Carry You Home

Seven months later

It all happened so quickly. A simple sore throat and what we'd thought -and hoped- was just tonsillitis had turned out to be so much more. Something much more sinister that had let us down the most twisted and darkest path that we'd ever had to travel together. We'd gone through some difficult and often wild and crazy times together; spending four years never knowing exactly where we stood in one another's lives, getting married extremely quickly after we did figure it all out and then becoming parents in what seemed like the blink of an eye. There'd never been anything boring or conventional about Sloan and I. We didn't exactly fit into the mold of what other people considered a normal, functional family. But we loved each other. Always. Regardless of how many fights we got into over the stupidest of things or all of the mean, hurtful things we'd said to each other during the heat of the moment. Words we knew we could never take back and our minds would revert back to and feed off of whenever things got out of control. That would be sure to haunt us if it ever got to the point where we were suddenly immune to simple 'I'm sorry' or an 'I didn't mean it; I was just angry' or hugs and kisses.

She always took me back. Whether I deserved it or not. I had done some stupid things. Some extremely stupid things. I'd had a one night stand with a complete stranger; a shady, questionable bitch that most likely serviced a lot of men in her spare time and could have resulted in me bringing home God knows what disease to my wife. I'd gotten her hopes up when it had come to moving to Montreal. She hadn't wanted to leave Pittsburgh. Hell, I hadn't wanted to leave there. It was our home away from home. The only place aside from La Belle Province where we felt truly welcomed. We had made friends in the Burgh. Some of whom were closer to us than our own family members. We'd laid down roots there. Planned to buy a house in a pretty little, sleepy community where we could raise our son and all the future kids we so desperately wanted. Where we would he content and comfortable. Grow old together. And when it became more than apparent that the Penguins organization didn't want me back and had no room in their future plans for me, Montreal had been our first choice for relocation. We already had a home there; family and friends and so many memories that we'd already built up. We'd be happy there. We didn't doubt that for a second. As much as it would hurt to leave Pittsburgh, we'd be going home. And that knowledge made the idea of relocating a lot easier than it would have been had I signed with -or sent to if there'd ever been a trade- a strange city.

And then the Flyers came at me. With a ferocious intensity that had blinded sided me.

I had handled it all wrong. I had been a selfish, immature fuck that had only been thinking of himself. Not even giving a second thought to my wife...the love of my life...at home waiting for my call to tell her that things were official with Montreal. That I was the newest member of the Canadiens and that we'd be moving back to Canada ASAP. It had been a brief moment of stupidity that would haunt me for weeks. Months even, Maybe it always will. Maybe for the rest of my life, it will linger just under the surface and come back to make me suffer when I'm at my lowest, darkest point. It will remind me of how dumb I'd been. That I'd only cared about myself and in the end, had nearly cost me my family. After everything I'd put her through because of my one night with the stripper, my decision to sign with Philly without discussing it with her should have been the straw that broke the camel's back. God knows any other woman would have caved it. Washed their hands of me.

Only Sloan hadn't been just any other woman. She never had been. Even when she was a virginal seventeen year old successfully seducing her way into not only my bed, but my life as well. She'd never been weak. Sloan didn't do weak. Small in stature, maybe. But her tenacity and her courage were never to sustain at least ten grown men. I hadn't deserved her. I had shown that during the better part of four years when my body been using her for purely sexual reasons yet my brain and my heart had been falling wildly and crazily in love with her. Yet too dumb and too scared to do anything about it. What female would have put up with that? They would have found someone that would love them and only them. Who would commit and give them the kind of life and love that they wanted. And deserved. But not Sloan. She hung in there. Biding her time until I yanked my head out of my ass and realized that I wanted her...every single part of her...in the same way that she wanted me. She'd been patient even thought it had been breaking her heart to hear about my exploits with other women.

