JANUARY ERIC
JANUARY
ERIC
I’m just finishing my coffee when I hear Rosie begin to mewl from the crib. I set my mug down on Alex’s coffee table and go, because Alex is still in the shower.
“Hello, baby girl!” I say, entering the tidy nursery. Rosie’s early arrival caught us off-guard, of course. But now this room is ready, with a soft flannel sheet on the crib mattress and tiny diapers stocked beside the changing table.
When I reach the edge of the crib, she looks up at me, blue eyes blinking, little hands opening and closing rapidly. Pick me up, man, she’s saying. This nap is over.
I lean over the crib and lift her little body onto my forearm. “Look who’s getting heavy! Did you put on another ounce in your sleep?”
Rose looks up at me without comment. But that’s how it is with us. I do all the talking.
I lay her down on the changing table and unzip her pink sleeper. I trade the wet diaper for a dry one. But just as I’m about to zip her up again, I notice that Alex has laid out another outfit. It’s like a whole-body sweater in pink and gray stripes.
“Looks like you’re getting dolled up for company,” I say, grabbing the garment and holding it up. I have socks larger than this thing. There are snaps around the crotch and legs, so I carefully undo those. And there’s a single snap on the shoulder to widen the neck hole.
Hmm. I’m pretty good at the zip-up sleepers now. But this thing goes over her head?
“Okay, kid,” I say, easing her soft little arms out of the sleeper. “This would be easier if you could sit up.” I sort of prop her up with my left hand and then ease the sweater over her with my right.
She makes a noise of displeasure.
“Yup, just another second.” I tug the garment over her round little head.
When her face pops through, her expression is mildly accusatory.
“Don’t look at me, this was all Mommy’s idea.
” I lay her down again and snap the crotch closed.
But then I realize her arms are still at her sides, so I open it up again and poke around until I can ease those little hands down through the armholes.
“Yes!” I say when she’s wearing the thing properly. “Did it.”
Rose is unimpressed, though. She’s hungry, and I’ve burned through all her goodwill with the sweater. She opens her mouth and howls.
“Okay, lady. No need to shout.” I grab the baby sling off the doorknob and drop it over my head, then I tuck her in and head for the kitchen.
“Someone needs a bottle,” says Tara, the young woman that Alex hired to come in and cook a few days a week.
Alex chose to hire help in the kitchen instead of hiring a baby nurse. “There will be nannies,” she had said. “But so long as I’m home, I want to do it all myself.” I would never question Alex’s choices for Rosie. But after I tasted Tara’s cooking, the wisdom of this decision truly became clear.
Tara lifts the bottle out of a bowl of warm water and dries it with a towel just as Rose begins wailing in earnest. “There you go.”
“Excellent timing, thank you.” I grab it and hustle to the living room, where I make us comfortable on the sofa. And after testing the temperature of the milk, I touch the nipple to Rose’s tiny lips.
And—this part always kills me—after she opens her little mouth and takes the nipple, she gives her little head a shake as she begins to suck, just to make sure she’s on there good and tight.
“There you go. This bottle doesn’t stand a chance.”
Blue eyes look up at me, satisfied now. I find her tiny hand with my finger, which she grabs tightly. Her hands fascinate me. I didn’t know they made hands that small. She has short little fingers, each knuckle articulated in miniature, and fingernails no bigger than the head of a pin.
When she’s about half done, there’s a tap on the door.
“Come in!” The sling allows me to stand up and walk to the foyer while Rose keeps on slurping.
“Oh my God,” are Rebecca’s first words when she enters the apartment. “That is the cutest thing I have ever seen. I’m dead.” She puts a hand over her forehead. “Oh, and the baby is pretty cute, too.”
“What? Jeez. Come in already.” I wave her through.
Nate Kattenberger follows his fiancée. He stops to smirk at me. “I need a photo. I’m thinking of a before and after picture. You with a whiskey bottle, then you with a baby bottle.”
“Get your licks in now. Your day will come.”
He laughs. “I don’t doubt it.”
“Hold up,” Duff says instead of closing the door. “You have two more guests arriving.”
I poke my head out into the hallway and spot Coach Worthington getting off the elevator with Georgia, his daughter. “Hey, guys! Come on in.”
Georgia lets out a squeal. “Now I’ve seen everything.”
“Yeah, yeah. In you go.” I step aside to let her through. “Hey, coach. I’d shake your hand, but the little miss doesn’t like it when I take away the bottle.”
“Oh, I remember how that goes.” Coach thwacks me on the shoulder as he passes me.
“Thanks, Duff. Just send people in, okay? There will be more.”
“Sure thing. How’s everyone sleeping this weekend?” Duff asks.
