27. Jamie

Jamie

The last timeI came to California upset, my mom let me sulk in peace. But not this time.

Yesterday I helped her stock the shelves at the church food bank for three hours, then we made deliveries all afternoon. Today I mowed and edged an elderly neighbor’s giant lawn and pruned my mother’s rose bushes.

I practically hacked up a lung out there in the back yard from all the exertion, but Mom just whacked me on the back and told me to keep cutting.

And that’s not counting all the time I’ve spent with my siblings.

The weird thing? It’s working. I still don’t feel like my old self, and none of my problems are solved. But moving around has helped me a lot. The more I work, the less I worry. And my appetite is back. We ate dinner an hour ago, but already I’m foraging for a snack.

“Ryan called last night.”

I freeze at the kitchen counter, my hand poised over the cookie jar. My mother sits at the table, serenely sipping her tea as she watches my face. I wonder what she sees in my expression. Joy? Terror? Regret? Frustration? I’m feeling all of that, so I’m curious which emotion is most obvious.

Regret, I imagine. Because boy, do I harbor a ton of regret for the way I handled my departure from Toronto. After the disaster at the rink, I just couldn’t stay in that apartment one second longer. I came home and ran one more airline ticket search. When I spotted a last-minute fare to San Francisco, I didn’t even hesitate. And hey—it cost a lot less than the trip that Wes wanted to plan. A jobless guy can’t afford a beach resort.

It wasn’t Wes’s fault that I really needed to get away, but the look on his face still haunts me.

My hand closes around one of my mother’s seven-grain cookies with raisins. They’re healthier than a cookie really should be. But when in Rome. “What did Wes say?” I finally ask, taking a bite.

Mom sighs. “He wanted to know how you’re doing. Sounds like he hasn’t heard much from you.”

Ouch. I’ve been ducking him out of guilt. Now I only feel worse. “He hasn’t,” I admit.

“And why is that?”

“Well…” I grab a napkin and join her at the table. “I don’t know how to explain what’s wrong. I’ve been really unhappy, but I don’t want him to think it’s his fault.”

Mom swirls her cup around, her expression thoughtful. “But if you don’t tell him, he’ll just assume it’s his fault anyway.”

The cookie suddenly tastes like dust, but I’m not sure it’s the cookie’s fault. “So what you’re saying is that I’m an asshole?”

She laughs. “No, and don’t use that word at my table.”

“Sorry,” I say through the cookie. I get up and head to the refrigerator for milk before this thing kills me. And I can’t die, right? Not before I’ve hashed things out with Wes. I dump the rest of the carton into a big glass and chug it.

She’s studying me when I come back to the table. “So what are you going to do?”

“Talk to him?”

“Besides that. If you’re unhappy, there must be a reason.”

Or a dozen of them. My life in Toronto is a tangled knot that I don’t know how to untie. I haven’t told a soul about the emails I’ve gotten from Bill Braddock. The worst one arrived before my plane even left the tarmac in Toronto:

Dear Coach Canning—

I regret to inform you that Danton has filed a complaint against you for the altercation after the game today. Attached please find his signed complaint form. You have fourteen days to respond before the disciplinary committee makes a final decision. Since you’re on sick leave, it wasn’t necessary for me to consider any further actions at this point.

And Jamie—please call me. You haven’t responded to my earlier suggestions to report your colleague’s misbehavior. If you don’t tell your side of the story, it’s hard for me to help you.

Your team continues to perform well, and it’s my sincere hope to see you skating with them very soon.

—B.B.

He sent a couple of follow-up emails, but I’ve been too embarrassed to respond.

“My job isn’t going well,” I mumble at Mom. “I might be unemployed before summer.”

“I’m sorry, honey,” she whispers. “That can happen to anyone. But I’m sure it’s scary when it’s your first real job.”

I feel a shiver of horror just thinking about it. When I got this job I thought, this is it! My future was all figured out.

Not so much.

“If the coaching job doesn’t work out, I’m so stuck. Another team won’t want me. My work visa is specific to my organization. I can’t just waltz in anywhere and get hired. What the hell am I going to do?” Christ, I haven’t ever said this out loud. It sounds even worse in my parents’ kitchen than it does in my head.

She reaches across the table to squeeze my hand. “It happens, baby. You can’t take it personally.”

Oh, but I can. How else am I going to take it?

“Does Wes know?” When I shake my head, her gaze only becomes more pitying. “You have to talk to him. Now seems like a good time.”

It isn’t, though. “His big interview airs tonight. He sent me a text saying it’s okay if I don’t watch.”

“Oh, we’re watching,” Mom says cheerfully. “Who could stay away?”

My stomach rolls because I’m nervous for Wes. What if the interviewer was an asshole? What if they edited it so that Wes sounds like an asshole? I feel sick for him. He never wanted this kind of attention.