“I kept telling myself that one day you'd love me,” she'd once said. Just a mere two weeks before we'd run off to Quebec City to get married. “That one day you'd wake up and you'd realized that you wanted to be with me and only me. I loved you too much to let you go, Max.”

I hadn't deserved that love. I hadn't deserved to have someone that practically worshipped the ground I walked on. Who'd trusted me with not only her body, but her heart and her soul as well. Who always looked at me as if there was nothing I couldn't do. No dragon I couldn't slay, no monster I couldn't defeat. I would have gladly done battle for her. Any time, any place. You always think it's corny and excessive when you hear someone say that they'd die for another human being. You laugh it off and call it ridiculous. And then you meet that one person that changes your entire life. Who makes you weak in the knees when they grace you with even the tiniest of smiles. Who takes your breath away every time they saw your name and renders you speechless with even the simplest of kisses. They become your entire world. Your reason for getting up in the morning and putting one foot in front of the other. And one morning you wake up and you look over at them as they sleep and you realize that you'd die without them. That you don't even remember how you survived before them. And that if anything or anyone threatened to take them away, you'd do whatever it takes to protect them.

When we'd gotten married, I'd made those promises to her. To always love her. To take cherish her and be faithful. To take her through sickness and in health. In the end, I'd failed her. In more ways than one. I'd fucked another woman, I'd lied to her and made a life altering decision without even consulting her. And in the end, I hadn't been able to protect. There hadn't been anything I could do to keep her safe. No decisions I could have made or actions I could have undertook that would have kept her in my life. God knows had there been something...anything...I would have done it. No price would have been too high. I wouldn't have given it a second thought if it meant that she'd be okay. That she'd get better and be in my life forever. Exactly like we'd planned.

I didn't lose her because of my own stupidity. We would have gotten over the 'Flyer incident' eventually. In fact, things had started looking up in those last couple of days before I was set to leave. She'd agreed to spend three weeks there so I could some extra time with her and the baby. I could tell that she was softening...even if it was just slightly...on her stance on not moving to our new place in Haddonfield. Things were getting better. I could feel it. We were going to be just fine. It would take some time to build up the trust again, but she'd forgive me and we'd go on with our lives. The same way we had after I'd told her about my one night stand.

And I hadn't lost her to another man. She hadn't grown tired of my shit and moved on to someone that would treat her better.

Instead, I'd lost to a vicious disease that had shown absolutely no mercy. A rare yet extremely invasive form of thyroid cancer. It couldn't be cured by surgery. Removing the organ itself hadn't been a way of prolonging her life, but it had made her more comfortable and had prevented us from having to put in a feeding and breathing tubes when the mass grew so large that she couldn't swallow or breathe on her own. The doctor had given us eight months. Maybe a year if we went with an aggressive and debilitating regime of both chemotherapy and radiation. Treatments that had been immediately vetoed when we'd found out that she was pregnant.

“We can save the baby if we don't chemo and radiation,” the specialist had said. “The baby stands a chance without it. With it? It would be better off to just have an abortion and spare yourself the agony and the heartache of killing your own child through the treatments.”

We'd decided...after long, painful and extremely tearful deliberation...to forgo the chemo and radiation and just concentrate on the life that was growing inside of her. “I'm going to die regardless, Max,” Sloan had said. “Nothing is going to keep me around. Twelve months at the most. A year. That's it. Nothing we do is going to save me. Wouldn't you rather I not suffer any more than I have to? Wouldn't you rather just let me go and have something beautiful and amazing to remember me by? A miracle?”

It hadn't been an easy choice to make. Had I really had a choice to begin with, none of this would have ever happened. Or at the very least, I would have taken the cancer from her and given it to myself. But life doesn't work that way. And no one ever said it was fair or just. Every one and everything dies at some point in time. Whether we're ready for it to happen or not. I wasn't prepared to lose her. Not this way. I'd always thought we'd grow old and grey together. That after everything we'd been through...all the things I'd done...we'd get our happily ever after. Suddenly we were wandering down a terrifying path. One that we'd never seen coming. And the prospect of losing her had kicked me in the gut. Nothing I could do would keep her around. All the begging and the pleading to a higher power wasn't going to make the cancer go away. Sloan was going to die. Whether I was prepared for it or not.

