Keep Your Girl Out of My Shoe Cabinet, Your Wife

Annoyed Viviane threw the napkin against her sleeping husbands head. It was just another day in her hospital room. Slowly the hours came and dragged by. Her neighbours had come and went. Joanna, the fifth girl to share a room with since she had gotten into the hospital, had been brought to the delivery room hours earlier.
Sidney napped in on a couch by the window. Their life had fallen into a routine. In the morning Sidney would lock up the house, head to the rink for the work out, on ice practice, sometimes media stuff, before coming to the hospital. Usually he would nap on the couch, hold Viviane’s company until the visiting time ended. All they did was wait. Wait for something to happen.
It was February 26th, 4 days after Viviane’s due date and even though the baby had given them a hard time in the second trimester and the first part of the third, it didn’t make any efforts to leave it’s safe place yet. The Penguins were to play the Columbus Blue Jackets tonight at home. Sidney hadn’t returned to play but he was getting closer with every day.
Another paper ball hit his brown curls. He spent so much time at the rink and the hospital that other things like getting his hair cut were put on the back burner. The curls had grown out a little and were dangling into his forehead. Sid barely moved but opened one eye slightly.
“What?”

“I’m bored” she replied and threw the next piece of napkin in his direction. Sidney let out an annoyed sigh, lifted the cap from his lap and placed it on his head to the paper wouldn’t get caught in the hair or hit his eyes. He closed his eyes again and melted into the pillows resting his acing muscles.

“Siddy” Viviane cooed and moved so she sat on the bed with her legs pulled underneath her.

“Viviane I’m tired. Give me one hour… please.”

She sighed knowing that he would never get up for her entertainment.

“Come here. Lay down in the bed… it will give you a better rest… I will walk through the hall for a while. Maybe your stubborn offspring will decide to grace us with presence.”

Sidney chuckled lightly and finally moved. The promise of a somewhat comfortable bed for some time just sounded heavenly to him and made getting up feel less horrible. Sitting up he watched Viviane slide from the bed and shove her swollen feet into the neon yellow crocs he had borrowed her. In a slow pace she wobbled towards the door, paused to wink at him and walked out of the door with a smile on her face.
Before the door fell close he was on his feet undoing his belt and the button of the tailored jeans. His hooded sweater found them on the couch and he slid under the warm covers of the bed.
The warmth engulfed him and eased the pain between his shoulder blades and in his calves. His work out in the weight room had been intense in the last week and his body made him pay for it. Soon his eyelids fluttered close and he drifted away.

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With the help of a nurse Viviane pulled the door open to walk back into her room after a roughly 15 minute walk. Opposing to the orders she had to follow weeks ago she had to walk a total minimum of an hour these days.
She found her husband fast asleep in the small single bed. He laid on his side with the back towards the door. On the tip of her toes she hurried around the bed and squeezed herself next to him. In his sleep he shuffled around a little and nestled his head into what was left of her lap.
Lost in her thoughts Viviane played with his curls and tried to relax. She didn’t do a lot but every thing was tiring. In an instant she would trade everything she owned to have the baby right away and get out of the hospital. The blues were getting the best of her and the yellow painted walls and the blue green yellow were haunting her in her sleep. The cheap Van Gogh print on the wall was burned into her memory with greatest detail. If she had any painting skill it would have been an easy task to do a perfect copy of it.
Her gaze fell down on the ever present belly. The perfectly trained abs, the flat belly, it all was long gone. It had been replaced with a blown up bump.
Her gaze wandered on and stopped on Sid. A year ago she hadn’t wasted a thought on reviving their friendship and here they were in a hospital bed, waiting for their baby to finally be born, forced into marriage by their parents. She hesitated a second and looked at his face. It had been weeks since they had shared a bed, weeks since she held him in his sleep with the chance to take in the features that felt more familiar than her mothers.

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An hour later while her eyes still hung on every word written in the Rachel Gibson novel she was consuming, she felt something move. First she thought it only was the baby but soon she remembered Sid. Slowly she placed the paper back aside and looked down into the little, tired brown eyes. He yawn and curled his nose in dismay.

“What time is it?” he whispered and pulled the cover up to his chin.

“5:27. The game doesn’t start until 7”

“Perfect. So I can sleep another hour.” Another yawn escaped his plum lips and his eyes fluttered close in progress.

“Why are you so tired? Were you out partying last night with the IR gang or what?” she joked.

He shook his head before mumbling “Had to be at the rink for a 7:00am radio interview for some Russian sports channel and the fire alarm had a false alarm around 3:30 so I didn’t get a real lot of sleep.” His hand searched for his phone on the nightstand and when he finally found it he passed it to Viviane. “Whoever texts or calls just read or answer it. If the team needs me or advice wake me up okay? Otherwise can you set us an alarm for game time?”
Before she could reply, the bottomless brown orbs disappeared behind the curtain of dark lashes and his breath got even.
After setting the alarm and changing the call alert to vibration, she set the phone back onto the nightstand to continue her book. The author had the talent to suck Viviane into her love stories. Usually not a sucker for chick flicks she always felt with the protagonists and couldn’t set a novel aside before the last page had been read.

