by Beth Ehemann
Another long pause while I stared up at the ceiling. Every muscle in my body ached from the tension I felt sitting there in that room with my dying best friend.
My brother.
“I’m sorry, Mike. I’m so, so fucking sorry.” My eyes stung as they started to water, but I didn’t care anymore. “I wish I could go back. I wish I could take that hit back. I’d wear that fucking tutu every day for the rest of my life.” Tears ran down my cheeks, and they felt good. So fucking good.
“This is just so fucking unfair. I did this. I should be the one lying in that bed, and you should be going home tonight with Michelle and the kids. I hope you know I would give anything to make that happen.”
My mind raced a mile a minute.
“I have to make that happen. I have to find a way to make this right. One of the last conversations we ever had, you teased me about having a cement heart. I have to prove that’s not true, and the only way I can do that is to take care of Michelle and the kids for you.” I hurried over to the bed, my blood rushing through my body as I took his hand. Practically begging, I continued, “I mean it, Mike. Whatever they need until Maura is eighteen. I’ll be the stand-in. I won’t be near as good as you would’ve been, but I’ll do it.” I let out a sob, something I hadn’t done in years. “I’ll do anything for you. I love you.”
Mike died at 7:21 p.m.
MY DOORBELL RANG for the third time, but I didn’t move off of my couch. I knew who it was, and I didn’t care. Within a minute, Brody appeared at the sliding glass door in my kitchen, cupping his face with his hands as he peeked through the door. He saw me staring back at him.
“Hey!” he yelled as he banged on the glass. “Open the damn door!”
My arms and legs felt like they weighed a hundred pounds each, and it took all my strength to peel myself off of the couch and go unlock the door.
“What the fuck?” He frowned, closing the door behind him. “Did you hear me ringing the bell?”
I walked over and lay back on my couch again. “Yep.”
“Why aren’t you dressed? We have to leave.”
I lifted my head and looked back at him, finally noticing the sharp black suit he was wearing, before rolling away.
“Viper!” he called again, sounding annoyed. “Get dressed! I just dropped Kacie, Andy, and Darla at the church. Come on!”
Funerals suck. No one wants to get dressed up and sit in a stuffy church and listen to people say the same bland crap about someone they loved. To top it all off, Michelle asked me to say something at the service. I’d tried to sit down and write out a speech several times over the last couple days, but that just wasn’t me. I wasn’t a planner. I figured I’d just get up there and say the first thing that came to mind.
“Hey! Asshole!” Brody shouted from the kitchen. “Stop ignoring me. Get up!”
I groaned as I got off the couch and headed toward my bedroom to get dressed.
“Don’t forget to bring your jersey!” he called out as I walked down the hall.
“Wait…” I stopped and turned back toward the kitchen. “What? Why?”
Brody grabbed a water bottle from the fridge and leaned against the island as he cracked it open. “Some of the guys thought it would be meaningful to wear our jerseys instead of our jackets during the service.”
“Great,” I mumbled and closed my bedroom door.
The street leading up to the Cathedral of St. Paul was crowded with people, some making their way to the church to pay their respects, others gawking at the people coming and going. Bloodthirsty reporters and cameramen tried to get as close to the church as they could, all trying to snap pictures of crying teammates or get the money shot of the grieving widow.
“Try not to break any cameras today, okay?” Brody said smugly, as if he were reading my mind.
Ignoring his comment, I put my sunglasses on and squeezed my jersey tight in my hand.
Just get through today.
Brody pulled into a parking space a block from the church, put his truck in park, and sat back in his seat without turning the engine off. Looking straight ahead, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You ready for this?”
“Not even kinda.” I stared straight ahead and zoned out too. The sun was shining bright and the sky was crystal blue, not a cloud to be seen. A perfect Minnesota day, except for the absolute horror of burying my best friend.