The first two months had been...given the circumstances...pleasant. The Flyers had put me on an immediate sabbatical and I'd moved my family to St Bruno de Montarville. If we were going to go through this nightmare, we were going to do it surrounded by the people that we loved and trusted. For just over eight weeks, we'd spent every waking moment together. As a family. Sloan and me and our little boy. Doing the things that we'd always said we'd do together but kept putting off to later. Later would never come. We'd need to do it now. In the same way we could no longer hold back the things we so desperately wanted to say to each other. That we both needed to hear. Apologies that we'd never given, tears that hadn't been shed and regrets that hadn't been talked about. We aired every possible piece of dirty laundry. There hadn't been any yelling; no harsh words or hurtful things. Just long, heartfelt and extremely personal talks that had lasted for hours in some cases. We'd managed to bond in a way that I'd never thought possible considering all the things had gone down between us. We'd buried hatchets long before I thought we'd ever be ready to.

And then the cancer had spread. Metastasis, the doctor had called it. Taking over other organs and tissues and forcing her into the hospital. She had wanted to stay at home. She hadn't wanted to die surrounded by doctors and nurses, hooked up to machines that would only prolong the inevitable. But it was the only way that we could save the baby. The life that we had created together and was thriving and growing inside of her despite the disease that was ravaging the rest of her body. A little girl that we had decided to name Lucie. After my mother who had survived her own battle with cancer. It had seemed fitting. One fighter named after another. If my mom could survive, so could her name sake. But she could only do it with the best possible care. Something that I just couldn't give Sloan or our daughter if I kept them at home.

Once we hit thirty two weeks and the doctors were certain that Lucie's lungs and other vital organs were mature enough to sustain her, she was brought into this world through c-section. A tiny -yet extremely healthy- four and a half pound infant with her mother's brilliant red hair and my blue eyes. She'd spent a few weeks in the neo-natal unit under the watchful eye of nurses and pediatricians, but she'd be perfectly fine.

Sloan never made it out of the hospital. And she never got to see our baby girl head home either. She died three weeks after Lucie had been born. Comfortably and peacefully with only me and Bruno in the room. While everyone had gone down to the nursery, my best friend and I had stayed behind. Not uttering even a single word to each other as we sat by Sloan's bedside, watching her sleep and wondering just when she was finally going to just surrender. She didn't have to fight any more. The battle was over. She'd given me the most precious, beautiful gift I could ever hope for. Hanging on long enough to give Lucie a chance at life. There was nothing else I expected of her. Nothing more I could possibly ask of her. Selfishly, I didn't want her to go. I didn't want to go through the pain of saying goodbye. I didn't want to experience that kind of heartache or struggle to find my through the depths of despair. Raise two kids by myself. I just wasn't that strong. I couldn't do all of that by myself. I couldn't do it without her.

At the same time, I couldn't stand seeing her suffer any more. For months I'd witnessed it. This beautiful, energetic woman wasting away before my very eyes. And I'd told her...just the night before....that she didn't have to do it any more. That she could let go. That while I didn't want her to and that I didn't think I could survive without her, I didn't want her to suffer any longer.

“You're a strong person, Max,” she'd said, stroking my hair as I sobbed unabashedly into her stomach. “You're a strong, brave person. You'll be fine without me. I'm not leaving you because I want to.”

