Jennifer said, “Keys.”
He blinked. He’d almost forgotten she was there.
Oh. Keys. He pulled them from his pocket and handed them to her, and she gave him back his suit coat, climbed into the car with him, racked the seat forward, and drove.
He stared straight ahead as the familiar sights spooled by. The high school, where his mom had come to every game. The middle school, where he’d first known a winning season, and she’d baked a cake to celebrate. And finally, the parking lot of the hotel.
Out of the car and through the front doors. Knowing that he was sweaty, that he was filthy, that people were staring. That this would be in the news eventually, inevitably, because there was no entertainment like somebody else’s pain. All that knowledge and all the faces scrolled by like the newsfeed at the bottom of the screen giving you the sports scores, and then he and Jennifer were alone, heading up in the elevator. Down another hall. Into their suite.
He was made of glass, brittle and rigid. His movements were jerky as he took off his shoes and socks, and his hands had started to shake.
It was Jennifer who unbuttoned his shirt, Jennifer who unbuckled his belt and finished undressing him. Jennifer who pulled off her own clothes, took his hand, and took him into the shower. Too small for two people, especially when one of them was big and the other one was pregnant, but she got in with him anyway, grabbing a washcloth along the way.
Jennifer, washing him down, getting rid of the sweat and the dirt and, finally, the tears, when the dam that had been inside him for so long finally burst its banks. When he had his palms flat against the wall, his forehead resting against the cold fiberglass, and his shoulders were shaking, his legs trembling, his chest heaving. Jennifer stood there as the water beat down on them, her belly against his side, and washed him clean, her hands never stopping until the sobs turned to shudders and, finally, ended. Until he was just standing there, drained and spent and powerless.
She reached around him and turned off the water. She got towels and helped him dry off, and he did the same for her. And then she took him into the bedroom, pulled back the covers, and lay down with him, her body entwined with his, her hand on his face, and said nothing.
He put his hand on her belly, because something was moving there, a ripple under the skin like a fish beneath the still waters of a lake. He rested his palm over the spot and said, his voice scratched and rusty, “He’s moving. I feel it.”
She kissed his shoulder, and the touch of her lips was a blessing. “He’s turning somersaults. He’s a busy boy. An athlete. I think he’s going to be learning to ride a bike early. He’s going to want to do everything his dad does, because he’s going to think he’s got the best dad in the world.” She pulled back just a little, so he could see the seriousness in her eyes. “And he’s going to be right. She’d be so proud, Harlan. She’d be so happy to know the man you’ve become. She’s happy knowing it now. You must feel that, here in your heart.” Her hand was over the spot, and there was love in that hand. “Nikki Layne Kristiansen. She’s finally resting in peace, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes.”
She left her hand there, wrapped her leg more tightly around him, so her softness surrounded him, and said, “I think we should name him Nicholas.”
62
Kickoff
Jennifer wasn’t almost six months pregnant anymore. She was seven months pregnant. It was also August. It was Portland, but still. It was August, and she needed to fix dinner.
She’d been doing most of the cooking after the first day of training camp, which had started five days after they’d come back from Bismarck. A day when Harlan had come in the door more than ten hours after he’d left, looking like every muscle hurt.
He’d kissed her, same as always, and held her, too, as she’d asked, “What happened? You’re hurt.”
She felt as much as heard the tired laugh. “Yeah, no, baby. That’s training camp. Just lucky the Devils hold it on campus, or I’d be in a hotel right now, feeling pretty sorry for myself. Instead, I get to come home to you.” He’d stood back, tried a smile, and said, “Let’s order out, though.”
Hence the switch in cooking responsibilities. He’d tried to take them back after the first week, when he’d assured her that his body was tuned up again, and anyway, football was pain and he was used to it, and she’d said, “When were you planning on doing the shopping for that? On your one day off a week? When you’re staggering home? Not happening, buddy. That’s what the Instant Pot’s for.”
“Plus,” Dyma had said from the kitchen, where she and Annabelle were doing something that involved Indian spices and a whole lot more pots and pans than Jennifer would have used—she was pretty sure it was going to involve lentils, but she was just going to overlook that—“Annabelle and I decided we should do our share. Responsibility and all that. Annabelle even cooked a chicken thing for you and Owen, since I refuse to prepare flesh. Even though this dinner has protein already. Oh—Owen’s coming over for dinner. So you know.”
“Flesh, huh,” Harlan had said, raising his eyebrows at Jennifer. “Is Owen all good with that characterization?”
“Relationships don’t require shared interests,” Dyma had answered. “They require shared values. ‘Because one believes in oneself, one doesn't try to convince others. Because one is content with oneself, one doesn't need others' approval. Because one accepts oneself, the whole world accepts her.’ Which means,” she’d finished, “that I don’t have to eat meat for Owen to love me, and he doesn’t have to be a vegetarian for me to love him.”
“Sounds good,” Harlan had said. “But also like a lot of extra cooking.”
Today, though, it was Saturday, Harlan’s one day off, because training camp really was brutal, and Jennifer had just finished the grocery shopping and needed to think about making pot roast for dinner with one small portion of the half a steer Owen had brought her from the ranch. Now, that was a present. Cut up and wrapped in butcher paper, too, the way she liked it. Pot roast wasn’t exactly vegetarian, but she wasn’t cooking two dinners. She was doing creamed spinach, too, though, because Owen was coming to dinner, and he loved it.
She needed to get started on all that, because it was already almost five o’clock, and she had to sear the meat first. She didn’t feel like searing meat, but there you were. Life was tough like that. Harlan and Owen were off playing golf, which was the last thing she’d have done after the kind of regimen they’d been through these past couple weeks, but she guessed that was why they were in the NFL and she wasn’t.
She may have been a tiny bit disappointed that Harlan had left her for hours on his one free day, but that was because there was, apparently, no pleasing her. He’d watch a movie with her tonight. He’d rub cream into her belly after her shower, he’d make love to her, and he’d do it all so well, her toes would curl. He didn’t have to spend every minute with her.
He’d been different since they’d come home from North Dakota. Something in him had eased, exactly like he had been walking around with that heavy weight on his chest. He’d always laughed easily, but now, the laughter came from a deeper place. He smiled because he wanted to, she thought, and not because he thought he had to. He’d been doing a call with each of his sisters every week, and that felt important, too. And in the days after they’d come back, he and Annabelle had gone through the photo album that had lain, dusty and untouched, on the bookshelf in that terrible house, and now, there was a framed picture of his mom on his desk. It stood next to the one of the siblings on the fence at Easter with their dog, whose name had been Ranger.