Delayed Penalty: A Pilots Hockey Novel (28 page)

“Your mom was in a band when she was in high school,” Grandpa finally spoke. “This was her playing at a school dance. Probably one of her first times on stage.”

I sat without speaking, without moving, in shock because my grandfather sat on my bed about to tell me a story I’m sure he never had any intention of sharing with me.

“She loved music and she had a beautiful voice. She and some friends from school got together to play. Just kids having fun. She fell in love with one of the boys in the band. His name was Vince. I thought he was a good kid.” Grandpa rubbed his lips with the palm of his hand, before cupping his chin and taking a deep breath.

“Vince got your mother pregnant when she was fifteen. She shut us out at first, too scared to tell us. But she knew she couldn’t raise a child at fifteen. Vince told her she should have an abortion. But your mother didn’t want that. She wanted to give the child up for adoption. So your grandmother and I took her to a Catholic social services group. Together we interviewed and chose the family who would get the baby.

“And on the day the baby was born, she signed the papers and gave him up. It wasn’t easy for her. But she made the decision because she couldn’t give the boy a life.”

Grandpa rummaged in the box again, pulling out another picture of my mom. This time she was in a hospital bed, her pale lips pressed to the forehead of a tiny, red face peering out of the blanketed bundle in her arms.

“That’s the only picture we have of Baby Boy Berezin. Valerie didn’t name him, of course. A few minutes after that picture was taken he was given to his new parents, who were waiting in the hospital.”

“So this is Jason?”

“Jason? That’s a strong name.” Grandpa looked down, silent for a moment. “Was he the one in the diner when your grandmother and I were there?”

“The one you wouldn’t stop staring at?” I asked.

Grandpa nodded.

“Yeah, that was him. Did you know?”

“No. It never crossed my mind. But he looked familiar. I was trying to place him.”

“He’s a nice guy.”

Grandpa ignored my comment and handed me the shoe box. “These were some pictures of your mom’s. Maybe you’d like to keep them.”

“Can I give this one to Jason?” I held up the one of him and my mom from his birth.

“It’s yours now. You can do whatever you wish.” Grandpa started to get up.

“What about me?” I asked quickly. Since I’d already staged the big confrontation, I wanted all the skeletons out of the closet.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, that’s Jason’s story. What about mine? Did you know my dad? Was he an idiot like Vince?”

“He was.” Grandpa sat back down. “In fact, it was the idiot Vince.”

“What?” I almost snapped my neck, as I instantly turned my attention from the shoe box in my lap to my grandpa’s face.

“She was young and in love.” He chuckled, but the sound was distant and weary. “He said all the right things and she took him back. She was out of the house at that point, so your grandmother and I didn’t know she was seeing him again. We didn’t know they got married.”

“What?” I asked. I felt my eyes bulge from my head. I didn’t know my mom had been married to my sperm donor.

“Yes, well, it didn’t last. As soon as he found out she was pregnant, he left and never came back. Your mom had taken on three jobs before she even told us about her pregnancy, just to prove that she could take care of you on her own.” Grandpa took my hand and looked into my eyes. His expression was soft but pained. I couldn’t imagine what he thought when he looked at me. Probably that I ruined everyone’s life: my mom’s, my sperm donor’s, my grandparents’.

“She loved you, Audushka,” he said, his eyes glassy, as if he’d read my mind. “She loved you so much.”

The tension harbored in my shoulders for fourteen years released in a massive slump. I didn’t realize a simple sentence could be so powerful. My stoic, seemingly unaffectionate grandpa was the first person to tell me my mom loved me. I’m sure everyone assumed I knew how she felt, but since I couldn’t even remember one minute with her, hearing him say it was extraordinary.

“I’m sorry about the way your grandmother and I reacted when you told us about Jason, Audushka. We were startled and didn’t know what to do. I’m sorry we never told you about him. We should have. In all these years, he’d never tried to find us, so we never thought you needed to know.”

The newly confident part of me wanted to ask why they would only tell me if my brother came looking for us. Why didn’t they think having a brother was something I should be aware of no matter what the situation? Though Grandpa and I turned a corner in our relationship, I knew my questions would start a fight, and we’d come too far for me to take it there.

