A Puck Between Us

Addison walked back into the apartment, picking up our baby and she walked right out.

I followed behind her and watched them walk down the hallway—that was my family.

We got outside and walked over to the truck. She strapped Emerson in his carseat and made her way around the car into the passenger seat.

I turned on the engine to let the heat start up, but didn’t go anywhere.

“Thank you.” I said to her, turning and smiling.

“You don’t have anything to thank me for.” She said. “You deserve this. He is yours Jeff. He is all yours.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “He is ours Addison. He is all ou—“

Her lips pressed against mine, cutting me off.

We drifted apart, both with big smiles on our faces. I was so happy we were back together… if you can call it that. We had a baby and more or less were going to live in the same house.

I started to drive away slowly, just thinking.

This was crazy—good crazy, but crazy none the less. Two weeks ago we weren’t even speaking and now were we’re like a married couple with a kid.

“Addi!!”

“What’s up, bud?” Addison asked him.

I wouldn’t be able to act like he was my brother like she did. I don’t know how she did it.

“Where is mommy?” He asked her back.

I looked over at her and our eyes met, as I too waited to hear her answer now that the truth was out.

“Emerson, I have a surprise for you later!” She said, changing the subject.

“Now! Now! Now!” He said, giggling and getting excited in the back.

I looked in the rearview mirror at my son and smiled. He loved him so much. I couldn’t believe that I missed all that time with him.

“Okay guess what?” Addison said, getting him even more excited.

“He gets excited so easily!” I smiled and turned to look at Addison. “…just like his mother.”

She smiled back. “I have two surprised for you Em. You ready?”

“Ready!” He said and I watched as he held up two fingers.

“And he gets the brains from you.” She said jokingly to me. It was still weird to think that I had a child.

“Member how mommy was at Auntie’s?” She asked him and I was confused. Wasn’t she gonna tell him that she was his mother.

“Uh huhhhh.”

“Wait, Add—“ I started to say and she ignored me, cutting me off.

“Well, she is going away for a while and you are gonna stay with me and Jeff. We are gonna be one big happy family.” I looked at her smiling after parking my car in a parking spot.

“And guess what else?”

“What?” He said seeming upset. He thinks that he has just lost a mother, when really he is gaining two parents that will love him so much more.

“I am gonna be your mommy now!” She tried to explain and he smiled. “And Jeff is gonna be your daddy!”

His face lit up.

“And now I have a surprise!” I said to them both. “Who want’s ice cream?”

Emerson squiggled in his carseat trying to get out before even saying an answer.

“I guess that says it all.” She said smiling and leaning in to kiss me. “You just made his day. Thank you.”

I pulled away from a second miss and unbuckled my seat belt. “And he just made mine, so thank you.”

~~~

We walked into the ice cream shop, Emerson in my arms again.

“What can I get for you guys?” The cheerful woman behind the counter asked us.

“Nilla!” Emerson whispered, shyly in my ear. It was amazing how kids could be so comfortable with someone after knowing them for only two weeks.

“Can we have a cup of vanilla?” I asked her.

“Sure! Small, Medium, or Large?”

“SMALL!” Addison jumped in saying.

“Wow, I used to hate it when my mother did that.” I said to Addison when the woman walked back to get the cup.

“Oh shush. I just know he won’t even finish a small.” She said smirking at me.

“Here we go.” The woman came forward handing us the cup.

Emerson had been eating before she could even give me a spoon for him.

“Someone has a sweet tooth!” She said and laughed, looking at him. “Anything else for you kids?”

“What do you want, Add?” I asked her.

“Oh, me? Nothing. I’m all set. Thanks though.” She said, politely.

“I guess we are all set then.” I told the lady and she rang me up.

I paid and we walked to sit at a table so that Emerson could finish.

“You okay?” I asked Addison who had been very quiet ever since we walked into the shop.

“Yeah, it’s just—we need to talk when we get back to your house… when he goes down for a nap.”

“Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, I just want to talk to you.”

Emerson ate his ice cream, leaving some like she said he would, and we got back into the truck to go home. By the time we got there, only 15 minutes later, Emerson had already fallen asleep.

I carried him into the house and brought him up to my bed, laying him in the middle with pillows surrounding him so he wouldn’t fall off.

I went back downstairs and Addison was sitting on the couch with her head in her hands.

I sat down next to her and put my arm around her.

“I can tell when you are upset, Addison. What’s wrong?”

“It just hit me, Jeff. It just hit me that you didn’t want to leave me. You didn’t want to leave us.”

“Addi, you don’t have to feel bad about it.”

“But I just have to make sure I understand this correctly and you do too.” She said grabbing my hand and holding it in hers, staring at it while she tried to get the words out.

“Do you know why I never called you or told you about this baby? Did you and my mother have any kind of communication while you were gone? Did you guys talk about anything?”

“No, I never talked to anyone about you. I thought I lost you, and talking about it would have just made things worse. Your mom told me to go and never look back. Did she know about this?”

“She did know, and I told her that I was going to tell you and she said to wait until I was three months pregnant. She said that the day before you broke up with me to go to North Carolina. She knew you were going to leave, didn’t she?”

“I didn’t even know I was leaving until 3 days before I actually left. I mean, I was hoping I was eventually going to go to the NHL, but just because I was drafted—I wasn’t expecting to go then.”

“But she knew that you were leaving the day before you actually broke up with me?”

“Well, then she did, yes. I asked her permission to take you with me and she said no. She must not have wanted you to go since you were having a baby.”

“Or she didn’t want me to go because she wanted to be able to control everything.”

“Addison, I’m sure that wasn’t it…” I said, trying to sooth her thoughts, even though I believed them.

“She told me not to tell you, Jeff. She told me not to call you and she told me that I would ruin your life by telling you that you were a father. And as many times as I told her that I knew you, and I knew you would be thrilled to have a baby, she always put that doubt in my mind about you not wanting me or him. I believed her because you left me and it made me despise you more to think that you might have come back for a baby, but not stay for me or not take me with you. And she knew the whole time that you didn’t want to leave me behind. But now I know, Jeff. Now I know that you didn’t leave me and you wouldn’t have wanted to leave him, and it makes it harder for me to accept the fact that I kept this from you all this time.”

Her head crashed into my chest and I could hear her sobbing out apologies against me.

I held her tight and poured my heart out to her now. “I didn’t want to leave you at all, Addison. In fact, I wanted to ask you to marry me, just so that I could take you with me, but your mom wouldn’t approve of it. I never wanted to leave you at all and now I find out that we had a son. I am not worried about me not being there for him, or him not being loved enough, because I can tell that you did a damn good job loving him… What I am the most sorry about is that I wasn’t there when you needed me. When you wanted someone to lay with, or when you needed help getting all baby stuff. When it was 2o’clock in the morning and all you wanted was a Milkyway and I should have been here to get that for you. When you were at a doctor’s appointment or at the hospital to have our perfect son, I wasn’t there, when I should have been holding your hand every step of the way.”

She pulled back a little bit and lifted her chin up, kissing me passionately. When we separated she put her head back on my chest and I rested my chin on top of it.

“Snickers.” She said, taking a deep breath to finish off her crying. “It was never a Milkyway—always Snickers.”