by Rice, Luanne
Kylie called the Fleet Center, saying she hoped he would be able to come to her birthday party. At the sound of her voice, Martin could barely talk.
“Kylie, you know I wish I could. But the schedule…” he said.
“I still want you to come,” she said.
“Well, unfortunately my team has other ideas,” he said.
“Are you and Mommy getting divorced?”
“You know, Kylie,” he said, “you’d better talk to your mother. As a matter of fact, I have to go now. They want me on the ice.”
“I miss you, Daddy,” she said.
Martin hung up, slamming the phone down so hard he broke it. Her voice, her words reminded him of similar talks he’d had with Natalie so long ago. He had broken his own daughter’s heart—what had made him think he wouldn’t do it again to another girl?
April nights were soft and warm, and Martin spent them in his hotel room—in Boston or wherever he was playing—alone with the television. He’d order dinner from room service, watch movies while his teammates banged on his door and tried to get him to go out on the town.
“The Gold Sledgehammer is back,” some of the single guys kept saying, wanting to tempt him into the bars and clubs.
“Fuck off,” Martin said to them, ready to fight if they kept on.
The telephone rang a lot, but it was never May. What would he have wanted to say if she did call? His past was frozen inside him, a lake that would never melt. His memories of Natalie were sharp, untouched by time or words.
What May didn’t—couldn’t—understand, was that nothing would ever bring her back. Talking to his father, knowing the old man hadn’t meant to let her die, that he hadn’t ever intended to hurt her—none of that would change things, breathe life into Martin’s little girl.
No matter how much he loved May or wanted to turn back time to the day before she’d betrayed him, he couldn’t forget what she’d done.
“Betray” was a strong word, and it sounded as sharp as it was: a blade of a word, slicing Martin deep inside. By visiting his father, May had betrayed Martin. Lying on his hotel bed, he curled up on his side and wished he didn’t hurt so much. His cheek was bruised, his lip was split, but he didn’t even feel those injuries.
He hurt deeper inside his body, somewhere where he believed his heart to be, right where Natalie lived. The only person who had ever touched that spot was May. She had soothed it with her gentleness and love, and now Martin felt as if she had split it wide open.
Or maybe that was just easier to admit than the other part. If he wasn’t speaking to May, he wouldn’t have to tell her what was happening. Covering one eye, then the other, he stared at the picture on the wall. Testing his sight, Martin lay on his bed and tried not to think.
When Martin had been gone for two weeks, Genny came to the barn, ostensibly to bring May a batch of pineapple jam. They left the basket on May’s desk and went walking outside through the rose garden.
“How are you?” Genny asked
“Bad,” May said. “Worried about my daughter. Kylie cries a lot. She misses him terribly.”
“And you?” Genny asked.
May shrugged, turning away to keep from crying. She felt shaky and numb. Unable to eat, she’d lost weight. At night she couldn’t sleep, and during the day she didn’t want to stay awake. The hours without word from Martin were long and terrible, and she couldn’t stop wondering what he was doing.
“Talk to me, May.” Genny touched her shoulder.
Shivering at her friend’s touch, May buried her face in her hands. “At first I thought maybe he wasn’t serious. That he’d come home once he’d cooled down.”
“I know.”
“It’s been two weeks,” May said. “He hasn’t called once in all this time.”
“The playoff schedule…” Genny said helplessly, trailing off.
“They’re winning, and I can’t even congratulate him.”
“He doesn’t deserve you congratulating him,” Genny fumed. “I’d like to wring his thick neck.”
“I just wish he’d cool down,” May said again.
“Martin doesn’t cool down,” Genny told her. “It never stops amazing me—or Ray. He holds on to a grudge like a dog with a bone.”
“This time I’m the bone,” May said, her voice cracking. But the problem with Genny’s analogy was that Martin didn’t hold on; he let go. She felt empty inside and out, as if she’d been in an accident and lost one of her arms. At night she’d roll over to hold Martin, find an empty bed. She’d look at the clock and feel her heart skip because soon he’d be home, and then she’d remember he didn’t live there anymore.