Less than twenty four hours later, she was gone. As Bruno and I sat there watching her sleep, she gave a long, content sigh, turned her face towards us and opened her eyes. It was over. Just like that. There was no shuddering breath, no horrific 'death rattle', nothing gruesome that would scar me for life. It was peaceful and quiet. Beautiful, almost. And for what seemed like an eternity, Bruno and I just sat there. Listening to the sounds of life trickling through the bottom of the door and watching the way the shards of sunlight trickled through the blinds on the window, causing Sloan's hair to sparkle brilliantly and bathing her in a ethereal glow that took my breath away. Eventually he moved first. Knees cracking as he pushed himself out of his chair; his entire body shaking as he struggled to hold back the tsunami of emotions threatening to overtake him as he leaned over the bed, dropped a kiss on the top of her head and then quickly fled the room.

I'd spent ten minutes alone with her. Holding her hand, stroking her hair and pressing kisses to every inch of her face. Tasting the salt of my own tears as I told her how much I loved her and thanked her for the way she'd loved me. For being not only my wife, but my best friend and most loyal confidant and my biggest fan. For giving me the opportunity to be a husband and a father. There'd be no one else, I'd assured her. Ever. I wouldn't disrespect her by going back to my manwhore ways. I wouldn't allow loneliness and grief to fill my bed with quick fixes. I wouldn't be that person again. And I most likely would never, ever get married again. I'd already had the best. No woman deserved to be constantly compared to my first wife. To have to compete with a ghost. It was always her.

Only her.

*********

The funeral ended a couple of hours ago. There'd been no prior visitation at a funeral home. No huge church service attended by hundreds of people. Sloan hadn't wanted that. She just wasn't that type of person. A simple graveside ceremony overseen by a handful of carefully selected people. Those who had meant the most to us and who had had the biggest impact on our lives. Our parents (despite the fact she'd been on the outs with hers for quite some time) and siblings, Bruno and his fiancee and a few people from our time in Pittsburgh. Jordan and Pheebs, Sid and Bronwyn, Eric Godard and his wife Alyssa, Flower and Vero with Tanger in tow. Solemn, silent faces dressed in black. Gentle weeping as my family's long time priest read a handful of scriptures and the instructed mourners to place single white roses in their possession on the top of the glistening, cherry wood casket.

“Mommy?” little Max had asked, when I'd led him to the side of the coffin and guided him in the task at hand. “Mum-mum in there? Mum-mum sweeping?”

Somehow I'd managed to hold it together. Even at that moment. Everyone had expected me to be the kind of widower that sobbed incessantly and practically throw himself onto the coffin. Instead it had been Bruno that had been an inconsolable mess. Barely able to stand on his own because of the sorrow creating havoc on his entire body.

I haven't cried in four days. Not since those final moments at Sloan's bedside before the doctor claim to preform one last exam and to officially declare her dead. I feel numb. Unable to shed a tear. Lost in a dark and barren land somewhere between mourning my wife and hating her for leaving me like this. For promising to always love me yet abandoning me. It's irrational, of course. The anger. But, as I've been told, a totally expected and acceptable part of the grieving process. I'm sure people are judging me for my perceived indifference. Whispering about me behind my back because I've yet to shed a tear in front of anyone. Yet none of them know what this feels like. They don't know the pain that I'm in. That threatens to consume me from the inside out. An overwhelming sadness and loneliness that follows me every where. And they certainly don't know what it felt like to leave Sloan there. In the cemetery. The thoughts that had gone through my mind as the car pulled away from the grave site and I braved one final glance over my shoulder. The goodbye and the 'I'll see you again' that I'd whispered to her in my own mind. How I prayed to God that she wasn't scared or lonely. That there was someone up there...someone she loved and trusted...that would take care of her.

At least until I got there and could do it myself.

Mourners have taken over my house. Flowers fill every possible empty space. Enormous, elaborate arrangements sent on the behalf of the Penguins, the Flyers, the NHLPA and family members and friends that couldn't make it. There's more people here for the wake than there was for the actual funeral. Nearly every guy I've ever played with in Pittsburgh and their significant others, some of my teammates from Philly (even though I have yet to play an actual game with them) and a couple of friends from the Canadiens. Some old coaches and some 'higher ups' are here as well. Both from my junior days and in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

Even Mario and Nathalie made the effort.

