Chapter 13 - Tyler

When I got to Nico’s hospital room, I found Mack sitting next to the bed in the same chair as before, but this time, Nico was sitting up in his bed. He looked so tiny in the huge hospital bed. They were playing with LEGO bricks together on the small hospital tray table.

“Hey, man,” I said and clasped Mack on the shoulder.

“Thank you for coming so quickly!” Mack smiled at me and tapped Nico on the arm. He then pointed at me. “Stone is here.” He said the words slowly and with exaggerated movements.

Nico looked confused and held his ears. He looked over at me and grinned. “STONE!” he yelled loudly and jumped into my arms.

“Hey, buddy,” I said without thinking since I knew he couldn’t hear me. “How is he? He looks good, other than the hearing thing.”

“The doctors are amazed at how well he is doing. The hearing seems to be the only thing affected by hitting his head. One doctor suggested trying surgery to see if it could fix the issues, but after looking at the scans closer, the neurosurgeon said it could potentially do more harm and probably wouldn’t restore his hearing.”

“Not worth the risk,” I said as Nico was blabbing to me about something with a loud, monotone voice. I could tell he was trying to tell me what he was building with LEGO toys, but it was hard to understand him.

“The occupational therapist said he doesn’t realize how loud he is because he can’t hear himself talking. She did say to keep encouraging him to talk, though.”

“Wow, you’ve had a busy morning with doctors and therapists!”

“I know. Everyone has been so helpful, though. Later this afternoon, a speech and language therapist and a sign language specialist will also be coming by. I’m going to get a crash course in sign language since that is how I will communicate with him. I’ve already been reading about it, and it seems like Nico will learn it a lot faster than I will.”

“I want to learn, too. I want to be able to communicate with my buddy.”

“I would love that, man. Thank you.”

Nico climbed out of my arms but grabbed my hand and led me to the tray holding his LEGO creation. I sat in one of the hospital chairs next to Mack and began building with both of them.

“I hate to ask, but have you figured out anything about Ashleigh’s funeral?”

Mack sighed. “I talked to Ash’s mom just before you got here actually. They want to have it in her hometown in Kentucky. Luckily, it’s not too far.”

“Yeah, that’s good. When were they thinking?”

“They are having it in two days. The doctor said Nico should be okay to travel, but he’s not going to understand it at all. But I want him there. I want you there, too, if possible.”

“Of course, man. We’ll all be there. I don’t have to report back to the Lightning until the day after that.”

Mack nodded. “Campbell called, and he had the Raptor game against the Ducks postponed so they could all come. Sebastian Campbell is a class act. They will play a doubleheader the next time they meet up.”

“That’s good. What are you going to do?” I placed a few more LEGO bricks in a stack to make a wall. Nico nodded in approval and built his own wall near mine. He had a little LEGO guy peeking his head around the wall, and I had to chuckle. It was so great seeing this little boy awake and playing again.

“Well, I don’t know yet. There isn’t much in the way of speech pathologists and schools for the deaf in a tiny town like Riverbend.”

I hadn’t thought about that. “You’re not going to give up coaching, are you?”

Mack was about to say something as he put a LEGO brick on top of the wall I had been building.

“NO!” Nico yelled. He then pointed, and Mack put the LEGO piece where he thought Nico was wanting him to. Nico shook his head and kept saying, “No.”

“This is the worst fucking part,” Mack said as he tried several different places to put the small block. “I can’t communicate with him.”

“That really sucks. Hopefully, soon, you’ll both learn sign language and will be able to talk.”

“Want Mommy!” Nico yelled. “Mommy!”

I saw tears well up in Nico’s eyes and in Mack’s eyes as well. “He keeps asking for Mommy, and it breaks my heart to shake my head. I can’t make him understand that she risked her life for him. That she loved him more than anything.”

“Someday, you’ll be able to tell him,” I said as I wiped my own eyes. I reached in the bag I had brought with me and grabbed the teddy bear that Mack had specifically asked me to find. Luckily, I had been able to find the well-loved brown bear with a red bow tie. The minute Nico saw it, his eyes got wide, and he reached for the stuffed animal. I handed it to him, and he wrapped his small arms tightly around it and cuddled it against his chest.