“Ray says he’s impossible to be around,” Genny said.
“Does he talk about me?”
“No. Ray says he refuses to talk at all.”
“Believe it or not,” May said, wiping her eyes as she walked through the rosebushes, “I wanted to make things better. I wanted to clear the air, help heal the rift between Serge and Martin.”
Genny shook her head. “I know how much Martin adored his father. He has to face that someday. He felt let down, betrayed—and then murderous when Natalie died. More than you or I can ever know. He’s full of rage at Serge, and I think it drives him on the ice, and everywhere else.”
“I think so, too.” May closed her eyes to picture Martin’s face. She’d seen him on TV and in the papers lately, looking like a bear attacking prey, as if his own soft, human side was being eaten away.
“Don’t give up, May.”
“I’m not the one who gave up,” she said. They were standing in the spot where Martin had proposed to her last year. She smelled fresh earth, coffee grounds, rosebuds. The scent brought back memories, and she felt her eyes burning with more tears.
“You know,” Genny said, taking her hand, “when he told us he’d met you, we could see how changed he was—how happy. We hoped so much that he’d let himself be loved, that he’d let go of the fight.”
“I wanted to help him let go,” May said, her throat searing.
“Some people live for the fight,” Genny said, squeezing May’s hand. “It drives them more than love or anything else. We see it in the hockey world all the time.”
May hugged her. “I’m really glad you came out today.”
“So am I,” Genny said. “And I wish I could take all the credit for it. You have a wonderful friend.”
May stared, puzzled.
“Tobin is very worried about you.”
“She called you?”
Genny nodded. “She did. Don’t be mad at her.”
May gazed across the barn. Tobin stood by the tea table, talking to a mother and daughter, showing them the old scrapbooks. Like May, she was thirty-six, married, a mother. But her eyes were as bright, her gestures as animated as they’d been as a young girl, when she’d first become May’s best friend.
“Thank you,” May said, hugging Genny with appreciation for the pineapple jam and more.
Once the clients had gone for the day, May went out to the shed. Light filtered through broken boards, turning the spiderwebs silver. May felt their threads on her face and hair, but she was a country girl and she brushed them away with barely a thought. The two bicycles were leaning against the wall, their tires flat from three seasons without use.
Hauling out first hers, then Tobin’s, May filled the tires with air from an old hand pump. She could barely remember the last time they’d gone riding. Glancing up at the barn, she saw Tobin watching her from the window. Then May leaned them against the barn, walked through the door, and handed Tobin her jacket.
“Come on,” May said. “Let’s go for a ride.”
“I have to get these orders in,” Tobin said, riffling the stack of papers on her desk.
“Don’t worry,” Aunt Enid said. “Get on your bikes and have a good ride. I’ll hold down the fort.”
Wordlessly, Tobin followed May outside. Her handlebars were traced with dust and more spider silk, and
May watched her brush them off with her bare hands. Pushing away, May pedaled down the driveway, gravel crunching under her tires, coasting down the small hill that took them through the meadow.
New leaves twinkled in the wind and sunlight, shading the narrow road. May pedaled hard, gaining speed, the exercise feeling good to her body. Tobin rode just behind, not speaking. They followed their ancient route, the one they’d been riding for thirty years: down the farm road, past the hidden creek, over the bridge and past the waterfall, up and over Crawford Hill.
May’s eyes watered from the wind. She wondered how many hundreds of times she and Tobin had done this, and she thought of the ways they had changed and the ways they had stayed the same. She thought of the secrets they shared, the things they knew about each other that no one else alive could ever suspect.
They passed the fallen tree where they had once smoked cigarettes, the abandoned farmhouse where they had pricked their fingertips and become blood sisters, the hayfield where May had had her first kiss, the dead-end lane where Tobin had lost her virginity to John. When they got to the ice-cream stand, May signaled with her arm and wheeled into the sandy parking lot. Hitting a patch of sand, she skidded ten yards and wiped out.
