Breaking Skin (9 page)

W
hen we get home, I use my phone to google Cole. I can’t help myself; I have to satisfy my curiosity.

His name brings up pages and pages of links. Most of them are sports articles, but there are images and videos too. Those familiar blue eyes stare out at me from picture after picture. In some photographs, he has on his Sharks uniform and his hair is matted down, sweaty from playing. In others, he stands beside a woman with sleek red hair. She’s tall and beautiful and he’s impossibly handsome. The caption says she’s his wife,
was
his wife. They’re a stunning couple, and I can’t help my jealousy. I also can’t help comparing myself to her and falling short.

I look through the videos too and find they’re mostly footage of hockey games Cole played in. I watch one, and the focus is on a player wearing number thirty-seven and flying down the ice with the puck. He scores, and the announcer goes crazy yelling Cole’s name. Cole is number thirty-seven. After that, I watch several more videos that feature number thirty-seven scoring, skating impossibly fast and aggressively checking players from the other team.

I try to reconcile number thirty-seven with the man I met at Blackburn’s, the one who tempered his steely determination with patience and understanding. The one I felt safe enough with to take home with me that night. Then I think of the surly man I know now, the quiet one who cares for his son and goes to the grocery store like everyone else.

Neither of them match the predator on-screen named Demolition Man Dempsey, the powerful man who married a beautiful actress and lived life in the fast lane. He’s changed and I don’t know why, but I do know Cole the hockey star existed in a whole other universe from mine, one that I never would have collided with.

I’m still watching him on my phone when two players come at Cole from behind and hit him with so much force that he slams up against the glass hard enough to shatter it. I gasp out loud when he goes down like sack of potatoes. Then he stays down, lying limp on the ice as the referees rush over. The other players crowd around him, and my hand covers my mouth as my heart clenches tightly.

The crowd gets to its feet and the announcers go oddly silent. Finally, I have to stop the video. I can’t watch anymore. I know it turned out okay because Cole is right next door, but I’m glad he told the man in the grocery store he’s retired.

Langley calls to me from the family room. “Is it time to make the lasagna yet?”

I put my phone away and try to erase the image of Cole’s lifeless form on the ice. “Sure. Come on in.”

A few hours later dinner is finished, the leftovers are put away, and Langley is tucked into bed. The lasagna wasn’t fancy but it turned out decent, a little messy since an eight-year-old added most of the layers, but it tasted good.

Langley enjoyed helping me. The fact that her mother isn’t home yet doesn’t seem to worry her. She told me her babysitter stays with her at night sometimes while her mother goes out, and I find myself disapproving, even though I have no right to.

I look out the kitchen window, but in the glass I only see my own worried reflection. Renee has been gone all day and into the evening now with no word at all, and I don’t think I can pretend everything is okay anymore. I have to do something, but the first thing that comes to mind is the last thing I want to do.

I’d rather not call the nursing home where my mother has lived since her second stroke, but since I don’t know any of Renee’s friends, it’s the only phone call I know to make other than one to the police. I’d rather not call the police because I don’t want to exaggerate the situation or get Renee into trouble.

I’ve called the nursing home a few times over the years to check on my mother’s condition. The nurses always update me, but I haven’t seen or spoken to my mother since I was eighteen. I know she can speak, although her speech is impaired. The nurses tell me this when they ask if I’d like to talk to her. I can hear their silent disapproval over the line when I decline.

After I finally work up the nerve to call, the nursing home is a dead end. There are no answers there. They tell me my mother is asleep and no one has been in to see her today.

Frustration finds me pacing the floor aimlessly. If I were home, I’d go to the studio and dance until I was too exhausted to feel anything more than the aches in my muscles. But I’m not at home and I can’t go home. All I can do is pull open the back door and step out onto the patio in hopes that the crisp night air will clear my head.

It’s cool outside and quiet too, a sharp contrast to the noise I’m used to in the city. Only crickets and the occasional car coming down the road break the silence. Above me, the sky is a bright canopy of stars.

Cooperstown is a beautiful place. I know that even though my past here prevents me from appreciating it. But I remember the quiet nights and I remember this sky. It’s the same night sky I sent my wishes up into as a child. The same sky Renee and I gazed at when we talked about our dream of dancing on the great stages of the world. That dream seems very far away now. The foolish imaginings of children who knew nothing about reality.

A sky full of stars is a beautiful sight to wish upon, but if it realized people thought it could grant wishes, I think it would laugh. The sky doesn’t grant wishes, and when those wishes don’t come true, you can’t blame the stars. Blaming them is like blaming a tree, or a rock, or me, and Renee blames me for everything bad that’s ever happened to her.

As I stand there looking up at the stars, the sound of ice clinking in a glass gets my attention.

I look across the shadowed backyard and notice a silhouette in the moonlight. My heart quickens at the sight of someone sitting in a chair next door on an expansive deck. Even in the dark, I know it’s Cole. I can feel him watching me.

Before I can think too much about it, I turn and find myself walking in his direction. As I approach, moving quietly across the grass, his silhouette never moves, but the ice stops its clinking as I climb the handful of steps that lead up to the deck.

