Wine After Whiskey

The old brick home was eerily loud. The floors creaked without a hint of somebody other than James in the house and the open windows howled from the wind, making him wonder if it wasn’t the wind but a wolf in the room next over.

Holding himself up with the back of the old couch, James sat cross-legged on the cool hardwood floors with a six-pack of beers lined up to the left of him and a beaten up cardboard box- filled to the brim with the last four years of his life- in front.

He sighed as he picked up one of the pictures. It was a picture of all of them. One of the only ones he had. Her smile was the size of Texas, but his was uneasy and nervous. Sure he was happy, but his feelings at that moment could be classified as more borderline “scared as hell”.

After finding out of their beautiful mistake, the next nine months were a whirlwind. Between James playing hockey and taking up two jobs; and she going to school full-time for nursing, and also picking up shifts in free moments, they began to slowly pull apart. Any time that was left after their responsibilities were met, was spent hanging out with what seemed like everyone else but each other.

Towards the end they were able to reconnect again. James saved up some extra cash and took her away for a weekend to Wasaga Beach. After a couple of days of sun and relaxation, they were back on track and were ready to take on anything. James didn’t realize till it was too late that he wasn’t actually ready for it.

Taking a swig of the beer to numb some of the pain he was feeling on a quiet Saturday evening, he picked up item from the box. This time it wasn’t a picture. It was a birth certificate. The little one’s birth certificate. He shook his head with a small smile as he looked down at the little foot prints that were stamped on. Two little handprints were next to the line that listed James Neal, him, as the father.

Since being traded from Dallas to Pittsburgh he hadn’t thought about them as much. Being thrown into an unfamiliar dressing room and expecting to be a hero after the Penguins two stars had gone down early into the season hadn’t given him ample time to think about the family that he had, for lack of better words, abandoned. Tonight had been the first night since his arrival that he had free time to let his brain run rampant, and run it did. The minute Matt Niskanen- his housemate and teammate from Dallas- left the house to go on at date, James pulled out the old box from the back of his barren closet and tore a six-pack from the fridge.

His mom had called earlier in the week, mentioning how Tessa had taken their daughter to Boston with a male friend of hers for a weekend and they seemed to be pretty serious. The call had gotten James slightly riled up. Why was the mother of his child taking his child to a strange city with a male entity? Questions pooled and perplexed in his mind for nearly a week, causing severe insomnia that could be accredited with only worsening his already terrible slump he had been in since arriving in Pittsburgh.

Looking at the few memories and trinkets he had from the daughter he wasn’t ready for yet only confused the way he was feeling and made the pit in his stomach, that had formed in his abdominal cavity ever since he got off the phone with his mom, just a little bit larger. Tessa hadn’t spoken to him since that fateful day, and in all honesty, he hadn’t expected her to after. He did a dog move and didn’t deserve anything in return. Hell, sometimes he was even surprised his own mother- who sided with his ex- had even started talking to him again after he decided being a father at a young age was just too much.

“I fucked up so much.” He muttered looking down at the picture of the three of them in the hospital shortly after Aubree had been born. Again he took a long swig of the now-warm beer.

“When don’t you, Nealer?” Matt joked as he walked into the room with a smug grin on his face. James hadn’t even heard him come in the door and didn’t even expect him home till past midnight. Looking up at the clock in the kitchen he was surprised to see that it said a quarter till two.

Where the hell had the time gone?

James didn’t even bother to come up with a rebuttal to his best friends comment. It wasn’t worth all the hassle and trouble, and quite frankly the alcohol that James had been drinking was beginning to take a toll on his brain. James tended to say some pretty stupid and pretty harsh things when he became drunk.

“Thinking about ‘em?” The shorter defenseman asked as he plopped himself down on the couch and snagged the last beer that was sitting in the cardboard six-pack box. James didn’t bother to stop him, he knew he had drank enough for the evening and his hangover would undoubtedly be a beaut tomorrow morning.

Out of all the teammates James had ever had, Matt was the only one that knew of his “dirty little secret”. He had done a pretty good job of keeping it mum. Early last season the two friends had gone out for a friendly drink and it ended with James getting hammered and telling Matt about how he abandoned his fiancée and their nine-week old daughter after deciding he was too young and not mature enough to be a father.

Matt listened, but didn’t really understand. He wasn’t a father and hadn’t had a serious relationship in his life. He lived for the bachelor life and only felt for James when he told him he didn’t want to be tied down at such a young age. Yet he had agreed to keep it a secret. James didn’t want it to come out to the media that he was a deadbeat dad, even though that really had been the case.

“It’s stupid.” James replied with a shrug. If it hadn’t been for that damned call earlier in the week it probably wouldn’t have even crossed his mind. Life had just been too busy to think about things that weren’t the frontrunners in his life.

“You’re in a new city, where you don’t know anybody. You’re expected to carry a team that you’ve known for a month on your back and be the next Sidney Crosby, you’re stressed… And they’re your stress reliever. Don’t be so embarrassed about it.” Matt meant well with what he said. Despite being from Minnesota, he hadn’t been the most eloquent growing up, and sometimes just said what he felt. “But I have to tell you man, if you honestly miss them that much, you need to do something about it this summer. She is still your kid, man.”

Without letting me get a word in to counter what he said, Matt gets up off the couch and pads to his bedroom, closing the door softly behind him and leaving me in the living room to chew on what he has just said. His words cloud my mind and all I can think about is what he meant by those last couple of words “she is still your kid, man”. What did he mean by that? Sure, I still knew she was my kid. I hadn’t bothered to sign my legal rights over and Tessa never put me up for a fight with it.

Maybe what Matt said was right… Maybe he finally needed to get the balls back together and do something about the two people in my life that he missed the most. He was older and more mature, and now he was more confidant in being a father. Slightly excited, if you will. After looking at pictures that had been posted up of a growing Aubree in his parents hallways back home for the past couple of years, he was finally ready to step up and be the man he should’ve been all those years before. As soon as the season ended and the summer break began, he vowed he would hatch some kind of diabolic plan that would get his girls back into my arms.