“It just doesn’t seem right,” I said, abandoning my questions and looking at the picture of my mom and Jason instead.

“She loved you, Audushka,” Grandpa said again, squeezing me against his side. “She never once thought about giving you up. She said she could never do that again, which is why she worked her ass off. We helped, of course, if she needed it, but she rarely did. She was a strong, stubborn girl. That’s where you get those qualities, in case you were wondering.”

“Funny, I thought I got them from you.”

Grandpa laughed, which made me happy. I was sick of fighting with my grandparents. Sick of being mad at them. Sick of anger and withdrawal always being my first reactions. I didn’t want to live that way anymore.

But how do you begin to change after being ingrained with ideas for almost twenty years? Maybe I already had changed, because even with Kristen’s insistence, I never would have come here if I hadn’t.

“Thank you for being honest with me. I’m sorry about how I brought it up and how I acted. It was childish and immature.”

“Well, so were we. We should have been prepared. We knew it might come up someday. I promise to be better next time.”

“Next time?” My shoulders stiffened as I wiggled out of Grandpa’s half embrace. “More secrets?”

“No, Audushka, no more secrets. I meant next time we find ourselves in a highly emotional situation, I need to react better.”

“Well, I hope we don’t find ourselves in too many more.” I scavenged through the shoe box, flipping through photos and concert ticket stubs with my index finger. “As long as we’re being honest…”

“Yes?” Grandpa’s tone lowered.

“I, um, I went through that envelope with articles about mom. The one in your locked cabinet upstairs. Sorry for snooping. I was just curious.”

He nodded. “And?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just wanted to know what happened.”

“It’s very hard for your grandmother and me to talk about.” Grandpa cleared his throat. “But you can ask us questions if you have any.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it and shook my head.

“You sure?”

I nodded. “I just wanted to be honest.”

“Thank you. You have grown up, Audushka. Your mother would be very proud of the woman that you are.”

With that, I buried my face into Grandpa’s shoulder, wrapping both arms around him in a massive bear hug. I almost felt bad soaking his navy blue Michigan University Language Department polo with tears. Almost.

Your mother would be very proud of the woman that you are.

Every kid wants to hear their parents say they love them and are proud of them, but it’s especially crucial for those of us who don’t have parents. Like forgotten fish, we race to the top of our bowl, desperately chomping the water for flakes of love to fill us up.

Chapter 28

“Here.” I threw a candy necklace at Kristen. The candy necklace was a prop we’d used in our younger days when we were on the prowl for men. What hot-blooded male wouldn’t want to nuzzle up to a girl and bite a piece of candy off her neck?

“Auden, I don’t think we should use these tonight,” she warned, twirling the necklace around her index finger.

“Come on, KK. You’re the one who said I needed to get back out there.” Though I dreaded using the necklace myself, I knew Kristen would in order to help me get over Aleksandr. Even if I had to pull out the big guns to make it happen.

“This isn’t what I meant.”

I ignored her and ran my straightener through the final section of my hair before sliding smoothing serum over the strands. I checked my outfit in the mirror as I wiped the greasy hair product remains on a towel.

Once Kristen and I had both finished getting ready, we grabbed our drinks and walked to the apartment next door where Scott, Lacy’s boyfriend, lived with three other guys. I had forgiven Scott for the whole bringing-a-friend-who-tried-to-drug-me fiasco, but I was still leery of him. It was business as usual to keep my guard up around him again.

“Damn, ladies!” one of Scott’s roommates called out when we walked in the apartment. He hit a button on his CD player and the mellow hum at the beginning of Blackstreet’s “No Diggity” filled the room. It was Kristen’s favorite song. Yet another reason we’d become best friends—our shared love of nineties music.

Lacy and the guys were playing “I Never,” a drinking game in which someone says they’ve never done something and everyone who has done it must drink. There were two ways to play. We could say something we thought was outlandish to see who had done it. Or we lied and said something everyone has done so the group got drunk quicker. The latter seemed to be the case with tonight’s game.

“I’ve never been drunk,” Scott lied, and tipped his beer back along with the rest of us.

“I’ve never been to a party.” Kristen raised her beer so we could all toast before taking another long drink.

“I’ve never fucked an—” Bobby began. I didn’t hear him finish because Brett, the guys’ fourth roommate, pushed through the door.

