Icebreaker

by Deirdre Martin

  “Can I hold him?” Adam asked.

  “Sure,” said Maggie slowly, again looking at Sinead. “He might start screaming, though. Just be prepared.”

  Maggie handed Charlie over to Adam. The sight of big, rough and tough Adam holding the baby made Sinead’s breath catch. They all waited nervously for Charlie to begin howling. But he didn’t. He stuck a finger in Adam’s mouth and Adam pretended to bite on it and Charlie laughed.

  Sinead turned away, pain flicking at her heart. Why did Charlie take to Adam and not to her? It made her envious. Then she remembered Ulf Torkelson’s wedding and how she’d connected with the Webster twins. Perhaps Adam simply had more experience with babies than she had.

  Adam handed Charlie back to Maggie as Sinead’s sister-in-law Natalie, who’d been drying her hands at the sink, approached with a smile. Just as Sinead told Adam, Natalie, despite her simple ensemble of designer jeans, flats, and a black silk T-shirt, looked chic.

  “Bonjour,” she said, extending her hand to Adam. “I’m Natalie. Quinn’s wife.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Adam said.

  Sinead took Adam’s hand. “C’mon, I’ll introduce you to the rest of the crew.”

  She knew it was a minor thing, but she couldn’t believe how wonderful it felt to hold Adam’s hand in front of people. She’d been putting as much pressure as she could on the Philly DA to drop the suit so they could “come out,” but there was a fine line between professional and pest. She had to be patient.

  Quinn, as usual, was watching the Jets game while texting at the same time. Her dad was in his recliner, rubbing the back that had tormented him for years, but he was too stubborn to go to the doctor. Brendan sat on the couch, relaxed as always.

  Sinead brought Adam over to her father first. “Dad, this is Adam.” He began to struggle out of his chair, teeth gritted against the pain.

  “Don’t get up,” said Adam. “There’s no need.” He shook her father’s hand. “Adam Perry.”

  “Charlie O’Brien.”

  “Bad back?”

  “It’s his own fault,” Sinead noted. “He won’t go to the doctor.”

  “They’re all charlatans,” her father maintained.

  Sinead clucked her tongue. “You’re impossible.” She pointed at Quinn. “You already know my brother, Jimmy Olsen.”

  “Very funny.” Quinn extended a hand. “Good to see you again, Adam.”

  “You, too.”

  “Looks like you guys have a good shot at the Cup.”

  “I’d agree, but I don’t want to jinx it.”

  “I hear ya.” Quinn nodded at the TV. “Jets fan or Giants fan?”

  “Tampa Bay.”

  “Blasphemy. Get the hell out of this house now if you know what’s good for you.”

  Brendan, in the meantime, had risen from the couch. Sometimes Sinead forgot how massive he was. He was as well-built as Adam.

  “Bren, this is Adam.”

  “Great to meet you,” said Brendan.

  “You, too.”

  Sinead was unsure of what to do now. Leave Adam here in the den of testosterone and go back into the kitchen? Take him back into the kitchen with her? Luckily, Adam made the decision for her.

  “I’m gonna hang here for a minute, okay?”

  “No problem.”

  She knew what would happen the minute she stepped back into the kitchen, and she was right: she was swarmed.

  “He’s very handsome,” said Natalie.

  “Yes, he is,” Sinead said quietly. Maggie squeezed her shoulder. She must have seen the pain on Sinead’s face when Charlie took to Adam.

  “He’s very polite as well,” Natalie continued.

  “Polite or no, we’ll see if this one is worthy of my daughter,” her mother said with a sniff.

  Sinead could feel her blood pressure go up a notch. “Ma, please don’t give him the first degree. He’s kind of shy.”

  “Well, he’ll have to get over that if he wants to be part of this family.”

  Sinead, Maggie, and Natalie chuckled to themselves. Some things never changed.

