Kim Findlay - Her Family's Defender

So here Michelle and the kids were, in a new city, making a new start.

It was the first day of school for all three of them. Last night Michelle had planned carefully so that the morning would go smoothly. Lunches had been made, clothes had been laid out. She had timed what they’d need to do and left a buffer for accidents.

Except she hadn’t accounted for the stupid Ontario milk bags. What was wrong with the cartons and jugs they had in Manitoba? In Ontario, the cartons only came in small sizes, and her family went through a lot of milk. She’d picked up one of the pitchers they were supposed to put the bags of milk into, but she hadn’t put the bag far enough into the jug, and it had tipped out, pouring milk all over Michelle’s shirt and the counter and floor.

And it had been the last bag of milk, of course. So no cereal for the kids. She’d made sandwiches with the last of the bread last night. No toast, no time to make anything like pancakes and she didn’t have milk or eggs anyway. The seconds had ticked by. She’d wanted to hit something out of sheer frustration.

She was considering picking up something for the kids’ breakfast on the way to school when she heard the faint ping of the elevator and footsteps going down the hallway, followed by the sound of a door opening and closing.

Before she could think it through, she told the kids to mop up the milk and went to ask her new neighbor for some milk.

She knocked at his door and stepped back. Should she apologize again? Grovel?

The door opened. Her neighbor stood there, but she couldn’t form the words.

She understood now that he was a hockey player, and he must have just come in from a run. The weather was still warm and much more humid here than in the Prairies. That would explain why he was wearing only shorts and shoes, and his incredible body was glistening with sweat. She might be a widow with kids, but she could appreciate that.

She stared for a moment, and then suddenly her mind flashed into the past. Back to when she’d first met Mitch, in basic training. They were both young and fit. Mitch had been a runner, and she’d seen him so many times just like this—shirtless, sweaty, looking so good...

But after his last mission, Mitch had come back a changed man. He’d let himself go, along with a lot of other things. So it had been a while since she’d been around a half-naked man looking as good as Troy did right then.

If only it could have been Mitch, still with them in every way. Coming in hot and sweaty from a run and pulling her into his embrace while she squealed, and he pretended not to understand what she was squealing about...

Troy raised his eyebrows. “Hello?”

Michelle forced herself to glance up, and she saw amusement in his eyes. He thought she was tongue-tied from staring at his naked chest. As if. Yes, she was staring at him, but she could handle an attractive body. It was remembering the past that would bring her down.

“Did something happen?” he asked.

Michelle followed his gaze to her shirt and realized the wet milk was making her shirt mostly see-through. Drops were dripping from her hem onto her feet. She could only imagine how the rest of her appeared.

She took a breath. She was army, for goodness’ sake. Discharged now, but she was tough. She straightened and looked him in the eyes.

“We’re out of milk. Could I borrow some?” She should probably at least say please , if not actually grovel, but she just couldn’t while he had that smug expression on his face.

He paused for a moment. “Sure,” he said and invited her in.

If Michelle had bothered to imagine what a single, successful hockey player would do with his place, she would have pictured this condo. The leather furniture was tan instead of black, and the place wasn’t as messy as she might have guessed, but she would wager he had someone come in to clean for him, and that it had been done recently. The big TV, gaming console and sound system, the modern furniture, it was all right out of Single Guy with Money designs.

She followed him into the kitchen, which was sleek and modern—and mostly unused, she suspected. While he opened the fridge, she pulled her shirt from her sticky torso. She’d have to take another quick shower. Reflexively, she pulled her necklace out from under her shirt as he turned to her with one of those ridiculous bags of milk in his large hands.

“Wedding ring?” Troy asked as he eyed her twisting the golden band that hung from her necklace.

Michelle followed his gaze and realized what she’d been doing. She tended to play with the ring when stressed. Before Mitch died, when she’d worn it on her finger, she’d twisted it around and around when she was upset. After he died, she’d moved it onto a necklace around her neck, but the instinct was still there.

It wasn’t hard to figure out why she was stressed at that moment. Three people were starting school today, and she was going to have to start her own preparations all over while trying to get them out the door on time. That would count as stress.

But Troy had paused, waiting for an answer. “Yes,” she said, taking a step closer to the milk and escape.

“Divorce?” he continued, passing the bag of milk toward her eager hands.

She shook her head. When he didn’t let the milk go, she sighed, frustrated. “I’m a widow.”

Surprised, he released his grip. She grabbed the needed bag and pivoted to leave.

“Cancer?” he asked. It was an interesting guess, but not unreasonable. Still, Michelle was not getting into their story with a man who was basically a stranger. They were trying to escape the past in Toronto, not drag it along with them.

She glanced over her shoulder as she headed for the door. “Sorry, long story, and I have to shower again and get the kids to school. Thank you for the milk.”

She left, aware she was in his debt. She’d have to deal with that. She didn’t accept charity. She stood on her own, and didn’t plan to let her neighbor think otherwise.

* * *

TROY WATCHED MICHELLE LEAVE. The milk-drenched T-shirt had given him a pretty vivid picture of her shape. He’d tried to remember she was someone’s mom, but he wasn’t blind. And she’d obviously taken a good look at him, so turn about was fair play.

But once she’d said she was a widow, those thoughts had fled.

A presumably young man could die from many causes. But he’d done the research on this during those dark days, and outside of accidents, suicide and murder, cancer was the top cause of death for young men.

He did his best to avoid dwelling on thoughts about cancer. He had a clean bill of health now. He’d beaten it. But every story the papers ran about him now mentioned the reason he’d missed last season. Every reporter wanted to know how he felt about it, if he was over it, if he could return to where and what he’d been.

Of course he said he’d beaten it. Of course he said he was the same player he’d always been; cancer hadn’t changed him. He wanted to believe it, so that was what he told everyone.

He couldn’t play his game if anyone thought he was soft or weak in any way. So he acted tough, and joked about beating everyone on the ice the way he’d beaten this disease. He never spoke about those black nights. When the doctors had first said the C word.

He hadn’t thought he was really sick. Just a minor urinary tract infection. The doctors would give him some antibiotics, and then he’d be fine. But it wasn’t an infection. It was prostate cancer. There was something in his body that wanted to kill him.

It took a while to get his mind around that. So he’d acquiesced to the advice of his doctors to wait and evaluate how things progressed. He’d tried chemo and radiation, before everyone had finally agreed that surgery was the answer. In hindsight, he’d have been smarter to just have the surgery at the very beginning. The various courses of treatment had meant that he’d missed a whole season before he had a clear bill of health.