Chapter 4
Chapter Four
BLUE
Less than a minute later, I fly through the lobby, lifting a “can’t stop now” hand to Clark as I pass.
A few minutes after that, I’m sliding into a cab I found idling in front of a ritzy hotel down the street.
“As fast as you can, please,” I grunt at the cabbie, grateful when he takes off with enough speed to press my back against the seat.
I clench my jaw and gaze out the window, turning Bea’s phone over and over in my hand, praying I’ll get a chance to give it to her. My lungs still burn from the Greenway run, but that has nothing to do with the burning sensation in my chest. That’s all shame. And fear.
Fear that I’ve fucked this up more than I even imagined.
Fear that Bea is so disgusted with me that she’s leaving her new home in the rearview mirror just so she’ll never have to look at my stupid face again.
She loves New Orleans. She’s been so happy here with her brother and Charlotte and all her new friends. Not to mention the music industry that’s welcomed her with open arms.
It’s been the fresh start she was so desperate for, and now…
Now, I’ve ruined her life, just like the last man she cared about. I’m no better than that son of a bitch, Kai. Just another selfish piece of shit.
Deep down, I know that’s not true. I’m not that bad, but I’m bad enough, and by the time we hit the I-10, where the swampy outskirts of the city smear into gray and green outside the window, my throat is so tight, I can barely breathe.
At MSY’s ritzy new terminal, I tumble out of the cab and dash into the departures area in sweat-soaked clothes and hair I only realize I’ve forgotten to brush when I catch my reflection in the sliding glass doors.
I’m a wreck, but there’s no time to spare for hygiene.
I just hope TSA won’t think it’s weird that I’m heading through security with nothing but my running pouch and a ticket.
I head to the least crowded airline desk, a local operation I’ve never flown before, but which seems to specialize in flights to Mexico and Florida.
I buy a ticket for a flight set to leave this afternoon, grateful for the desk attendant’s complete lack of interest in my reasons for grabbing an in-person ticket, and bolt toward security.
The TSA line is a slow-motion nightmare, and I’m apparently the most interesting thing to stare at as we weave closer to the X-ray belts—the massive, sweaty man who many of my fellow travelers seem to find vaguely familiar.
They stare from the corners of their eyes, trying to place me, while I tuck my chin to my chest and pretend to scroll on Beatrice’s locked phone.
I look nothing like my picture on the glossy Voodoo team photos on the billboards in town, but at least a few of these people are likely hockey fans.
I just hope they aren’t fans of mine.
I’m not feeling like the kind of man who deserves “fans” this morning.
By the time I finally clear the X-ray machine, the urge to run is almost irresistible, but I have no idea where to run to. I pause in front of the large digital board announcing the departures, scanning the destinations, trying to imagine where Beatrice might be headed.
Finally, I roll the dice on one of the tropical destinations leaving from the B concourse and jog in that direction.
White tee. Green ball cap. White tee. Green ball cap.
I scan the crowd with the same intensity I use to read an opposing team on the ice, but so far, the airport isn’t telegraphing its next play. I check the B gates down one side and up the other. I check the coffee lines, the charging stations, and the crowded kiosks selling candy and headphones.
Every flash of white beneath a messy brown bun makes my heart lurch into my throat, only to drop when the woman isn’t Bea. Not Bea, not Bea, not Bea. All too tall or too old or too young or just…not her. Not the woman I have to find.
I have to find her. She has to still be here.
I move on to another concourse, eyes aching from the strain, nerves raw from the certainty that time is running out and the constant flood of sound.
Announcements squawk through the airport speakers, old men watch videos at full volume on their phones, mothers cry out to misbehaving children, and babies cry.
Babies.
It’s not just Beatrice I might be losing today. It’s our baby, my baby, the son or daughter I was so ready to let fear steal away.
What the hell is wrong with me? How on earth could I have thought that I’d healed from my past? I’m clearly still scarred, still covered in open wounds that need urgent attention before the past ruins my future.
I reach the far end of the terminal, where the floor-to-ceiling windows look out over the tarmac. A Delta plane is pushing back, its nose turning toward the runway as it heads for…
I check the display at the gate.