  Adam liked Sinead’s family immediately. The rapid-fire, teasing banter between Sinead and her siblings . . . it had never been like that between him and Rick, at least not when they were older. Rick’s resentment of him was too strong. Like Sinead’s, his parents had been hardworking, but they were much more quiet and stoic. He missed them a lot.

  “Now, Adam,” Sinead’s mother began. Adam could feel Sinead tense beside him, so he squeezed her leg under the table reassuringly. “I understand you’re Canadian.”

  “I am.”

  “I’ve never been there myself, but I hear Quebec is lovely.”

  “It is, as long as you speak French.”

  “Have you played hockey your whole life, son?” Sinead’s father asked.

  “Yup.”

  Sinead looked at her parents incredulously. “You guys, Mom already asked me about this stuff over the phone, and I told you.”

  “I want to hear it from the boy himself,” her mother insisted.

  Boy. Adam couldn’t remember the last time someone called him that. It amused him. At any rate, the conversational ball was in his court. He was determined to make Sinead proud of him. “I grew up in a really small town in western Canada,” he offered. “Unless you wanted to farm, ranch, or work in the car factory, hockey was really the only way out.”

  “What do your parents do?” Sinead’s father asked.

  “My mom stayed at home, and my dad worked in the car factory. They’ve both passed.”

  Sinead’s mother reached out and patted his hand. “I’m very sorry to hear that.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You mentioned you had a niece,” Maggie said with interest.

  “Yeah, my brother, Rick, has two kids, a boy and a girl.”

  “That was lovely, the way you held Charlie. You’d probably like one or two rug rats of your own one day, eh?” Sinead’s mother asked casually.

  “Oh my God,” Sinead groaned to Adam under her breath. She wanted to crawl under the table. “I’m so sorry.”

  Before Sinead could even say it, Maggie jumped in with, “You’re crossing a line there, Ma.”

  “Sorry,” Sinead’s mother apologized, flashing both her daughters a look of annoyance.

  Over the course of the meal, Adam felt he deftly fielded all the questions that came his way, even though he hated talking about himself.

  What made him happy was that he could feel Sinead slowly relaxing beside him. Every now and then, she’d glance at him with a tentative smile, checking to see if he was okay. He wondered if she was aware of how beautiful she was. Probably not, which made her all the more attractive. He wasn’t drawn to models or actresses whose egos revolved around their looks. He thought back to the first time he and Sinead had met, and how they both were so wrong about each other. He had a feeling it would become a running joke between them.

  After dinner, Adam and the rest of the men were shooed back into the living room while the women cleaned up. It had been the same way at his house, too, except it wasn’t football they gathered around the TV to watch, it was hockey. Ray was usually there as well, since Ray’s mother was an awful cook; he’d use any excuse to eat over at Adam’s house. Jesus. It seemed like it was just yesterday.

  Adam sat down on the couch with Quinn. “How’s the lawsuit going?” Quinn asked. “I didn’t want to ask over dinner, in case it was a touchy subject.”

  “Still dragging on,” Adam said with a frown. “Sinead’s been on the DA’s ass to drop the suit, but it’s doubtful that’ll happen until after the elections. In the meantime, the league has decided to make an example of me.”

  Quinn looked interested. “What do you mean?”

  “Every couple of years, some of the board of governors decide they need to soften hockey’s image in order to expand its appeal. They think it’s too violent. They also think if they get rid of some of the hitting and the figh
ting, we could be as big as the NBA. So they tinker with the rules, and the refs are told to crack down. I’m the whipping boy this time around.”

  “But the commissioner and the league are supporting you in the lawsuit, right?”

  “Publicly. In private they’re hoping it forces me to change my style of play.”

  “Will it?”

  “No,” Adam replied matter-of-factly. “I can only play one way. The commission wanting to prettify hockey is something the veteran players have learned to deal with over the years. Eventually the true hockey people on the board of governors will reassert themselves. Hockey will never be as big as the NBA, because there just aren’t enough people here in the States who played it when they were kids. And if you change it too much, we’ll lose our traditional fan base who love it the way it is. I’m just this year’s target. I know for a fact that the commissioner has it out for me personally.”

