Rooster: A Secret Baby Sports Romance (20 page)

I’m confident I’ll be able to get over this and I can see myself playing again, but right now, I’m not even confident this leg is going to hold my weight enough to keep me up.

The doctor takes me on one side, the nurse on the other, and while I slide myself to the edge of the bed, they carry my weight.

Twenty-six years old and it takes three people to put me back together, three and a half if you count Oscar too.

I take the weight onto my good leg first, just to find my balance. When I’ve got it, I place the other leg flat down on the ground and shift the weight across into it slowly.

Izzy looks concerned, even though she’s hiding that concern behind a wide, proud smile.

I feel a stab of pain shoot up into my thigh momentarily before I shift half of the weight back into the other leg and balance myself equally. I can tell one side is weaker than the other, but, even so, it’s definitely strong enough with the help of the other to hold me up.

When I indicate that I’m ready to try and stand alone without help, the doctor and the nurse take a step to the side and wait for me to pull my hands away from them.

I can feel my heart beating strongly in my chest, and for the first time in a long time, I feel scared. A lot begins with this first step and I don’t want to fuck it up.

“Come on, Rocky”, Izzy says. “Let’s see how much you want it.”

“Like you need to know”, I say, before taking my hands away slowly.

Izzy claps, as I work out where I need to shift my weight to balance myself, my hips wobbly but strong, my leg refusing to give in.

“Excellent”, the doctor says, and I feel like a fucking champion. “Now let’s see if you can walk.”

Standing is complicated enough for someone that has spent the last month and a half sitting down, but walking, that feels so unfamiliar to me I have no idea how to begin. Which leg do I lead with? How long do I make my strides? How do I fucking turn around?

It’s like my mind knows but my body refuses to respond to the signal. Or my body knows as well but is choosing not to risk it. The result is a lack of movement from both of my legs, good and bad, which frankly feels super fucking embarrassing. I’ve had my leg broken, I’ve not had a stroke, so why the fuck I’m having so much difficulty right now, I don’t know.

If it takes this much time to work out how to put one foot in front of the other, how am I meant to get fit enough to get back into the team in two weeks?

“Rory?” Izzy asks.

“I know”, I say, “I’m doing it.”

I’m strong enough to do it, I know that, but that’s not it anyway. It feels like I’ve got some kind of mental block restricting me from moving forward.

I look at my toes that wiggle themselves back up at me as though they are saying hello and I look at the smiling doctor and the grimacing nurse and then Izzy who could not be any more perfect, but I still can’t move.

“We can try again later if you’d like?” the doctor says, addressing Izzy as much as he addresses me.

“No”, Izzy says. “We are not leaving until he walks over here.”

I feel completely inept right now. Unable to play hurling, unable to play ice hockey, unable to look after my son and unable to even walk. Izzy lifts Oscar out of his buggy and sets him in her arms.

“Rory O’Connor, if you want to us to be a family, you’ll grow some balls and walk over here, right now.”

“Tell me you love me first and I’ll do it”, I say.

“I’ll tell you I love you when you get here.”

“That means you already mean it”, I say, smiling.

Izzy narrows her eyes. “Just get over here”, she says.

Alright, I can do this. I know I can do this. If I can become a trophy winning hurling player and survive a year in jail, if I can get through an abusive childhood and create something as special as Oscar, if I can find someone like Izzy and fall in love, I know I can walk six feet across the hospital room floor and into her arms, bad leg first.

I lift it slowly, a dull ache throbbing through the knee, move it forward a foot and drop it back to the ground, heavier than I want and almost so forcefully it unbalances me. The doctor rushes in, but I hold up my hand to indicate I’m okay, wobbly, but ok, and able to continue.

“Easy, Rory”, the fat nurse says.

Easy? I’ve never had it easy my whole life. My good leg comes into the air, glides through it gracefully and kisses the ground again as smooth as a falling petal. I’m doing it. Step by fucking step, I’m walking. Alright, I’m doing it like a seventy-year-old, but I’m still doing it. Bad leg up, wobbly through the air, but a better, much more controlled landing this time.

Good leg up, through and down. I’m getting faster. Bad leg not even all that bad anymore, worse of course, but if the good leg is almost perfect, everything else is going to pale in comparison. Up, across, down, shift, good, bad, good, bad, and before I know it, I’m there, heart beating so quickly I feel like I’ve run it, smile so thick across my face my cheeks hurt.

Izzy’s crying. “I love you”, she says.

“I knew that already”, I say, my hands around her, pulling her into my chest. “I love you too.”

“That was terrible, Rory”, the nurse says, and I have to laugh. “I’ve seen ninety-year-old stroke victims do better than that on their first attempt. Embarrassing. Frankly embarrassing. And you’re supposed to be some hot-shot, ice hockey player, right? Well it’s a good job your manager wasn’t here to see that. Ten times more and then I’m taking you off to physio. Think you can handle that?”

“I can handle that”, I say.

“Good, because if I take you like that, she’ll send us both away and I’ll have to recast the leg.”

I hand Oscar back to Izzy, spin myself around and walk back towards the bed, already more confident.

“Did you have a limp before?” the nurse asks, when I’ve gone there and back two times.

“No”, I say, looking down at my legs, already feeling a thousand times better.

“Then don’t pretend you’ve got one now. Ten times Rory, I’m counting.”

Every pass I make I get stronger. Every kiss Izzy gives me feels like a ball of fire. I’m going to do this if it kills me. I’m going to pull myself back together, walk, run, skate and claw my way back out of the pit that Brad has put me in. Oscar and Izzy are up on the other side and there is no way in hell I’m going to do anything that jeopardizes that. I love hurling, I’ve even come to love ice hockey but nothing will ever compare to the love I feel for Izzy and my son. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her, I’d already be back home drowning my sorrows in a pint of Guinness, fighting a ban and looking for answers in all the wrong places.