“Thank goodness you were able to find Bear Bear.” Mack climbed in the hospital bed and pulled Nico and Bear Bear into his arms. Nico immediately cuddled against his side and put his thumb into his mouth. His little eyes closed, and Mack kissed the top of his head.

“I’ll let you guys get some rest. If you need anything for the funeral, let me know. If not, I”ll see you in a couple days.”

When I got back to our motel room, I had to laugh that there was a ton of cat stuff on the bed. Litter boxes, cat toys, bowls, scratching posts, and more. My guess is that my wife had found a kitten she liked.

“Molls? Are you here?” I called out.

“In the bathroom,” she hollered back. “Come meet our new baby!”

I opened the bathroom door and saw not one, not two, but three very tiny kittens walking around my wife’s legs. She was seated on the toilet seat while she was petting them and talking to them in baby voices.

“Um, this is not one kitten! Explain.”

My wife actually laughed. “Don’t worry. Only one is ours. I talked to Mack, and he told me to get the sweetest kitten I could find. We decided to let Nico pick one after the funeral.”

“Well, that explains his kitten and our kitten, but who is getting the other one?”

“Pen’s kids want one,” she said with a smile. “They said Nico could pick his kitten first. That’s why we have all of them together.”

“I guess that makes sense. So, we’re going to keep all three kittens with us until we get back from Kentucky?”

“I guess it’s a good time to find out if you’re allergic to cats or not,” Molly said as she lifted a multi-colored kitten into her arms. “Because if you actually are, you can go back to living with Cooper.”

“Ha, ha! I’m not, don’t worry!” I said with a shake of my head. “I told you I was tested when I was younger, and even the doctor was shocked I wasn’t allergic to cats!”

Going to a funeral with my wife and old teammates was not how I wanted to spend our last day together before I had to go back to playing for my own team. We all sat in the third and fourth rows behind Mack and Ashleigh’s family. Ashleigh Marie McAlister’s body had been cremated, and a beautiful urn covered in her favorite flowers, chrysanthemums, sat in the front of the church she had grown up attending. Next to her was a giant photograph of her smiling face.

A lot of media was outside, including Erick and Tanner. Molly couldn’t believe the media had shown up at a funeral, but I told her it was just part of the bigger picture. The public wanted to see Ashleigh put to rest, too.

Nico sat on his grandmother’s lap during the service, and he seemed to enjoy the attention. During the middle of the service, when the officiant was talking about Ashleigh’s love of being a mother and a wife, we all heard Nico’s loud voice. “Mommy! Hi, Mommy!” His voice actually sounded like he was saying ‘Mob-bee’ since he couldn’t hear himself talking. Nico wriggled out of his grandmother’s grasp and went up to Ashleigh’s picture. “I want Mommy!”

I grasped Molly’s hand and wiped away a tear of my own with my other hand. There wasn’t a dry eye in the church. I saw Mack’s hands covering his face as he shook with sobs. It was the first time I had seen him cry, but I was glad he was showing his emotions. I felt horrible for him and Nico.

Mack’s dad put a hand on Mack’s shoulder as he tried to get up. He got up himself, went over to his young grandson, and scooped him up and into his arms. He walked out a side door of the sanctuary, and the officiant took a moment to take a deep breath. He proceeded with his eulogy about Ashleigh and his prayers for the small boy who no longer had a mother and for the husband who had lost his wife.

After the service, we all lined up to pay our final respects and hug the family. By the time we got up to the front, Nico was back and in his dad’s arms. He was enjoying giving everyone high fives and hugs. We shared condolences with Ashleigh’s mom, dad, grandparents, and her younger sisters. Then, we greeted Mack’s parents and his older brother, Connor.

“STONE!” I had to smile as Nico leaped from Mack’s arms into mine.

“Hey, sweetheart!” Molly said and rubbed his back. He smiled down at her, then he squealed with delight when he saw the other guys from the team.

I tried to give Nico back to Mack, but he just shook his head and jumped into Cooper’s arms.

“If you don’t mind holding him, he seems happy with you guys,” Mack said.

“We got him, Coach,” Cooper said and swung the laughing little boy onto his shoulders.

“If he gets to be too much or upset, just bring him back up here.”

We all went into the foyer, and I had to laugh as Cooper and Dominic threw a laughing Nico back and forth between themselves.