  Quinn chuckled mirthlessly. “I know what that’s like. But the truth will out in the end. It might take a while, but it will. Just hang in there.”

  “I’m a pro at that, believe me.”

  “Then don’t worry. With my sister handling your case, I have no doubt that scum of a DA is going down.”

  Adam hoped he was right.

  29

  “Your family is great.”

  Sinead was thrilled Adam liked the clan. She thought dinner had gone well, except for the few times her mother had blatantly probed his feelings about kids; she’d also brought up Chip a few times, which annoyed Sinead. Telling Adam about Chip was not her mother’s prerogative, but Sinead let it go. Overall, the afternoon was a success. That was all that mattered.

  They were at Adam’s apartment, relaxing on the couch. Sinead had her feet in his lap, and he was massaging them, which she loved. She found massage to be one of the ultimate pleasures in life, not that she’d had one recently. She vowed she’d make time once her schedule lightened up. She’d go to Maggie. Not only was her sister a great masseuse, but it would also put some money in Maggie’s pocket, which she desperately needed, especially since she’d yet to talk to Brendan about the “loan.”

  “I’m glad you liked them,” Sinead said, pleased. “They certainly liked you.”

  “Good.” Adam’s thumbs dug deep into the balls of her feet. “Did I talk enough?”

  “You were amazing. I think you said more at dinner than you’ve said to me the entire time I’ve known you.”

  Adam tickled her feet. “Very funny.”

  “What were you and Quinn talking about?”

  “The case. I told him what Rawson said, about Welsh definitely having it in for me personally.”

  Sinead was confused. “What are you talking about?”

  Adam stared at her blankly. “About the talk I had with Teddy Rawson.”

  “Adam?” Sinead had adopted her ‘Keep cool’ voice. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “I could have sworn I told you about this.”

  “Whatever ‘this’ is, I can assure you, you didn’t. Please tell me now.”

  Adam told her about his conversation with the ex-player, and all Sinead could think was: Do not freak out on him. Do not read him the riot act and call him an idiot. Do not.

  She lay back, looking up at the ceiling. “If you’d told me about this when it happened, I could have wrapped things up a while ago.” She propped herself up on her elbows and looked at him. “I need to talk to Teddy Rawson as soon as possible. Did Teddy give you any specific examples of things Welsh said or did that concretely demonstrated he had it out for you?”

  “No.”

  Sinead pressed her lips together to suppress the nasty words threatening to come out of her mouth. “You didn’t think to ask, did you?”

  “I’m not a lawyer! I don’t go around cross-examining my friends!” Adam looked worried. “Do you think Teddy would talk to you on the record?”

  “No way,” Sinead said without hesitation. “Remember: his salary is paid by the NHL. Welsh, as big a scum as he is, is simply their puppet.”

  “God, I love when you get all steely.”

  “We’re gonna win this,” Sinead declared. “I’m going to have to reinterview some of the players, but it won’t be a problem.”

  “What’s your new angle?”

  “I’m not telling you! It might jinx it!”

  “Another believer in the jinx. You have to tell me! I’m your client!”

  “I know that.” Sinead playfully wiggled her big toes. “But just trust me on this, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Let’s stop talking about this now. Just for today, I want to forget about work.”

  “Gotcha.” Adam resumed kneading her feet. “Your mom seemed a little fixated on Chip at dinner.”

  “Sorry about that,” Sinead said grimly.

  “When are you going to tell me why you split up?”

  “Is it important you know the gory details?”

  Adam cocked his head thoughtfully. “Yeah, it is. Your marriage was a huge part of your life. Not only am I curious, but I think I have a right to know.”

  “You’re right. We split over the issue of kids.”

  “What, he didn’t want any and you did? Or vice versa?”