“May, are you okay?” Tobin dropped her bike and ran to her side.
“I think so.” May was examining her skinned wrists. She had torn her jeans, and sand was imbedded in her knees and shins. “Ouch.”
“You’re bleeding.” Tobin was already pulling a tissue from her back pocket.
“I’ll get it,” May said, starting to take it from her. But Tobin wouldn’t let her. Peering at May’s wrists, kneeling next to her, she dabbed methodically at the cuts and scrapes.
“There,” Tobin soothed. “There you go.”
“You called Genny,” May said.
“I was worried about you,” Tobin told her. “You wouldn’t talk to me, and I thought you needed someone.”
May stared at the top of her friend’s head. The dark hair was short and full, and in the sunlight, May saw a few silver strands of gray. She thought about how time flew: Just yesterday, they’d been twelve years old. Shocked by the spill, and by everything that had happened, May felt a dam burst inside, and she started to cry.
“Everything’s going to be fine.” Tobin put her arms around May.
“It doesn’t feel that way,” May cried.
“You’ve wiped out before,” Tobin tried to joke. “You’ve survived more skinned knees than—”
“My husband’s gone, Tobin,” May gasped. “I went behind his back to the prison, and he left.”
“He’ll come back,” Tobin said. “He loves you. Who wouldn’t? He’s a good man, or you wouldn’t have fallen in love with him.”
“I fell in love with Gordon Rhodes,” May reminded her. “Married, I should have said. You wouldn’t have married Martin. It’s true, your record on love does include some lulus.”
“As only you know.”
“But now you talk to Genny…”
“She knows him from before,” May tried to explain. “She knows his whole story. The details about his father, his first wife, Natalie…I don’t have to feel guilty about telling old family secrets. Martin’s so closed about it all.”
“How am I supposed to know that stuff if you don’t tell me? Talking to your best friend isn’t betraying your husband.”
“I’m new at this,” May said. “And I married a man with a lot of baggage.”
“I swear,” Tobin agreed. “We’ve all got loads of it.”
May nodded, wiping her bleeding knee. Then she looked straight into Tobin’s eyes. “I don’t want to lose our friendship, ever.”
“Me, neither.” Tobin stared back into May’s eyes. “Can I tell you something?”
“Sure.”
“He wants you back. No matter what happened, he doesn’t want to do this.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I was at your wedding, May. I heard him say his vows. He meant them. I know it. Go pull him home by the hair.”
They hugged, then pulled apart and gazed over at Paradise Ice Cream, the small white building that had been there forever. The same family had owned it all that time, had been making ice cream since before they were born.
“Ready for a cone?” Tobin asked.
“First of the year.”
“Let’s go.” Tobin helped May to her feet. Limping over, feeling her friend’s arm around her waist, May stood at the window. The world seemed large with hope and possibility. Tobin ordered vanilla, May maple walnut with chocolate sprinkles. Some things never changed. And, luckily, May thought, some things did.
She had always been intimidated by the Fleet Center, with all the players, guards, and groupies, but two days after eating that ice-cream cone, May drove straight into the parking lot and took a deep breath. Locking her van, she strode across the lot. There was Martin’s Porsche in his regular spot. The sight of it made her dizzy, but she just kept walking.
The security guard nodded hello, not very friendly, but at least he didn’t turn her away. Did that mean Martin hadn’t spread the word they were separated? Smiling, May said hi back.
She was struck by the similarity of her visit to Estonia. Signing in, she was allowed through the special entrance that led to the locker rooms. Walking down the long corridor, she felt alone and nervous. She rehearsed the words she would say to him—I’m sorry, Martin. I shouldn’t have gone behind your back. I didn’t mean to hurt you—and wondered what would happen. What if he refused to forgive her? What if he had found someone new? She thought of Tobin assuring her he wanted her back, that he had meant his vows, and she felt strong.