“Tyler, do you have a minute?” I turned to see Coach Henderson standing there with his wife.

“I didn’t know you were going to be here,” I said in surprise. I hadn’t seen him in the church, but we were close to the front.

“I wanted to pay my respects,” Steve Henderson said. “Someone wants to meet you.”

“Of course,” I said and reached for Molly’s hand to let her know I wanted her to come with us.

“Tyler Stone, this is Harold Schroeder,” Henderson said, gesturing to the tall, gray-haired man in a suit, with baseballs on his tie, standing in front of me. I couldn’t believe it. I had seen him on TV so much I felt as if I knew him, but I had never met him in person. The head coach/manager of the Cincinnati Coyotes was here and wanted to meet me.

“Mr. Stone, I hear good things about you,” Harold Schroeder said to me and gave me a very firm handshake.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Mr. Schroeder.” I said in awe that he had heard of me.

“Please, call me Harry. Hopefully, before we know it, you’ll call me Coach Harry.”

Molly squeezed my hand, and I grinned down at her. “Mr. Sch- I mean, Harry, this is my wife, Molly.”

“Nice to meet you, young lady,” he said and shook her hand. “Good luck with those babies. We were all relieved to hear that you had missed the tornado.”

“Thank you, sir. It’s nice to meet you, too. You have a very good team this year. Fallon looks confident in center field, and Monroe and Miller are an amazing team at the corners.”

“Ah, so your wife is a baseball fan,” Coach Schroeder said, obviously impressed. “That will help you along the way as it’s very hard to be the wife of a baseball player.”

“I am very lucky,” I said and kissed Molly’s temple.

“This is my wife, Jodi,” he said, and we all shook hands with his much younger wife, who looked like a model.

“I am not a baseball fan,” Jodi said with a giggle. “I think the game is boring, but I do love this man.”

Harold just laughed and said, “I did notice Molly didn’t mention how amazing Hamilton is behind the plate.” Molly just shrugged but didn’t comment. I knew she wasn’t a fan of how Russell Hamilton, the current catcher for the Coyotes, played baseball. I wasn’t a fan of his, either. He was very argumentative with the umpires and thought he knew everything. “You know, the cocky bastard is a free agent at the end of the season, and the trade deadline is coming up. Soon, we’ll be a 40-man roster, and a lot of guys will be called up.”

“Honey, we need to see some other people,” his wife said. “Networking is the part of being your wife that I enjoy.”

“We’ll be seeing you soon,” Schroeder said as he shook my hand one more time. “Henderson here says that you are big on watching your own players’ and opponents’ film, and you’re always the first one at the stadium and the last to leave. That is the kind of player I want on my team. Don’t change.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said, and I watched as he and his wife left the church. “Holy shit.”

“You may be in the major’s before we know it, son,” Henderson said with a laugh. “Don’t forget, you’re mine again starting tomorrow. Looking forward to having you back.”

After the funeral, Mack brought Nico back to our motel room in Riverbend. He had other things he wanted to pick up from their home, so it was perfect timing for him to drive back to Cincinnati.

Nico was very excited to see the kittens, and I watched as Mack made a fist with one hand and stroked it gently with his other hand. Nico nodded, picked up the small black kitten, and stroked him softly.

“What did you just sign to him?” Molly asked. “I really want to learn sign language.”

“It was ‘gentle,’” Mack said, smiling at his son. “That was one of the first signs we learned together. He is quickly catching on to sign language. I’m pretty sure he thinks it’s a game.”

Nico played gently and even laughed a little with all of the kittens. I did have to chuckle as I noticed my wife kept putting two of the kittens in Nico’s lap but steered the multi-colored kitten away from him. I had a feeling that was the one Molly wanted to keep.

Nico ended up picking the gray striped tabby kitten. Nico formed both his hands into claw shapes in front of his face and made a clawing motion moving backwards and to the side. Mack nodded in understanding and told us, “It looks like our new kitten is named Tiger.”

Molly did end up keeping the multi-colored kitten and named him Peanut. She says it was because he had some fur on his paw that looked peanut shaped, but I think it was because she couldn’t eat peanuts around me. I was just glad I wasn’t allergic to her kitten, Peanut.

Penelope’s kids ended up naming the all-black female cat Stormi since it had survived the storm. I thought it was an appropriate name for the kitten.