A vibration next to her made her jump. It was only a text message Vero and Flower send, wishing them a great evening and to have fun watching the game in front of the TV. Viviane send a quick answer wishing Flower a good game and Vero a good time. Shortly after Trina called but Viv cut her short telling her that Sid was sleeping and she was unable to move. Trina understood and made her promise 3 times that they would call as soon as something changed. Sometimes it felt like half of the population of Cole Harbour…. Maybe more like Nova Scotia…. Screw that Canada, was sitting next to their mother’s telephone’s waiting for the call that made them take the next plane out.
A couple more not really interesting texts came in and Viviane let Sidney catch up with the sleep he desperately needed. Bags were forming under his eyes and a dark circle shadowed them. Suddenly one text caught her attention.

Did u ask her by now? Grow a pair already. What do u have to lose? u’ve been planning it since when? u’ll be a dad soon. Sort it out before then. Viv will understand. Got everything u need?-Tay

Confused she marked the text as unread and put the device back on the night stand. Who did he have to ask what? Where there still other girls in his life? On the road? Back home in Nova Scotia? What was there to sort out? And what did Sid need?
Viviane’s chest hurt. Taylor had always been her little sister. The one you thought you could trust.

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The alarm of the phone went off and jerked Viviane back to reality. Quickly she shut it off, tried her eyes with a tissue and did her best to compose herself. After a huge sip of water she could breath again and nudged Sidney to wake him up. Quickly he jolted awake, looked around in panic before realizing that nothing bad had happened. Relieved he stretched and headed to the bathroom. As soon as the door closed behind him a nurse walked in to take her blood pressure and temperature before handing Viviane her dinner.
She had never been a huge friend of hospital or plane food and she was craving for coming home to either Sidney’s, her mother’s or her mother in law’s home made dinners.

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30 minutes later the puck had dropped and the game was up and running. Sidney was in his zone, sitting between Viviane’s legs, trying not to lean against the baby. On the screen of his iPad that laid on his legs statistics and shooting patterns were listed and updating all the time. Like the box score on the homepage… just with a lot more data. On Viviane’s iPad he would watch tiny replays the video guy send him so in each commercial break Sidney would review the key scenes of the last minutes, make notes on the things that stood out to him or looked odd and mailed them to Dan so when he came to the locker room for the first intermission, Sidney’s summary of the first period and key notes on the goalies or flaws in the defense were on his desk.

It was Viviane’s time to relax. Something about watching him work was oddly attractive and she found herself staring at him a lot more than staring at the TV screen. She leaned back into the mass of pillows their friends had carried into the room during the weeks and let her hand wander over his t shirt clad shirt. Her thin fingers dug into his hard acing muscled every now and then, causing a few sighs or moans escape from his throat.

The first period came and went rather uneventful. During the intermission Sidney only had a short phone call with Dan and Tony to give them his head up. After hanging up he leaned back a little and took her fragile, cold hands into his big, calloused one’s. Viviane pulled him closer. Hugging him from behind as good as the baby allowed the parents to. Her forehead soon nestled in the crook of his neck and her eyes fell close. Carefully he petted her head and whispered: “Are you tired?”

Viviane nodded in his giant shoulder. “Do you want me to drive home in the next intermission? I would make it on time, don’t worry about that. I just don’t want to keep you awake.”

She shook her head at his response and answered: “No please stay unless some heartless nurse kicks you out before the game ends. I’d end up watching it anyways so stay as my company please.”
With an honest smile Sidney agreed to stay and got to his old position because the game came back on. Finally the game sped up and it started to get more exciting. Sid enjoyed seeing his teammates coming out of the locker room with some extra power. It looked better than before. The passes went tape to tape again and the wingers played a lot more north south in the offensive zone than east west. Viviane was fully awake awake again, jumping up and down as far as she could do that sitting in a bed 10 moths pregnant. The Columbus dmen seemed a little confused in the sudden change of the momentum and Geno intercepted a puck rushing towards the….

Something in Sidney’s back and he turned around to his over excited wife who’s attention was glued to the screen. Unsure of what to say he mumbled:
“Viviane you can go to the toilet I have reruns on the iPad in case you miss a goal.”

She looked at him in confusion but followed his gaze to her crotch. Her cheeks turned red and the grip onto Sidney’s shoulder fastened.
“I think my water just broke…”

“Oh my god Oh my god Oh my god” Sidney jumped up trying to remember what he had read in the books the wives recommended.
“Getting the bag, getting the car, getting the wife… okay I can do this… the bag… Viviane where is the bag for the hospital?” he ran through the dark room like a head less rooster. Viviane watched her husband with greatest amusement.
“I have no clue what you are talking about. Nice that you read those books, but you indeed know that we already are in a hospital right?”
Sidney stopped in his tracks and his eyes focused on her. “Riiiiight.” He dragged the word. “There goes the plan the books laid out… what do I have to do?”
The big question mark in his expression made him look like the 24 year old child he should be.

“How about get a nurse?” She suggested and pointed to the door. Within seconds he disappeared.
“They’ll be here with a wheel chair and a gown in a minute then we can go downstairs.” Sidney said, plopping down to continue his work as soon as he was back inside. The moment the second intermission started Viviane sat down in the wheelchair and was ready to go to the delivery room. Sid gathered his phone, the ipads and his notes but the nurse shot him a disapproving look.

“I’m sorry. For the sake of the new borns we don’t have any wifi in the ward and only limited cell phone use. You won’t get you 3G there. So you have to decide now. Family or hockey… what’s more important. Stay here and work through the rest of the game come down then or be with your wife from now on and screw today’s game. I can’t promise you when the baby will be born. Can be 10 minutes, can be 10 hours…” the nurse rattled down in a strict voice.

Sidney felt the eyes of Viviane and the nurse burning into his back as he reached for his phone. The screen said “Dan Bylsma calling”