“We’re sleeping well, but not often enough. Come in for a plate later, okay? Tara is cooking up some good party food.”
“I’ll do that.”
Duff is the one who drove us home from the hospital last week. It was hilarious, honestly. With a newborn on board, Race-car Duff never topped ten miles per hour. And the plastic sled rode home with us in the passenger’s seat.
“You’re keeping that thing?” Alex had asked.
“Are you kidding? I paid eighty bucks for this. And when it snows next year, we can go sledding in Central Park.” It’s somewhere in her coat closet now.
Back in the living room, Alex has appeared in lipstick and a sweater dress. She’s accepting kisses and presents from her guests.
“You look amazing!” Rebecca says. “Not at all like the sleep-deprived raccoon that most women turn into.”
“It’s all a facade,” she says. “Concealer has been deployed. I don’t even remember what a full night’s sleep feels like.”
It’s true. Rosie likes to nurse every three or four hours. I’m usually in bed with both of them, but Alex doesn’t use bottles at night, so I can just roll over and fall back to sleep.
My main job is making coffee in the morning and taking trips to the grocery store at regular intervals.
And—this is educational—I have never received so much female attention as the time I wore Rosie in a sling to the deli.
Forget professional hockey. The women of New York find nothing sexier than a man buying milk and bread with a baby sleeping on his chest.
Go figure.
I sit on the couch and remove the empty bottle from Rosie’s mouth, then I lift her from the sling to a chorus of coos from the women.
“I’ll burp her,” Alex says, reaching over.
“Really? In that dress?” I wave her off and face Little Miss Spit-up toward my Bruisers T-shirt. “You can have her back in a second, I swear.” I begin my patented series of rapid back pats until Rosie lets out a nice, locker-room-worthy belch.
The women are all watching with giant hearts in their eyes. And, sure enough, there’s a little blob of milky goo on my shoulder.
“Who gets to hold her first?” Becca asks.
“Me!” Nate says. “Show me how this works.”
I stand up, and Alex reaches for the baby. “Oh, you put on her sweater! I was going to put a cotton onesie on under this, though.”
“You go ahead and try.”
“That tricky, huh?” Alex asks with a big smile.
“You’ll see.”
I head for the bedroom to change my shirt, but Coach is on my heels. “Can I talk to you for a second?”
“Of course. Come on back.” I’ve made myself at home in Alex’s apartment.
After a week of my running home to shower and change, Alex invited me to store whatever I needed in her closet. “I really love having you here,” she said as we held each other after a midnight feeding. “I hope you know that.”
“I really love being here.”
That was all the discussion we’ve had about it, so far. But I know Alex is it for me, and she’s no longer fighting me on that question. We have time later to discuss it. Lots of time.
I toss my T-shirt into the hamper and grab another one out of the dresser drawer I’ve been allotted. “What’s on your mind, Coach?”
“You,” he says. “Doc says the surgery on your right knee is a certainty now. How are you not limping?”
“This is how.” I lift the leg of my jeans and show the giant brace I’ve been wearing.
“I see. Does Alex know?”
“Not really.” I shake my head. “I mean—when I tell her I need another surgery, it won’t come as a shock. But she doesn’t know how I reinjured it.”
It happened the night Rosie was born. I don’t know exactly when I got the brand-new meniscal tear. The pain began somewhere on Madison Avenue, when I was focused entirely on getting Alex to the hospital, and on bringing our baby girl into the world.
It doesn’t matter. I have no regrets at all. It would have happened at the rink if it didn’t happen in the snow.
Life happens. And much of it is beautiful.
Coach sits backward on the chair in front of Alex’s dressing table. “So, what does this mean for you?”
“Ah, so today’s the day, huh? You’re going to make me say it out loud.”
He holds both hands outstretched. “Why not today?”
Why not today? The truth has been staring me in the face for a long time.
“I’m out. I’m done. Even if I had the surgery tomorrow, I can’t get back for the playoffs.
And even if everything goes exactly right, I probably won’t play at the same level again.
Not unless I want to have knee replacements before I’m forty. ”
“All right,” Coach says quietly. “I’m sure you know best.”
“Honestly I’ll never know,” I admit, sitting on the edge of the bed to button my clean shirt. “Hell, it’s not easy to give up.”
“You’re not giving up,” he assures me. “Unless we all are. I’m going to retire someday too, Eric. Do you think that’s giving up?”
“No way.” I laugh.
“Sometimes a man just needs to move on. I don’t know what you’re going to do next. But I’m sure it’s something great.”
“Thanks,” I say, my throat suddenly tight. “This hasn’t been an easy year.”
“They never are,” Coach says, getting up. “You have coffee somewhere in this fancy pad?”
“You bet. Let’s pour you a cup.”