The next day, Molly and I hugged Penelope, her kids, and my former teammates goodbye. Dominic and my wife gave each other an extra long hug. “Take care of her,” he told me and gave me a hug.

“Always,” I said.

“Don’t forget what the doctor said,” Penelope added. “If you have any cramping or possible contractions, go to an urgent care or emergency room. You and the babies are very important. We’ll take care of Peanut and Stormi for you while you’re gone.”

“You better send me pictures of the kittens all the time!” Molly smiled and hugged her friend tightly. “I know, and we’ll be fine. Don’t worry about us. You start asking around for people who need birthday cupcakes or baby shower desserts. I’m only going to be gone for a few weeks, then we can start making money again.”

We climbed into her car to drive towards Crestwood to meet up with the Lightning. During the drive, I enjoyed talking to my wife and playing random road trip games that she said they had played on their way to surprise me. I still couldn’t believe that it was only a week ago.

Molly’s phone gave the text notification sound. “Your mom said their plane just left. We should get to them in perfect time.”

My family had left to go back to Tennessee a few days ago. Mom and Dad were flying into the biggest airport near Crestwood, and we would pick them up to take them to the game on our way. I was so excited my dad was coming to a game. I couldn’t remember the last time he had been to one.

Julia and Rob were needed back at the hospital, and I had appreciated them coming to help with the injured after the tornado. Carter and Alec were staying back to keep the auto shop open. Carter said he had a meeting with a realtor to look at possible locations for his tattoo shop. I was really excited about my brother going in with 4 or 5 other tattoo artists to open up a shop. Dad was very relieved he was still going to work at the auto shop while doing tattoos on the side.

“What gate are they arriving at again?” Molly asked as I maneuvered her car around the airport.

“Gate 8A,” I said and pointed at the sign for the gate we needed.

“There it is. Turn left up here.” Molly directed me. “I see your mom! She’s so cute! I love her!”

I shook my head but was glad that my mom and my wife got along so well.

I pulled into a spot that was designated for pick up only. Mom and Dad walked over to the car and hugs were given all around.

“You don’t know how much this means to me that you’re coming to my game,” I told Dad.

“I’m sorry it’s taken so long,” Dad said as he gave me another hug. “I did something you won’t believe.”

“Oh my gosh! Are you really going to show him right here in the airport parking lot, Mike?” Mom asked.

“Is there a better place to show my son my first tattoo?”

Molly had been taking a drink of her water and spit it all over the place. “Did you say tattoo?”

“No fucking way!” I cried out.

“Tyler Elliott, watch your language!”

“Mom! I’m not a kid anymore,” I said with a shake of my head.

“You’re still my kid.”

“I want to see, Dad!” I said, ignoring my mom’s attempt at a glare. “Please, tell me Carter did it.”

“Yes, your brother did it. He really is talented. I did the drawing, though.”

“No way. I can’t wait to see it!”

Dad lifted up the sleeve of his t-shirt to reveal a tattoo on his upper arm. It was a toolbelt that went all the way around his arm. Hanging from the belt were 4 wrenches. The designs inside each wrench were so detailed that I couldn’t believe my eyes. The first wrench had a stethoscope for Julia. At the bottom was a scrub cap with fish on it. The second wrench had a baseball player diving for the ball. The middle wrench had a catcher”s mask and glove. It also had some strawberries hanging off of the wrench. My chest puffed out with pride. I checked out the final wrench and smiled. Inside that one was a tattoo gun.

“Holy crap, that’s amazing,” I said. “I love it, Dad!”

“Are the strawberries for me?” Molly asked as she came over to take a closer look.

“Yes, they are,” Dad said with a grin. “The scrub cap with fish on it is for Rob since he loves to go fishing on his days off. When your brothers find their matches, I will add something for them. I also plan on adding something for each of your babies under your wrench when we discover what they are passionate about.”

“Oh, that’s perfect! It’s like a family tree but with wrenches!” Molly exclaimed.

“That’s exactly what it is.” He pointed to the tool belt. I had missed it, but the date my parents got married was on the tool belt along with four hummingbirds. My mom loved hummingbirds, and I guessed that the four symbolized her four children.

“Well, we’d better go, or I’ll be late to my game. I’m so glad you guys will be in the stands cheering me on!” I said.