.”
I shot up to standing. It was too quick, and Barry steadied my elbow when I got dizzy.
I looked around the house, which wasn’t really dirty but it wasn’t exactly clean in the days of his absence.
I remembered too late that I wasn’t wearing pants, and snatched the overalls I’d worn nearly every day from their heap on the ground.
Barry averted his eyes, ever the gentleman, as I stepped into them and pulled the straps back over my shoulders, clipping them in place.
“You invited your mom here?”
Barry shook his head and followed my lead as I started picking things up. I threw the basket of clean clothes into my room while Barry started folding the blankets on the couch.
“She invited herself,” he said. “She flew in with my dad for tomorrow’s game, and she used Find My Friends to track me.”
This made sense to me, an avid user of Find My Friends, myself. I clicked off the TV and organized the coffee table, remote next to stained paper coaster, next to water bottle, next to a hair tie, next to unscented lip balm.
“Unannounced?”
“She really wants to meet you,” Barry explained. “I told her I’d ask, but she somehow heard ‘come on over right now,’ and she’s not one to easily take no for an answer.”
“Seems an inherited trait.”
“Hm?”
“She sounds great,” I said louder. “Does she know I’m pregnant?”
Barry stopped tidying to furrow his brows at this question. Barry’s face was a very expressive one, particularly when I did something annoying or confusing.
“Of course,” he said. “She’s thrilled.”
I didn’t believe him.
My parents were thrilled because it was my baby, and they know me. I was an abject stranger to Barry’s family. For all they knew, I could be lying about it being Barry’s baby—it could be anyone’s baby, weren’t they at all suspicious of me?
There was no doubt in my mind that the baby was his, unless immaculate conception was indeed possible for nonreligious girls who hadn’t prayed in nearly two decades, but it was still reckless of them to believe me.
“When did you tell her?”
“Couple days after you told me.” He stacked a blanket atop the armrest. I helped him with the big quilt, lining up the corners and then folding them up to meet the others in his hands.
“And she took it well? Didn’t think I was trying to con your family out of your generational wealth?”
He gave his little Barry scowl.
“She is delightful. And guileless. My mother couldn’t think you were trying to con me even if you actually were.”
I didn’t know what guileless meant, other than something from the bible I think?
But I tried to just pick up the context clues and move on.
Everything he’d said about his family made his mother sound like a completely pleasant woman, plus a woman after my own heart with the Find My Friends and showing up at a loved-one’s house without invitation.