Brody turned his truck off and grabbed his jersey out of the backseat. “Let’s get this over with.” We hopped out and started making our way down the street. The closer we got to the church, the thicker the crowd grew. We both kept our heads down and tried to make it through the hordes of people without being recognized. Once we finally got to the steps leading up to the cathedral, the whispers were too loud to ignore and the cameras were clicking as fast as they could.
“Move please,” I barked at a couple people in jogging clothes on the steps, clearly there being nosy pains in the ass.
“Geez,” the girl snapped as I brushed past her.
I stopped and started to turn back around, but Brody was behind me and pushed me to keep moving up the steps. His nostrils flared and I knew he was annoyed too, but he shook his head. “Don’t. Not worth it.”
We walked through the big wooden doors of the cathedral into the lobby. People dressed in all black stood around talking and laughing as if it were just a normal day.
Fucking assholes.
Brody craned his neck, looking into the actual church. “It looks like most of the guys are here and they have their jerseys on. You gonna change?”
I nodded.
“All right, me too. Let’s do that fast.”
We hustled off to the restroom and changed into our Wild jerseys, heading back toward the church as soon as we were done. Brody was taking his time walking through the lobby, shaking a few hands and chatting with people, but I was in no mood, so I passed him quickly and headed up the aisle, looking for a familiar face. As I scanned the pews already filled with people, Darla stood up and waved at me. I waved back and walked toward her, Kacie, and the rest of the group.
As I got closer, Darla stepped out from the pew and stared at me with the saddest eyes I’d ever seen. Her chin started to tremble and a tear fell down her cheek as she pulled me in for a giant hug, which I gladly accepted.
“Hey,” she said softly into my shoulder.
I cleared my throat. “Hey.”
We hadn’t seen each other since the accident. She’d been swamped at work while Mike was in the hospital, and when the whole gang had a little get-together the other night at Mike and Michelle’s house, I ignored the thirty or so texts from various people begging me to come over.
“How are you?” She sounded sincere, like she actually gave a shit how I was doing. I wanted so badly to tell her how I really was, but lying was always easier.
“I’m fine.”
She pulled back and looked at me with puffy, red eyes, shaking her head. “No you’re not.”
I smiled, kissed her cheek, and scooted past her into the pew next to Kacie, Michelle, Andy, and a few other friends. They all chatted quietly while I stared straight ahead at the big wooden casket.
Do not cry.
Next to the casket were more flowers than I’d ever seen in my whole life, and pictures of Mike were everywhere. Some hockey pictures, but mostly pictures of him with his parents when he was little, him with Taylor, and of course him with Michelle and their kids. His jersey was draped across the end of the closed casket with his stick leaning against it. The sight of it was almost too much for me.
Brody slid past me in the pew and sat down between Kacie and me just as the organ started playing.
Once the priest started his service, I zoned out. I wasn’t religious so most of it went over my head, plus I’d started panicking about what I was going to say when it was my turn. There were way more people there than I’d been anticipating.
Not surprising, though. Mike is a great man. Was.
I didn’t think I’d ever get used to talking about him in the past tense.
“Lawrence Finkle.”
The sound of my name jolted me back to reality.
Game time.
I took a deep breath and stood up as Darla grabbed my hand. She gave me a tight smile and squeezed gently, trying to comfort me. I appreciated her gesture, but it was pointless.
A week ago, my life had been normal. My biggest worry had been who I’d be spending the night with or did my bike need to be washed, but now, I was sitting in a church with my best friend dead in a box, dreading walking up the steps in front of me. The priest cleared his throat, pulling me out of my own head once more. I was still standing in the pew aisle, staring down at Darla, though I wasn’t really looking at her. More like through her. She pulled her brows together and leaned in close.
“You okay? Can you do this?”
I swallowed a lump the size of a golf ball. “No, I’m not okay, but I have to do this.”
She offered up another sympathetic smile as I let go of her hand and scooted out into the center aisle. My shoes echoed loudly with each step I took toward the front.