When I look at her and what we’ve created together I know I’ll always be happy, and nothing can take that away, least of all a jealous ex-boyfriend, a broken femur, and the entire American government.

Visa or no visa, if Izzy and I love each other, nothing can keep us apart.

“That’s ten”, I tell the nurse, who has been sat down in my wheelchair for the last five laps.

“Good”, she says. “I’ve seen way better, but I never had very high expectations from you Rory O’Connor.”

Why doesn’t that surprise me? “So where next?” I say, pumped up and keen to continue.

“The physio is next”, the nurse says. “And you’re going to like her. She’s even more of a hard-ass than I am.”

“I’m sure we’ll get on like a house on fire then.”

“Do what she says well, and I’m sure you will. Grab your things, and let’s go, we’re already late and she’ll be waiting for us.”

Izzy puts Oscar into the buggy and grabs my bag for me. I’m waiting for the nurse to get out of the wheelchair and then realize she has absolutely no intention of doing so.

We stare at each other for a while before it dawns on me.

“You know how irritating it is to have to keep pushing people around in these?” she says.

“
I
know”, Izzy says before I even get a chance to answer.

“That’s not fair”, I say.

“Excuse me?” the nurse says. “The physio is on the other side of the complex and we are already late. Ready Izzy?”

My eyes go to the mother of my child. “I’m ready”, she says.

“Then that leaves you, Rory”, the nurse adds.

“You want me to push you?”

The nurse lets her leg spring up so it’s pointing directly outwards. “How else am I going to get there with a broken leg?”

I shake my head. “When I’m better”, I say, edging my way behind the chair. “I’m going to make sure I get you season tickets for the Islanders. I’ve heard they’ve got a lovely crowd.”

“At this rate, I’m going to be dead by the time you get better”, she says. “I’ve got more confidence in coma patients recovering than I have in you being able to even get your uniform on correctly.”

“We’ll see”, I say, grabbing the handles of the wheelchair firmly and accidentally on purpose knocking her leg into the doorframe on the way out. I’m so determined to prove her wrong, I’m halfway down the corridor before I remember I’ve only just relearned how to walk. I pause, look back to the room and see Izzy only just leaving with Oscar’s buggy.

“Better, Rory O’Connor”, the nurse says. “We might even make a Ranger out of you yet.”

Thirteen.

Izzy

This life is made of measurements. We put things in neat little categories because it makes us feel like we have control. We can measure progress or failure, or we can see how close or how far away we came to something. It’s everywhere. The ice hockey rink, the school calendar, the shoes you put on in the morning or the diapers your son fills up with his shit.

One week, ten feet, two years, or a moment that passes in the blink of an eye.

They are describing Rory’s comeback in the newspapers as nothing short of a miracle. The Lazarus of the NHL, once thought to be dead and buried, now back, bigger and stronger than ever.

Pages and pages of statistics. His life in numbers. His whole career spread out in paper and ink and given a value. One million dollars, one broken leg, one son, one visa about to expire.

There is a campaign, a petition, an official online group and several more unofficial ones and we still don’t know what’s going to happen. All these numbers, all these official statistics, and what we are left with is an illusion of control no matter how hard you scrutinize it.

What I have are things you can’t quantify. I have hope, I have love and I have fear in bucketfuls I’m running out of places inside me to carry it.

Rory’s return has been nothing short of incredible. From the day he had the cast taken off, he hasn’t stopped. What someone else in his condition would struggle to do in a year, Rory’s done in a week and a half.

He’s not back to a hundred percent strength yet, but even at ninety and climbing, he’s head and shoulders above almost everyone else. Getting there has not been easy, but in doing so he’s not only proven his capability, he’s proven his commitment too. The renewal of the visa relies on an ability to show a number of things, but longevity, desire, and raw talent are definitely near the top.

Those things can only be measured in numbers until you meet Rory and you see the kind of person he is. Even without the numbers to back it up, when you hear him speak about what he’s gone through, what he has to go through on a daily basis, you know exactly what winning means to him.

Ten hours every day divided between physio sessions, swimming pool sessions, massage, ice baths, therapy, weight work and running. Not walking anymore, running hard, flat out, to strengthen bone and muscle. Six was recommended over a month long program, but that wasn’t enough for Rory.

It hasn’t always been ten either. Sometimes he trains in some form or another from the moment he leaps out of bed until the moment he crawls back into it, always with enough energy still to make love to me like a fucking wild cat.

And all of this, without any idea if it’s going to make a difference or not. There is every chance the visa will be rejected. Every chance Rory’s criminal record will come back into play, and what was allowed once won’t be repeated, regardless of the circumstances.

He’s better, but he still hasn’t played a first-team game. He’s committed but that means nothing if he doesn’t have a cause. He has the support of the fans, the players, and the manager, but he’s also managed to pick up a reputation for violence while out on the ice, which clearly won’t work in his favor. He has a son, but I’m too cynical to believe that’s likely to be enough on its own to influence the decision.

We can only hope. One game stands between then and now, one last opportunity perhaps for him to shine, before the stamp of fate comes down to decide his future and mine.

Rory’s confident we’ll see a positive outcome, but there’s nobody else I’ve ever met in my life that is anywhere near as optimistic. Francis won’t tell me how he truly feels, and everyone else I’ve talked to about it from the team is just as tight-lipped with their opinions.

Really, it boils down to this. If the visa is granted we’ll get until the end of the season, but it also means that if Rory plays well and the Rangers have a decent run, and he remains banned from hurling, both contract and visa are likely to be extended and Rory will want to stay. If it’s not granted we have to make a decision about how we both proceed, and we’ll have to do it quickly.