Ellen Hartman - Calling the Shots

“Fine,” she said. “Fine. It’s not like I have anywhere to go, anyway.”

The bus beeped again. The driver wouldn’t wait much longer.

“Can I go to school, or am I grounded from that, too?”

He stepped aside and she pushed the door open. Snow swirled in around their feet. The storm door closed behind her with a snap, cutting the cold air off.

He stood watching her, but the glass fogged as she climbed onto the bus and he lost track of her. “Have a good day,” he said, knowing it was inane but wishing there was some way she could hear him.

He slammed the inside door closed and smacked it with his palm.

You’re grounded? He’d never grounded anyone before. Where had that come from?

In the kitchen, his cell phone lay next to his laptop on the table. He called Erin. Screw her if it was only 5:00 in the morning in L.A. Her fault for moving so damn far away from her kid.

She didn’t answer, and he left a short message to call him. She probably wouldn’t. It usually took about three tries before he could contact her and it was a rare day when she actually called him back anytime during daylight hours.

She was busy, she’d say.

Bryan picked up Allie’s bowl and took it to the dishwasher. He put the box of cereal back in the cupboard and wiped off the table. Erin was busy all right.

Busy leading her new life. The divorce last year hadn’t exactly been a surprise. They hadn’t been close since before Allie went to kindergarten. When they slept together it had been about physical release, not love. But she’d been a good mom to Allie. They hadn’t been girlfriends like some of the moms and kids he saw on TV, but their relationship was decent. He thought it was, anyway. Who could tell, though?

During the course of their divorce, he’d learned exactly how much Erin had hidden from him. She’d had an affair with some guy she met at karaoke night at the Holiday Inn. She’d claimed she was restless, but the affair hadn’t satisfied her any more than being married to him had.

So she’d given up men and started taking classes and entering hairstyling competitions. She’d flown out to Los Angeles for a weeklong workshop and shortly after she got back she’d filed for divorce.

He hadn’t fought her on custody because it had never occurred to him that she would want to leave Twin Falls. It made sense that he’d get an apartment, he’d keep his travel schedule and he’d see Allie on the weekends.

He’d had no idea Erin was looking for more than a release from him until she’d blindsided him and Allie again at the beginning of the summer. She tried out for and was cast on a reality show following the U.S. tour of the girl band Lush. The show hired stylists and a hair-and-makeup crew to travel with the band for six months.

When Erin left on the tour in September, he’d cut a deal with his boss to scale back his traveling, and arranged for his sister to watch Allie when he was away. But he’d been pitifully unprepared to face their new reality. He used to have two jobs: earn the money and deal with Allie’s hockey. Since Erin left them, he’d encountered a whole world of unfamiliar challenges—and even the two things he’d always done well were messed up. His sales numbers were off and with this fight, Allie was in danger of losing hockey. He’d never expected to be a single dad and now, all signs indicated he was screwing it up.

Bryan picked up the dishcloth and wet it, running the water hot and then wringing the cloth out. He wiped the table, lifting the place mat from Allie’s place and then his, and shifting the stack of school papers she’d unloaded from her backpack.

Her grades were slipping. There was a science test buried in the stack with a red note on the top that read, “See me.” He wondered if Allie had followed through. Should he call the teacher and find out?

He turned the test over and glanced at the questions, but then dropped it back on the table and shifted a pile of other papers on top of it. He backed up a step. Nothing, not the night he wrecked his knee, not losing his scholarship, not even the day he’d crawled to Danny for a job after he flunked out of college, had knocked him on his butt as hard as failing Allie.

“Damn it, Erin.” He banged his fist on the table and then threw the dishcloth at the sink. It landed with a splat and slid down to settle in a cereal bowl half-full of water. He hated feeling incompetent.

Bryan turned his back on the kitchen, grabbed his keys and his skate bag, and headed for the rink. The locker room was empty when he got there. He sat on the uneven green bench and carefully buckled his knee brace over his jeans before strapping on his skates.

Fifteen minutes after he pulled into the lot, he was on the ice. He pushed himself hard, ignoring the protests from his knee, as he powered through lap after lap.

He was the only one skating. Danny had open-ice times most mornings but other than a moms-and-toddlers group that came on Thursday mornings, not many people got out here on weekdays. He was glad to be alone. Glad he didn’t have to see anyone and could let the ice and the speed and the cold air fill his mind with nothing but white and the rhythmic pattern of red and blue lines rushing under his skates.

This was what he knew how to do. He didn’t have to think, his muscles were trained and his body did the work. At the center line, he forced a full stop, spraying ice off his blades. Pushing off in the opposite direction, he savored the pull in his muscles when he dug deep on the crossovers.

He’d almost been one of the lucky ones, the guys who got to make a living playing sports. He could have put his body to work for Erin and Allie. Instead, he’d thrown that chance away on a drunken stunt.

He understood now that getting drafted, getting his scholarship, hadn’t meant much. They were merely steps on the long road to the NHL, but at the time, he and Erin both felt he’d gotten his ticket. They hadn’t counted on him wrecking his knee at the end of his sophomore season. After the surgeries, he’d worked at his rehab harder than he’d ever worked at anything, but the knee never came back to what it was and his future in the NHL was gone before he’d even had a taste.

It didn’t take him long to flunk out of school, losing his chance at a degree and a job with a future.

He and Erin wound up living in Twin Falls in the apartment over his sister’s garage. Erin rented a chair in a local salon and got pregnant a few weeks later. Danny gave him a reference and he got a small territory as a sales rep for Dutton Skates, a company that made hockey equipment and team gear, which he’d gradually expanded until he was making a decent living and they’d been able to buy their own house. He’d tried to make it enough, but the weight of disappointments and regret had crushed their family, he thought, almost from the start.

Bryan pushed harder, trying to get himself to the place where he could stop worrying and just be. The ice swept under him, the boards flashed past. But every time he almost got himself to the zone, he’d see Allie the way she’d looked last night in the car. Defeated. Alone. Scared.

He pulled up short again, giving his knee another excuse to complain, and bent over, gripping his thighs, trying to catch his breath and wondering if he’d ever be able to breathe right again.

Someone banged on the glass and he looked over his shoulder. Danny. He kept his head down for another minute until he was sure he had himself under control and then skated to the door and let himself out.

“Figured you’d be here,” Danny said. “How’s Allie?”

Bryan shrugged. “How would you be if you were her?”

“Did Clare call Lila Sykes?”

Bryan pushed the sleeves back on his fleece. “Who’s Lila Sykes?”