I made my way up a couple of stairs toward Father O’Malley. He pursed his lips together and nodded toward the podium as he took a step back. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was turn to face all those people, but it was too late to back out now. I spun on my heel and wrapped my hands around the edges of the wooden podium without looking up.
I felt their eyes on me as I stared at the ground, taking my time. Some of them knew me, some of them didn’t, but they were all focused on me, wondering what I was about to say. It was a lot of pressure to have a couple hundred people hanging on my every word, praying that I’d be the one to come up with the magical phrase, some fucking generic sentence that would make them feel better. Take away their pain. How could I take away theirs when mine was so real, so raw?
I deserved this pain, every second of it.
It was my fault we were there.
I’d caused this.
I’d killed him.
Father O’Malley cleared his throat again, and I turned my head to the left slightly, looking at him out of the corner of my eye. He stepped forward and held his hand over the microphone. “Can you do this, son? If you’re not ready—”
“No, I’m ready,” I protested, harsher than I’d meant to. I looked at him and attempted a smile. “I just needed a minute. Sorry.”
“Take your time.” He moved his hand away from the microphone and stepped back again, folding his hands in front of him.
Obviously I can’t. You keep clearing your fucking throat.
I took another deep breath and looked out into the crowd. “Hi.”
Really? Hi? Nice start, asshole.
“Some of you know me, some don’t. My name is Vip—Lawrence Finkle—and I want to be here as much as you all do.”
A small gasp came from somewhere in the back of the church, and a couple people frowned in confusion.
“Please bear with me. I’m not a plan ahead kind of guy, so I’m winging this today. What I meant by that was I’d rather be anywhere on the planet other than here, saying good-bye to our friend.” I took a shaky breath, determined not to lose it, certainly not up there in front of all those people.
“Calling him a friend is an understatement. He wasn’t my friend; he was my brother. Not biologically of course, but we were as close as brothers, maybe closer. I was there when his kids were born, and he was there… for me. All the time. That’s the kind of guy he was. He’d give you the shirt off his back if you asked.”
I sighed and ran my hands through my hair. “I don’t know why I’m telling you guys this. If you’re sitting in this room, you already knew that about him. I’m guessing every single person in here can think of some way he helped them, or better yet, some goofy story about how he made them laugh.”
The low rumble of laughter vibrated through the room.
“What happened is… terrible, but that’s not how I want to remember him. I want to think about all the times he made me laugh in the locker room. I want to remember him grinning like an idiot when he sent me a picture of him holding his new baby girl. I want to remember the man who had my back no matter what, no questions asked, and trust me, sometimes he should’ve asked questions.”
Another small wave of laughter and I wondered if I’d said enough. I just wanted to be done. I looked down at Michelle, who was sitting in the pew with tears in her eyes, gently rocking a sleeping Maura back and forth while Matthew rested his head on her arm. Maura would never know her father. Matthew would never remember his father, and it was all my fault. Michelle leaned down and gently kissed the top of Maura’s head, and the lump in my throat came back, bigger than the last time. I blinked hard and shook my head slightly, trying to regain my composure. I needed to stop; it was too much. Way too fucking much.
“Anyway… Big Mike was amazing, but you all know that or you wouldn’t be here. Thanks for coming,” I finished abruptly and stepped down the steps as the crowd started chattering quietly, probably about my sudden departure, but I didn’t give a shit. Once again, their eyes were glued to me, the weird guy who could barely form a complete sentence up there. As I walked down the aisle, I paused briefly at the row I’d come from. Darla scooted in so I could sit down, but I shook my head. “No. I’m leaving, but do me a favor, please?” I handed her a small box of Lemonheads. “Set these on the casket at the end, okay?”
She blinked and frowned up at me, completely confused. “Wait. Aren’t you—”
“No, I need to go,” I interrupted and rushed toward the exit.
I needed air.
I needed to escape.
I headed straight out the doors.
Straight out into a shitty world that would never be the same again.