Rounding the corner, she met Ray Gardner in a pack of Bruins coming off the ice. Suited up and sweaty, he looked surprised to see her.
“May!” he exclaimed.
Music blaring from speakers overhead made it hard to hear.
“Is he here?” she asked, her lips dry.
“Out there.” He gestured at the ice. “You sure you want to talk to him here? Why don’t I tell him you’re waiting, and you can meet somewhere more private—in a conference room?”
“I’m sure,” she said, hugging herself. “I’ll just wait.”
Ray nodded, kissing her on the cheek. He walked into the locker room, and May faded back against the wall. Other players nodded as they passed. A few gave her friendly hellos, and May waved and tried to smile. Cold air poured off the ice, and she shivered in her spring cotton dress.
Martin was the last player to pass through the door. Standing in a shadow, May watched him come. His shoulders were enormous, his face angry and set. Still squinting his left eye, he reminded her again of a rageful pirate. Her heart pounding, May reached out her hand.
“Martin,” she said, the loud music drowning out her voice.
He walked straight by, disappearing into the locker room without even a second glance. May stared with disbelief. It had all happened so fast: He was there and gone in two seconds. She stood in place, frozen for an eternity, then ran straight into the locker room.
“Martin Cartier!” she screamed.
“Excuse me,” a guard said, coming forward, grabbing her arm. “How’d you get in here?”
Players stood around, some in their jerseys and others bare-chested, some in their jockstraps and some totally naked. She glanced wildly around, ignoring them all.
“Where’s Martin?” she asked.
“Mrs. Cartier,” the guard said, hauling her toward the door. “Wives aren’t allowed in here. I’ll give him your message and—”
May didn’t wait to hear. Wrenching her arm free, she walked away. Martin’s teammates were laughing nervously, calling after her, telling her Martin was already in the shower room. May’s ears were buzzing. She thought of Tobin saying he wanted her back, and she shook her head. Best friends didn’t know everything.
The third Saturday in May, May had given up on hearing from Martin again. He didn’t want t
o talk to her: That was very clear. She and Kylie drove up to the Gardners’ house in New Hampshire. They lived far out in the country, on thirty acres reminiscent of the land around Lac Vert, and the clear air smelled like new leaves and spring flowers.
“It’s so peaceful out here.” May stood on the front porch with Ray while Genny took the kids out back to fly kites.
“Genny and I are country people,” he said. “Always have been.”
“Like Martin.”
“I consider him a brother,” Ray told her, “but right now I think he’s an idiot. I don’t know what he’s doing—he’s not even acting like himself.”
“Because he left me?”
“Especially that. But in other ways, too. He seems like a different person.”
The memory of Martin walking by her at the Fleet Center, her chasing him into the locker room, was still so raw and painful, May cringed to think of it. The man May had married, loved for a year, would not have done that to her.
“He can’t forgive me,” she said.
“For going to see his father?” Ray snorted. “His father was everything to him. Let me tell you a story.”
Spring was spilling over to summer, and as night fell over the New Hampshire hills, May listened to the peepers and watched the stars come out, waiting for Ray to begin. He was smaller than Martin, but broad in the shoulders and back. He was very dark, with almost black hair and eyes. Although May knew he was very gentle, when he was deep in thought, he wore a glowering expression that deepened as he started talking.
When Ray and Martin were fifteen, they had decided to hitchhike six hundred miles to Toronto to watch Serge play hockey. Martin hadn’t seen his father in five years, and by then Serge was at the top of his fame. Toronto was leading the league, and Martin was convinced that if they could get to the door at Maple Leaf Gardens, he could get someone to take them to Serge.
“Agnes wouldn’t even hear of us going,” Ray said. “And who could blame her? You’ve seen the scars on his chest. Martin never talks about the details, but Genny and I have a pretty good idea of how they got there.”