Page 8 of He Has Trouble (Boston Brawlers Hockey)
Chapter 4
When I’d gotten back to my old man’s house that night I’d found him sleeping in his chair. I’d tried waking him but it had been no use. He’d snarl at me in between his snores and settle back into a deep sleep rhythm. He hadn’t been sleeping, not a true restful sleep. He’d been passed out.
But the way his head had fallen and his body was bent had looked damn uncomfortable. I couldn’t leave him there like that, even knowing he’d probably spent many a night passed out in his chair. But that night would be different. He had me to take care of him. His big strong son, those familiar words had been the ones he’d used to describe me to any and all who would listen all my life. Even when I’d been a bastard and he’d been a drunk S.O.B.
I’d lifted him from the chair. He’d been disconcertingly light. It had been too easy to carry him up the stairs to his bed. Pulling down the covers with one hand, I’d laid him down. Undressing him, I’d removed his shoes, socks and pants, leaving on his shirt. He’d been scrawny, skin and bones with a distended stomach all out of proportion to the rest of him. All signs of him being the drunk I’d already known he was.
Even so, having seen his condition worried me as I’d pulled the covers over him. It had been easy to forget that he was old now, not having seen him for three years. And in that moment, as I’d looked down at his sleeping face, resting peacefully in his bed, the snoring quiet, it had been easy to remember him as the father who drove me to hockey every Saturday and Sunday morning. Up until Mom got too bad to be left alone.
Sleep was fitful for me that night. I dreamed of Angela. And then I dreamed of the bloody face of the ref I’d punched and the immediate horrifying regret.
* * *
Regret still grippedme in the morning as I came down to the old disheveled kitchen. I heard a loud knock and with my hair still wet from the shower, I opened the back door to find Angela standing there with a basket of muffins and a thermos of coffee. The sight and smell made me want to drop to my knees and promise myself to her forever. But I kept my cool out of habit.
“There’s a reason they call you Angel.”
“Yeah. It’s part of my name. Let me inside before I freeze.”
She came inside the dingy kitchen and transformed the place, replacing the stale air with the scent of cinnamon and coffee—and whatever the hell that intoxicating perfume was that I knew as Angela. She looked as delicious as she smelled, but I didn’t dare tell her that. I’d already gotten into enough trouble kissing her last night. She’d deserted me after the fight was over and I was certain it had something to do with my out of control behavior. But damn if I could regret punching that bastard Tim.
“I wasn't sure if you were still talking to me after I ruined your party last night. Not exactly the impression I wanted to make on my homecoming.”
“It’s not your fault my ex-boyfriend is an ass.”
“Glad he’s your ex. I heard you’ve been seeing him for a few years.”
“It hasn’t been good between us for a while. I don’t know what I ever saw in him.” She looked away and shook her said. “No, that’s not right. I should be truthful with you. I only saw him in the first place because I’d had my heart broken and needed someone. And there aren’t a lot of young men to choose from around here.”
“Why did you stay?”
She shrugged. “I had a job and a home and family. And . . . no one gave me a reason to leave.”
“You could have—”
“What? Followed you to Toronto? To another country where I know no one and had no job?”
I remained silent because I knew she was right. I hadn’t asked her to come with me, had made no promises, no commitment. And for the life of me, I couldn’t think now of why the hell I’d left her behind when I’d wanted her so much. How the hell had that ever seemed like a good idea?
Then it all came back when Mack Mackenzie walked into the kitchen. I hadn’t been good enough for Angela. I had been no good. Period. Not yet. I’d been too angry at the world, at my old man.
The old man grunted at us and went back out of the room toward the bathroom.
I’d needed to escape from my father, to leave the heartache of my life behind and start over fresh. Create a new spotless reputation. I’d needed to become someone who deserved Angela.
“I was a fool. I wanted a clean slate. Thought I could leave my past behind if I didn’t look back. Make good.”Come back some day for youwhen I wasn’t a self-destructive idiot. She’d haunted me in my dreams. Right alongside my dead mother and my drunken live father. Nothing had changed. In spite of my intentions, I was still the same troubled troublemaker.
“I was a fool too,” she said. My heart hurt to see the pain in her eyes now. “Maybe it’s time to let the past go.”
I wasn’t sure what she meant by that, whether it meant that she forgave me for past mistakes, or whether she was over me and what we’d had was in the past. My gut churned. I was afraid to ask. Instead I said, “I sent tickets. No one came to a game.”
She shrugged. “No one has money to take time off and fly to Toronto for a hockey game.”
I nodded, scolding himself. I’d known that, had maybe even counted on it at the time, wanting to make an empty gesture to ease my guilt but not ready to face my past again.
I had no idea what made me think I could face it this time. Inevitability? Christmas holidays? Maybe after three years, I finally realized I couldn’t undo my past by forgetting about it, by forgetting the people who’d helped me through it. Couldn’t escape my ghosts by leaving because they’d followed right along with me.
In the end, I couldn’t let my old man go, wasting away until he was a corpse, without seeing him again. Mack had been a good man and a good father before Mom died. Getting me started in hockey. Driving me to practices and games, even after mom got sick, back when we’d still had hope that she would get better. It had been a long and torturous fight. Had taken everything out of dad, leaving nothing but a husk of a man when my mother was gone.