Glasgow, Scotland. If I were a pregnant woman in search of peace and sanctuary, would I look for it in Scotland?
I don’t know, but I know Beatrice isn’t in the terminal.
Her magic isn’t here, either.
Maybe she’s on that plane, or one of the other ones taxiing toward the runway, carrying everyone on board to Argentina or New York City or just a short hop over to Dallas.
It doesn’t matter really.
What matters is that she’s not here, and it’s my fault.
I linger for another half hour, pacing back and forth, but deep down, I know it’s an exercise in futility.
And then, I do something completely out of character.
I look down at the ticket in my hand, the one to Key West, and decide…fuck it.
I call the university and leave a message, telling them I won’t be able to teach the skills camp, after all. Something’s come up. A family emergency.
I could have had a family, but I fucked it up before it even got started.
If that’s not an emergency, I don’t know what is.
Then I buy some clothes at a store in the concourse, a toothbrush, toothpaste, a hair brush, and gel at the convenience kiosk, and head to the lounge.
I shower, change, grab a mediocre, but plentiful, breakfast of ham and cheese croissants and fresh fruit, and make a list. By the time my flight boards two hours later, I have a new charger, a backpack, a journal, fresh pens, and a reservation for a week at a bungalow by the sea, where I plan to do some serious soul searching.
Turns out, I don’t need a week.
I reach clarity about what has to come next before the plane’s wheels touch down in Key West. It’s like I’ve woken up from more than a bad dream. Like I’ve woken up to the last of the shit I need to face before I’ll truly be able to leave my past behind.
And face it, I do.
I face it on the pages of that journal and in therapy.
I face it on the yoga mat every day for the next couple of months.
I face it in the epic text messages I send to Beatrice that I’m pretty sure she doesn’t receive, even though it looks like they’re getting through.
I hope she isn’t getting them, anyway. If she isn’t, there’s still a chance all the soul I’m baring might make a difference.
But if she is…
If she’s reading them and choosing not to respond…
Well, there might not be a happy ending to this story. Which is the way life is sometimes. I know that better than most. And, eventually, if it becomes clear a relationship—any kind of relationship—with Beatrice and our baby isn’t in the cards for me, I’ll deal with it.
I’ll really deal with it this time, no cutting corners or lying to myself about how much work I still have to do. If nothing else, this nightmare has taught me how dangerous the lies we tell ourselves can be.
By August, I’m only texting once a week, a brief message to tell Bea that I hope she and the baby are well, and that I’m still waiting.
Wishing.
Hoping for a chance to make this up to her…
In September, during training camp, when the rookies complain about the New Orleans’ end-of-summer heat, Nix shoots back that he’d rather have too much summer than not enough.
He tells them his sister, Beatrice, has been in sweaters every time they video chat.
She swears summer skipped the Scottish Isles entirely.
My pulse spikes.
Scotland. She was on that plane, the one I watched pull away from the gate.
I keep tying my skates, as if I’ve known where she is all along, secretly glad that I didn’t have a spot on the map sooner. If I’d had a destination that first adrenaline-fueled morning, I might have flown to Scotland to hunt her down and made things even worse.
She clearly needed some time away.
And as far as time away from me is concerned, that might extend…indefinitely.
That night, I make the mistake of having two beers with dinner and end up crying in the shower before heading to bed at barely eight p.m. Turns out, feeling your damned feelings is exhausting, but I’m determined to keep doing the work. Just in case.
In case she ever comes back.
Come October, people have started to notice a change in me. Grammercy texts privately to say that my new role as team captain seems to be agreeing with me. Nix does the same, and Parker demands to know if I did magic mushrooms during the summer break.
“They’re not like drug drugs,” he says, when I assure him that I’m not using anything these days, not so much as a beer after practice.
I don’t tell him the reason I’m avoiding beer is because it makes me boo-hoo about Bea in the shower.
I’m more open than I used to be, but not that open.
I simply assure him that I’ve been working to leave some old shit behind as I head into my mid-thirties.
“I feel that,” Dean agrees from farther down the beach.
He’s the only member of the Voodoo older than I am, and unfortunately, went through his own summer of sadness after his divorce was finalized in June.
“Staring down forty makes you realize you don’t have all the time in the world to get your shit together. ”