  “No, we both wanted kids. We just couldn’t agree on how to parent.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Chip thought I should be a stay-at-home mom until the child started kindergarten. That wasn’t feasible: if I took five years off my career, I would completely lose momentum, and I can’t afford that. I pointed out to him we had enough money for a nanny; we could have the nanny watch the baby during the day, and then we could take care of the baby ourselves at night and on the weekends.

  “Chip was having none of it: he was raised by a nanny and hated it. I pointed out that his nanny was with him twenty-four hours a day for years; she basically raised him, which would not be the case with our child. It didn’t matter. Eventually I said that if he felt so strongly about a parent being home, then why didn’t he stay home with the baby, and I would continue working? I thought that was the perfect solution; we would both get what we wanted. Apparently, that wasn’t an option, either.

  “ ‘Children need their mothers,’ ” he insisted. “When I made the point that they needed their fathers, too, he turned a deaf ear. He was completely inflexible on the issue. Completely.”

  Sinead looked up at the ceiling again. All this was very painful, not to mention stressful, for her to recount. She could feel the muscles in her head beginning to tighten, but she knew she had to finish. “It was a total standoff after that. Communication between us basically broke down. Irreparably. Eventually, we divorced. Believe me, it was for the best. So that’s the story.”

  Adam said nothing. As the silence wore on, Sinead began to worry. She looked at him. “You’re being very quiet,” she murmured.

  “Mmm.”

  “What’s going on, Adam?”

  Adam looked troubled. “I agree with Chip.”

  Sinead sat up. “What?”

  “I think kids do need their mothers. Asking you to stay home for the first five years was not an outrageous demand.”

  “Kids need their fathers, too,” Sinead pointed out calmly. She had an eerie sense of déjà vu. “There was no reason he couldn’t stay home for five years if he didn’t want a nanny.”

  “But kids bond stronger to the mother, right? That’s just the natural way of things.”

  Sinead covered her face with her hands. “Oh my God. I can’t believe you’re saying this.” She peered at him through the screen of her fingers. “Do you realize how backward that sounds?”

  Adam was unfazed. “I’m a traditional guy. You know that.”

  Sinead lowered her hands. “There’s traditional and then there’s antiquated. Thinking the mother should be the one to stay home is antiquated. It doesn’t matter which parent stays home, as long as there is a loving, caring presence there.”


  “I disagree.”

  Sinead was growing indignant. “Did you not hear the part about me losing career momentum? It’s different for women, Adam. A nanny would have solved everything. A nanny wouldn’t be ‘raising’ our child the way Chip said. Yet he was completely inflexible. Completely. His way or the highway. I’m sorry, but that’s not the way things work in a marriage.

  “And while I’m at it, allow me to point out that both my parents worked, and my siblings and I all turned out perfectly fine.”

  “They both worked because they had no other choice. I will bet you anything that if they’d had the money, your mom would have stayed home.”

  “Call and ask her,” Sinead said heatedly. “Go on.”

  “Why couldn’t you work part-time? As a compromise?”

  “I offered to work part-time, but that wasn’t enough. Besides, why couldn’t he work part-time?” Sinead countered angrily. “I told you: it’s different for women. I’ve had to work twice as hard to prove myself.”

  “Family is more important than work, Sinead.”

  “You think I don’t know that? There are ways to have both, Adam.”

  They sat staring at each other. Standoff. Sinead had been in this place before with Chip. She refused to be there again.

  “Are you going to talk to me?” Adam asked eventually.

  “Are you going to talk to me?”

  Adam looked troubled. “Yeah, I just ... I don’t know.”

  “I don’t, either.” Sinead rose. “I’m tired. Let’s call it a night.” She swallowed, her chest getting tight. “In fact, let’s call it altogether. I don’t think I can do this again.”

  Adam looked stunned. “What?”

  “We want different things.” Sinead wanted to get out of there as fast she could before breaking down.

  “What about the fact that I love you?”

  “I love you, too,” said Sinead, choking up. “But sometimes that’s not enough. Trust me.” She picked her purse up off the coffee table. “I really should go.”

  Adam was looking at her like she was deranged. “So that’s it? We’re done?”