“Hey, man! Pull up a seat.” Scott slid Brett a chair from the kitchen table with his foot.

Brett was one of Central State’s star rugby players. I’d known him since freshman year because he lived on the floor below Kristen and me in the dorms.

“Drink, Auden. We all know you’re fucking a hockey player,” Chad teased me.

“I didn’t even hear what Bobby said.” I’d laughed at the previous responses in the game, but scowled when Chad mentioned a hockey player.

“I said, I’ve never fucked an athlete,” Bobby repeated.

Oh good, now everyone was listening.

“And I said drink because you’re fucking Varenkov.” Chad saluted me with his beer. I know the guys didn’t mean any harm. They didn’t know Aleksandr and I had broken up.

“Was. I
was
fucking a hockey player,” I mumbled, and tried to drop the subject by lifting my beer to my lips.

“What?” Bobby and Chad asked in unison.

“Lace, did you remember to get more milk?” Kristen asked, steering the conversation from Aleksandr to our grocery needs.

Worst diversion ever.

“I’m single and on the prowl.” I pulled the candy necklace away from my neck with my thumb and shimmied in my seat, feigning excitement about it.

“You should fuck Brett,” Scott said with a wink. “I hear he’s good.”

So had I, but hearing Scott say it was just plain comical, since his current girlfriend was the one who’d told me all about how good Brett had been in bed. Lacy had slept with Brett before she’d started dating Scott, of course. It was all so soap-opera incestual in our group of friends. Kristen dated Scott freshman year. Lacy hooked up with Brett around the same time. That had been before Scott and Brett joined the same fraternity and met each other, but still. The guys we knew were like a joint, everyone took a turn and passed it on.

“Leave her alone,” Brett said, snapping his Heineken bottle cap at Scott.

“Ow, dude!” Scott winced as the green cap bounced off his forehead.

I couldn’t deny Brett was hot. Dark blond hair, bronze eyes, a square jaw, and a large, muscular rugby player’s body—what’s not to like? Instead of staring at the rock-hard thighs I’d previously been between, I downed my beer and opened another. The “I Never” game continued.

Did I forget to mention my being between Brett’s rock-hard thighs before? Freshman year was my wild and crazy, I’m-away-from-my-overprotective-grandparents-for-the-first-time part of my life. I’d been ecstatic when Brett invited me to his dorm to watch a movie. Unbeknownst to me, “watching a movie” was eighteen-year-old boy slang for heavy making out on a lumpy futon. It was the first time I’d ever made out. It was the first time I’d ever kissed a guy. Being nestled between Brett’s hard—but not as hard as their current state—thighs, kissing and exploring, was pretty damn awesome. Until he wanted to go further, and I didn’t. Having his palm on my boob was further than I wanted to go, but I let it happen anyway.

I spilled every ounce of my guts to Kristen when I got back to our dorm. I couldn’t stop talking about Brett. We made plans A and B for how I should act when I saw him next. We made plans C and D for what to say when he asked me over again. But Brett didn’t invite me over again. In fact, he barely even spoke to me when I saw him in the elevator or dining hall.

Kristen said not to worry about it. He was a prick for expecting me to have sex with him on our first date. Except that it turned into a bit of a pattern with men. When I thought a guy liked me, I agreed to go out with him, and make out and not have sex, because I wasn’t ready to have sex. I’d even tried a no-kissing-on-the-first-date rule. Same result. The second date never came.

That’s when I realized it was me. It had to be me, right?

After we’d finished pre-partying, Kristen and I split from Lacy and the boys because we wanted to hang out at a party at my bandmates’ house. Plus, we wanted to stop at a few places on the way because I needed to find guys to bite the candies off my necklace. It was sad and desperate to need a man, other than Aleksandr, to find me attractive.

—

It was almost two in the morning when Kristen and I stumbled in the door of the house my bandmates shared. We’d gotten slightly caught up in parties, and may have taken a detour to have a drink at the Thorne before hitting up the guys’ house.

Aaron and Greg sat on the atrocious, light green couch littered with gaudy pink flowers. A large, black beanbag sat on the floor between the front door and the couch. I knew it was black because I’d been here before, but I could barely see it at the moment, since Josh and whoever he had pinned down covered most of it.