Mom drains her tea and checks her watch. “And we don’t have long to wait. Time to make the popcorn?”

Forty minutes later I’m sitting on the couch beside her, my hands fidgeting and sweaty. My dad is in his recliner reading a newspaper.

Maybe I shouldn’t watch. Wes’s message said: It wasn’t too bad, and I didn’t say anything remotely personal about you. I promise. But don’t watch if it makes you uncomfortable. Life is too short, right? Call me later. I miss you.

My phone is in my pocket, torturing me. I miss him so bad. But whenever I imagine explaining my work woes, I want to throw up. If I get fired, it will be more embarrassing than hearing my name on TV. And if I can’t get another job, what then? Will we have an awful slow-motion breakup when he realizes I can only get a job in the states?

And will I regret giving up my shot in Detroit only to be fired in Toronto?

I’m way too young to have a midlife crisis, damn it.

That’s when Wes’s face appears on the screen, wearing a deer-caught-in-the-headlights expression, and there’s no way I’m bailing now.

“Aw,” my mother says beside me. She sits up a little straighter. “We love you, Ryan!”

“You know he can’t hear you, right?” my father asks from behind the op-ed page.

I hold my breath for the first ten minutes of the interview. The story about the broken arm just kills me, because I’ve never heard it before. I think I met Reggie, too. I’m pretty sure he drove Wes to camp that first summer, and then picked him up again.

Until right now I don’t think I ever really understood how alone in the world Wes is. I mean—when we’re together, he’s not alone, right? So how would I know?

Oh.

Fuck.

Fuck me.

He’s alone right now because I made it that way.

As the interview goes on, I sink lower and lower down into the sofa. My mother makes these little noises whenever Wes makes another self-deprecating joke or mentions his father.

By the time Wes says that I’m his real family, I pretty much want to punch myself.

And when the reporter asks Wes if he wants to get married, I stop breathing entirely.

“Wouldn’t you like to put a ring on this?” he jokes. Then he laughs to himself, as if he’s already convinced it’s a pipe dream. He wears the same cocky smile I’ve always seen on his face. But now I know how much pain it hides. It was right there the whole time, too. But I didn’t understand, because my man is really good at appearing confident.

My parents are both staring at me.

“What?” I croak.

My mother bites her lip. This woman who always knows the right thing to say is silent for once, which only makes me feel worse.

I can’t take it anymore. I get up and go into my childhood room, taking a seat on one of the twin beds. When Wes spent Christmas here, it was weird waking up to see him asleep in the opposite one. He looked as peaceful as I’d ever seen him.

Goddamn it. What have I done to us?

I’m ready to do something about it now, if it’s not too late. I whip out my phone and find the old email with Wes’s itinerary on it. Fuck, he’s in Dallas for at least another day. They have a game there tomorrow night. The private jet won’t get him back to Toronto until the following afternoon.

But there’s always FedEx.

That idea gets me up and rummaging around in the closet of my old room. On the top shelf, under some of Scotty’s old football pads, I find something that will do.

A box.

It’s not perfect. Somebody drew on it with marker, but it’s about the right size, like a cigar box.

I dump out some old hockey cards of mine and then examine the empty interior. I want to let Wes know that I’m with him. When he gets this, he’ll understand. This was always our way of saying how much we care. I’m embarrassed that I haven’t done anything like this for him in a long time, either.

The last time a box had traded hands, he’d sent it to me at Lake Champlain, the week before we moved in together. Jesus Christ. The truth rolls through me like an icy breeze off Lake Ontario. It was I who broke the chain. Not him. Me.

I’ve just spent the last couple of months feeling like I was the one who tried harder in our relationship, and he was the rookie. I thought that doing a few extra loads of laundry made me better at the whole thing.

Not so much.

Though I can still fix it, right? I know what to do.

But minutes pass while I stare at the tidy, empty corners of the box, wondering what I have left of myself to put in here. There was a time when all our troubles were small enough to fit inside a box this size.

Defeat chases my confidence around and around in my head while I come up with ideas and then quickly discard them. A gag gift won’t cut it this time. And I’ve already given Wes a lifetime’s worth of Skittles. I need to give him a sign.

It needs to be a big deal. And it needs to fit in the box.

Right.

I’m almost ready to give in to despair when the answer comes to me. And it’s so fucking obvious that I let out a laugh right there in the empty room.

Pulling out my phone, I tap my sister’s name.

“Jamester!” she says. “Did you watch? Omigod—”

“Jess!” I cut her off. “Go to the mall with me? I think I need your help.”

“Um…did you really just ask for my help? I must alert the media.”

“Shut it. Are you free or not?”

“Pick me up in fifteen.”

I jump into my shoes and yank open the bedroom door, only to find my mom standing on the other side, her fist poised to knock. “Can I borrow the car? It’s really important.”

“Of course,” she says without hesitation. “Let me grab the keys from my purse.”