Keep Your Girl Out of My Shoe Cabinet, Your Wife

The next morning a thick silence hung over the house. Sidney was plagued with an acing back from waking up in front of Vivian’s door stretched out on the floor. He got up, went to bed but still his back killed him. When he went to the kitchen he found a new text message on his phone from Dan.

“Oh and Sid, never go to bed on a bad note or it will haunt you for weeks. Rather talk through the night and skip practice tomorrow that let her go to bad mad.”

Sidney let out a sigh and shook his head. ‘Too late’ he thought and opened the fridge to make some breakfast. For each step he took extra long, spending as much time as possible before leaving to practice. Every now and then he would just freeze, even stop breezing to check on her. But until the time he practically ran to the door because it was 7:40 and he had to be at Consol at 8 he didn’t hear a tiny noise.

He was a little worried when he sped downtown but on the other hand he knew that if she was sleeping nothing could wake her up so he figured that she needed the sleep she was getting.

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At the house Viviane threw the blanket away the second she heard the front door fall into the lock and the dead bolt close. She was wide awake but her muscles begged for sleep.
A maximum of 4 hours was all she had that night to sleep. The first hour after locking herself in she spend crying herself to sleep. Still she couldn’t grasp what happened in the last 5 days. She woke up again around 2 am. It was silent, but she felt a presence. Her bladder was telling her it would be smart to use a rest room but something told her so stay in bed. After a while her sadness turned into hopelessness and desperation. Why would a husband go to another woman who betrayed him and broke his heart when he had a woman at home?

The more Viviane had thought about it, the more confused she became about the situation, her feelings and their relation ship at all. Around 3 am she heard something move in front of her door. Her muscles froze her body to a solid ball and her eyes were wide open. But when she heard a body shuffle, a low grumble and retreating foot steps. Her muscles relaxed but soon she was tossing and turning again.

So when she got out of bed as soon as Sid left the house she sure was asleep but she was anything but fit.
Her day went by quickly and before she knew the Jaguar parked in front of the house and the front door flew open.

“I’m home” Sid let her know.

“Nursery” she yelled back.

Sidney shook his shoes off, threw his keys in the bowl and put his jacket into the cabinet.
He raised his eyebrows in confusion not able to figure out what she was doing in there. Slowly he climbed the stairs and headed towards her. He found her sitting on the floor building up furniture.

“Viviane stop that. I told you I’d call some boys and we’d do it. I don’t want you or the baby to get hurt.”

Viviane spun around and looked at him. An unreadable expression flashed over her face when she answered: “Like you care about me getting hurt. That’s new to me.” Then she turned around again and continued working some metal into the wood with the help of a screwdriver.

“You know what I mean. I don’t want you to get hurt physically.”

Sidney stepped closer and took the tool out of her hand. In defeat Viviane dropped everything but refused to look at him.

“Mental pain is worse than physical pain. The only pain killer you can take against that is alcohol.”

With these words she stood up, brushed against him and left the room. Quickly he dropped the screw driver into the tool box and hurried after her.

“Vivy don’t…” he couldn’t even phrase the images in his head. The pictures and stories he had read and seen of children who were exposed to alcohol in the womb.

“Do you really think I’m THAT stupid? You mothers would kill me and your lawyer would probably take every cent I ever earned from me and ship me to some island somewhere south from New Zealand so I will never come near to you or the kid ever again if I did that.”

She laughed mockingly but stepped walking.

“Viviane STOP.”

“Stop what? Telling the truth? Walking away from you so you can’t see my face? You worry about my physical health and the baby’s health? Yeah because who would it make you look for the press? They’d make you look like a bad father who gives a shit about his kid and oh so loved wife.
Hey wait a second… so far he attended exactly 2 appointments AND he betrayed his wife more often then I guess she had sex in her life. Wow Sidney you really are Mr Perfect. Mr Canada. I would want my son to have you as a role model.
Now excuse while I leave but I don’t want you to crush that little mental health you still left in me any further.”
Her voice almost broke when she finished and headed into the bedroom.

“Viviane I…”

“I do not want to hear a single word my friend. Not one word.”

“Vivy please… I know that nothing I can possibly say will make it any better but I’m beyond sorry okay? Yeah what I did wasn’t right, it was wrong and if my mom knew it she would be beyond ashamed. You know I love my family and you are my family now so I hate myself for hurting you. I don’t blame my behaviour on booze or bad mood or the pressure I feel being put in. To return to ice, to be a picture perfect husband and father. I guess my needs just got the best of me and took over control of my brain. I’m only human. Mid-way I realized what I was doing was wrong so I left right away. I stopped at a pharmacy brushed my teeth three times and used a whole bottle of Listerine. I’m not proud of what I did and I hate this hanging over us.” His voice slowly rose.

Viviane had sat down on the giant bed in the master bedroom and leaned against the headboard with her legs laid out. She held a pillow in her arms and played with it.