It's my old boss...my mentor...my hero...that finds me in my sanctuary. I just couldn't take it any longer; all the tears and the reminiscing. I didn't want to hear one more 'I'm sorry' or a 'she's in a better place' or 'at least she's not suffering any more'. A better place? What better place is there than right here? With me and her kids? There can't be anything better than that. And if Sloan was here...if she had the ability to at least speak out from beyond...she'd tell them she hadn't wanted to leave. She hadn't wanted to give up her life with me and our babies. She simply hadn't had a fucking choice.

I had left before I snapped on someone. I appreciate the sentiments, but I just couldn't bear it any more. I didn't want to hear that kind of shit. And I certainly don't feel like offering up some phony laughs every damn time someone brings up a story from her childhood. So instead of going crazy and kicking everyone out of my house, I sought solace outside on the back deck. Me and a bottle of beer enjoying the sunset in the distance.

At first Mario says nothing. He simply sits down beside me and leaves me to my thoughts. I wondered what he'd say if he could read minds. If he knew I was plotting all the ways I could get myself out of this misery. To be with Sloan again. If only I didn't love my kids so much and I wasn't such a fucking chicken shit. Suicide isn't a form of weakness. It's simply the moment where you forget about death because the pain of living is simply too much to bear. Ask Rick Rypien. And Wade Belak. Those weren't weak guys.

“You look terrible,” Mario says at long last. It isn't a criticism. It's the God given truth. I do look like shit. I haven't been on the ice or even worked out since this ordeal began. I've lost thirty pounds. And nearly all my muscle mass. I can't remember the last time I've had a decent meal or slept properly.

“I've had my reasons,” I retort, and swig my beer. I'm still bitter, to be quite honest. Still hurt that I'm no longer a Penguin. I feel like a high school kid that's been jilted by the prettiest and most popular girl and can't quite get fully over it. “Thank you for coming,” I offer up at least a tiny bit of graciousness. This is Mario Lemieux after all. The Magnificent One. Someone I've admired all of my life and whom I'd had the privilege of working for. I could never disrespect him. Ever.

“Nathalie and I wanted to be here,” he says in return. “For you and the kids. For Sloan. You know how much we loved her. Ray wanted to be here. But he had prior commitments and...” his voice trails off. Things didn't end well for Ray Shero and I. No doubt Mario knows all about it. And I'm thankful he doesn't say anything else or press the issue. Because old man Shero is the last person I want to talk or hear about. “This is for you...” he digs into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and pulls out a thin slip of paper. “On behalf of the Penguins organization.”

It's a cheque, of course. One of astronomical proportions. Three millions dollars being simply handed over to me.

“Jordan told me that you'd mentioned you'd wanted to start a foundation in Sloan's name,” Mario explains. “To help other cancer patients and their families. I thought...we thought...that this might get you started.”

I barely manage to squeak out a thank you. What do you say in a moment like this? When your grief is so raw and so persistent and someone is showing such an act of kindness? I feel like I can't breathe. Like my lungs are closing and a fist is tightening around my heart. And when I glance up at him...at a man I admire so greatly and who always treated me with the utmost respect...and see the tears that sparkle in his eyes, I can no longer hold it in. Mario's been there. He'd fought cancer and survived. He's a hero. And for him to do this for me...for my family...to show such emotion and to feel even the tiniest sense of loss...

Well I just can't hold it in any longer. I manage an 'I miss her' before dissolving into tears. Sobs that form somewhere in the pit of my stomach and wrack my entire body on their exit. A strong arm circles my waist and pulls me in; one of his hands clamps down on the back of my head and presses my face into his shoulder. And he rocks me. In the same way a father rocks his distraught child. A firm yet loving embrace and a slow, soothing motion.

“It's going to be okay,” he whispers. “Every thing will be okay. It will get better.”

I can only hope so.