I swallow to moisten my dry mouth. “Nice night.”

He takes a slow sip of his drink and glances briefly at the sky.

Now that I’m closer, I can make out the features of his shadowed face. The strong, square jaw and overgrown hair that curls over his ears and above his collar. My thoughts go to the videos of Cole I watched earlier and how quickly number thirty-seven went from strong and aggressive to helpless and hurt. Despite the way he’s treated me, the image of him lifeless on the ice tugs at my heart.

“What can I do for you?” he asks. His tone is even, emotionless.

Blinking against the darkness, I rein in my thoughts. “Renee has been gone all day. I’m wondering if she told you where she went . . . or when she was coming back.” I push the question out haltingly because I don’t want to have to ask it at all.

He tilts his head slightly. “You don’t know where she is?”

I shake my head, disappointed and embarrassed by the obviously poor relationship I have with my sister.

“Are you worried about her?” He leans forward in his chair.

I release a tense breath. “Yes.”

“Did you try calling her?”

“All day. She doesn’t answer.”

Cole says nothing in response.

I sigh, and the nerves already skating beneath my skin race even faster because Cole is sitting right there and he’s looking at me. I know my reaction to him makes me a fool, but I can’t seem to help it. He has no interest in me, and if I have any effect on him, he doesn’t show it. It frustrates me that wanting to be as indifferent to Cole as he is to me doesn’t make it so. I’m not indifferent. I’m drowning in my lack of indifference.

After a moment, Cole stands to his full height of six feet and forever, and I arch my neck to keep my gaze on his face.

“It’s still early,” he says. “I’m sure she’ll be home soon. Maybe she just needed a break today.”

“A break. Maybe.” I nod, even though I don’t really believe that.

Cole takes a step toward his door and just looks at me, waiting, and I realize I’m dismissed. He wants me to leave so he can go inside.

Feeling defeated, I turn and descend one step before I look back at him over my shoulder. “Well, good night.” Then I hesitate because I hate the tension between us and I can’t leave it unacknowledged. “Are you being this way because of things my sister told you about me, or because of that night?”

A stillness comes over him. This is the first time either of us has referred to that night.

“Being what way?” he asks.

I close my eyes and shake my head because he wants to pretend this isn’t happening, and now I regret even asking. “Never mind.”

I swiftly descend the steps and am halfway across his yard before he can disappear into his house. The whole way to Renee’s house, I keep my back straight and my eyes forward. I don’t even bother to look up at the stars before I pull open the door and go inside.

In Renee’s kitchen again, my hands start to tremble and my eyes blur with tears. Familiar pain presses down on me. Resentment toward Renee and my mother and this town, a place that never wanted to know the truth and preferred the lies. Lies that Renee continues to tell, but for her, the lies are the truth now. She bends her reality to make it more convenient, more palatable, even though that often makes me and the part I played more despicable.

My phone on the kitchen table alerts me to the fact that I have a message, and I realize I forgot to take it with me when I went outside. Since I’ve been going back and forth with Deedee all afternoon about the plans for tomorrow, I’m sure it’s her, although I hope it’s Renee.

When I glance at the caller ID, my pulse quickens. It’s Renee’s number, and I frantically tap the message to listen. As her voice comes through the speaker, I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I shake my head at her casual tone while she informs me that she isn’t gone for the day.

She won’t be back for an entire week.

I
n her message last night, Renee said she needed to get away and clear her head. Her tone was flippant and completely ambivalent to any inconvenience her sudden vacation may cause me.

“Thanks for taking care of Langley. Her schedule is taped inside the cabinet door next to the phone in the kitchen. See you next weekend.”

I only missed her by seconds, but when I called her right back, she didn’t pick up. Now I believe Renee’s invitation was a ruse to get me here so she could take off. If she’d actually asked me to watch Langley for a week, I would have had to say no. I can’t miss a week of rehearsals, and she knows that. She knows what staying here could cost me.

Is that what Renee wants? For me to lose my place in the company?

I love my niece, and if it weren’t for Dennis’s rule that missed rehearsals have a direct impact on stage time, I would have loved to spend a week with Langley. But I can’t, not now when my position with the company is already so precarious.

“Is my mom back?” Langley asks when she walks into the kitchen. “I looked in her room but she wasn’t there.”

I set down my cup of coffee, my third. I didn’t get much sleep last night.

“No, not yet.”

She gives me a long look. “She is coming back, though, right?”

I scoff as if the idea of Renee not coming home is ridiculous. “Of course she is.”

As Langley watches me, there’s a pinch of concern in her eyes. How can I tell her Renee is going to be gone for a week? I’m afraid the thought of not seeing her mother for so long and having only me here won’t improve her state of mind. We’re doing okay, but the closer relationship I’m building with Langley is tenuous, still in its infancy, and could be brought down with very little provocation.

I decide not to tell her until after the performance this afternoon. I don’t want to risk ruining the day for her. Besides, I have no idea what I’m going to do about this situation yet.

“It’s Sunday,” she says after a moment. “Mom lets me watch as much TV as I want on Sundays.”

Her expression holds a challenge. We had a small disagreement last night when I didn’t let her watch television before bed.