“Ever considered that you’re not the only person in this house who has needs? When I told you about it when I was 4 months you laughed at me. You laughed me straight in the face. You made fun of me. Can you imagine how much that hurts? It’s okay when you fly your girlfriend out to the honey moon? You never had the decency yet to excuse for that. Yeah we are not a couple, hell at that point we weren’t even friends. I hated your guts and parts of me still do it for what you did back in the day. You never thought about going a month without sex and therefore catch up with the person who’s carrying your child. You treated me like vermin. We could have spend this time well with catching up and managing things but you rather had a honeymoon with your girlfriend while your wife spend 90% of the time on her own.
That’s degrading. And now you still feel like it’s okay to go out and have fun while you have the needs? I’m locked in this house. All friends I have in this town are the wives and girlfriends of your friends. I can’t even make any friends because when I get to talk to girls my age somewhere in the store or in a café all they want to know is how you are and how the baby is. It’s frustrating. Now imagine how would you feel if I would just take a guy and sleep with him… let’s say Kris. No one can deny that Kris is the most attractive person on your team, though your team overall is above average. How would that make you feel?
How would you feel when the person you are –no matter for what reason- married to and are going to have a child with soon would sleep with someone else. With some who has no place in this little family that we now are.”

She finished her rant and hugged the pillow closer.

“I…” Sidney started. He wanted to apologize. He wanted to go back to the happy days the just had. He wanted to see her contend smile and her eyes filled with life again.

Viviane stared at him, leaning against the wall in front of her, one hand tucked in the front pockets of his pants, the other one pinched the bridge of his nose. He had his eyes closed and the head hung slightly. The ever prominent wedding band reflected the light.

“I know I have to apologize but I’m afraid you won’t ever forgive me.”

His voice was low and soft. In any other situation Viviane’s skin would be turning into goose bumps.

“What do you think you have to apologize for?” Viviane swallowed hard.

“Many things… the time I broke your favorite Disney mug when we were five, the time I didn’t make it to you ballet recital when we were 10 because I didn’t pay attention during practice and coach made me stay longer for an hour. For leaving you the way I did for Shattuck, for not being here for your junior prom, for never trying to find you and for never flying to see one of your shows. For just dropping you off after we spent that night together.
For behaving the way I did when you told me you were pregnant and for telling Rebecca to come to the Maldives. For not breaking up with her the second I knew I was going to marry you. For the times I messed up and behaved like a dick and my coach and team mates had to lecture me about how to treat a woman and of course for that Becca incident.
I know I can’t undo any of these things because it’s just not possible. I know you never loved the new mug I bought you as much as you loved the old one because it was just from me from a local store and not from you dead grand mother who bought it in Disneyland, Paris.
I can’t undo these things because I can’t turn back time but I’m really truly sorry for each and any of these things and all the others I forgot. All I can do is promise you that I will do everything what is in my control to stay away from Rebecca as far as possible. I want to be a better father and a better husband. But I need you to give me a shot.”

All he heard was a loud exhale from Viviane and saw her leaning her head back against the headboard, pulling her legs towards her and wrapping her arms around it.
Slowly she opened her eyes, let her gaze wander through the room and finally found his eyes.

“That would be the rational thing to do I guess. These old stories aren’t really what stings. Sure you broke my heart when you went to Shattuck. I don’t mean this in a way to make it sound more tragic but you really did. I spent that summer locked in my room listening to the old tapes we made as kids to listen to when you were practicing you shot in the basement. The first day after summer I came back from school and my mom had taken away all pictures, cd’s and tapes everything that reminded me of you. She just didn’t want me to hurt again.
First school was pain and I got used to it more and more. Over the time I began to push you to the back of my mind. I rarely visited Canada and in France and the UK no one ever talks hockey. The first time I saw you after that day in your street was when you played the USA and lost. I went to 15 stores to get your jersey. It was sold out everywhere. In the end some teenage girl sold me hers for 1000. I paid one thousand dollars for a cheap replica jersey just to be able to sit there in your jersey to wear it with a little pride.
I didn’t wear it in pride for my former best friend but for the person that made my little town a point on the map. The person that won the Stanley cup, the Olympic medal, all those things isn’t the person that used to be my best friend. Still now months later I don’t know who you are. Sure some facades of you still are the same but then again you sometimes are a stranger for me. I can not forgive these things right now, because my Sidney would have never done those things. I can’t forgive these things because I still have to get to know the person you turned into to know if all the pain is worth it.
Sidney Crosby isn’t my Sid anymore.
You aren’t the curly headed guy with the wide grin and the sassy comments who would do anything to make his sister be proud of him. Who are you Sidney? Who is that person the media and fame turned you into? Because I don’t like this person.”

Viviane looked Sidney straight in the eyes while telling him all this and at some point she swore she saw them water a little. His jaw clenched and his eyes fluttered shut. His breath got uneven.

“Oh Sid” Viv’s voice shook a little. “Come here.”

A little insecure he walked towards the bed and sat down about a foot away from her. Viviane quickly got onto her knees, closed the distance and wrapped her arms around him. For a while they sat there in silence, minutes went by. Suddenly one quiet sob echoed through the room. Viviane hugged him as close as her bump allowed and felt his head fall onto her shoulder. Softly she stroke over his back and caressed his neck.

“Shhh” she tried to sooth him.
Some moments later Sid himself fall backwards so he laid flat on the bed save for his legs. The sudden motion had pulled Viviane along and she lay half across his broad chest. To give herself a little more room to breath she placed an arm next to his torso and sat up, his hand rested on her upper thigh.

“Hey” she cooed quietly as she removed his toque and threw it away to mess up his hair.
Sidney’s eyes were still half closed when he muttered: “I’d rather die than disappoint Tay.”