ONE MONTH, NINE days, and twenty-two hours. That’s how long it’d been since my husband, the love of my life, took his last breath in this world. The last five and a half weeks had been the absolute worst of my life. I’d been trying hard to establish a new normal, but how do you go on when the person you were supposed to spend the rest of your life with kisses you good-bye, goes to work, and never comes home again? It was beyond unexpected. A complete shock. He’d been ripped away from me so suddenly that I was still reeling, as if it’d just happened.
We had dreams. We had goals. We weren’t done yet. We had wanted to buy a house on the ocean in North Carolina and spend our summers there. We wanted to travel the country and see one baseball game in every stadium. We wanted to go to Paris. We wanted another baby. Damn it, we weren’t done.
I sat in the kitchen, lost so deep in my thoughts that the ring of the doorbell made me gasp out loud. Hurrying up to the front of the house, I was pleasantly surprised to see Kacie’s face smiling at me through the glass.
“Hey!” I said cheerfully as I opened the door.
“Hey yourself!” She held Emma in one arm but wrapped the other one around me and squeezed hard. “We were in the neighborhood, so I thought I’d drop by. Is this a bad time?”
I laughed as she pulled back. “I feel like lately it’s always a bad time, but no, please come in. Hi, girls,” I said to Lucy and Piper. They chirped hello in unison and waved as they followed Kacie into the house. “Matthew is going to be so happy to see you guys. He’s bored out of his mind in the playroom.”
I tried to smile as big as I could as they ran past me and down the hall to the playroom, a room they’d become very familiar with over the past couple of weeks. Kacie had stopped by numerous times just to see how I was doing, and I couldn’t have been more appreciative. She had three daughters of her own and was pregnant with baby number four, yet she drove an hour just to check on me. I was so lucky to have her.
“How ya doing?” Kacie set her bag on the kitchen table and turned back to me.
My eyes stung and I shrugged. Why was it that when anyone asked how I was doing, I instantly lost it?
&
nbsp; “Hold that thought.” She disappeared into the playroom and set Emma down. “Watch her for me for a couple minutes, okay?” I heard her say to Lucy and Piper before she came back to the kitchen.
“Oh my God, look at you!” I squealed, staring at her belly.
She looked down at her stomach and back up at me. “I know. What the hell? Last week I was still small, and all of a sudden, I’ve popped.”
“You totally popped.” I wrapped my hands around her stomach. “Feeling any kicks yet?”
“Not really. A flutter here and there, but nothing substantial. I tried to make Brody feel one last night, but he told me I just had gas and he refused to feel gas.” She rolled her eyes and sat at the table.
“Want some coffee?”
She nodded eagerly. “Yes, please. I would love some.”
I took a sage green mug out of the cabinet and poured her a fresh hot cup of coffee—no sugar, extra cream, just the way she liked it.
“Here ya go.”
“Thanks.” She smiled, dumping extra cream in it like she always did. “So, how’s your week been?”
I sighed. “Aside from Matthew asking me every three minutes when his daddy is coming home? Great.”
Kacie’s face fell. “I’m so sorry.”
“It is what it is.” I waved her off, not wanting to be a Debbie Downer—again. “I know I have to get used to it; it’s just so damn hard.”
“I can’t even imagine.” She shook her head slowly, her green eyes starting to water. “Did you decide what you’re going to do about the house?”
I looked around my dream kitchen and sighed again. “Yeah, I think I’m gonna keep it for now. Thankfully, Mike was a smart money man and he invested wisely. If I’m careful, I can continue to stay home with the kids.”
Her eyes grew wide and she reached out and touched my hand. “That’s great. What a relief, huh?”
I nodded. It was a relief. I didn’t want to sell the house we’d built together, the house I loved so much. Mike’s parents had both passed, my mom had died when I was in high school, and my dad was remarried and living on the West Coast. For a while, I’d thought about selling the house and moving closer to him, but we didn’t have a great relationship as it was, so I didn’t see the point in uprooting the kids.