Right Path, Wrong Turn

The smell and the noise of hospitals is something Sophie has always hated. To her, nothing good ever happens at hospitals, and she prefers to stay far away from them. So she is glad to find when she wakes up the next morning, that she is in fact in her own bedroom, free from the evils of hospitals.
It takes a moment for her tired eyes to open enough for her room to come in to full focus, and when it does, she notices some differences. Julian’s crib is gone from her room, leaving a space bare, and Matt’s jacket lies on the end of her bed. She gets up slowly, feeling reenergised from the long sleep and the events of the night start to come back to her.
Matt had woken her gently in the early hours of the morning, when a Doctor had entered the hospital room with some news. Her father needs to stay in for a couple of nights and they are somehow still running tests. She remembers kissing her fathers cheek, and feeling Matt’s hand sitting comfortingly on her back, but its then that she looses all other recollection.
Hearing a loud noise coming from the lounge, she rushes out, only to find Matt and Annabelle sitting on the couch laughing. The animated images of Cinderella flash on the screen and Anna is singing to words to the current song.
“Oh hey, you’re awake,” Matt smiles at her.
“Aunt Sophia!” Annabelle giggles, rushing to hug Sophie’s legs. “Mr Matt has never seen Cinderella before, can you believe that?”
Peering up and seeing the confusion on her Aunt’s face, she elaborates. “Don’t worry Aunt Sophia; Mr Matt has been taking good care of Jul and me. He made us breakfast and he told us all about Grandpa. He said that people are kind of like toys, sometimes they run outta batteries and the hospital is where they give you new ones, so Grandpa will be home soon.”
Seeing the calm on her niece’s face after expecting to find all hell breaking loose and not knowing where to start, Sophie almost starts to cry again. But to hide her face, she bends and wraps Annabelle in a bear hug, kissing her head. With her eyes meeting Matt’s she tips her head to the kitchen and he nods.
“Anna, I’m just going to talk to Matt in the kitchen okay, you watch your movie.”
“Alright.”
The kitchen isn’t fully out of view from the lounge, given not only the size but the layout of the house, though Sophie uses the slight privacy to take a deep breath.
Watching her close her eyes and hold a hand to her chest, Matt worries. “It’s okay Sophie, everything is under control. I let Addison go home this morning when she woke up, after we gave Annabelle and Julian some breakfast. I didn’t have a number for your work but I found a phone book and eventually got hold of them and told them that you’d had a family emergency,” his words rush out of his mouth as if he expects her to be angry, and he points nervously at a big bouquet of flowers that sit on the bench that Sophie hadn’t even noticed until now. “They sent these to you and they told me on the phone that you can take off as much time as you need and they hope your Father gets well soon. I moved Julian’s cot into your father’s room so that you could get some sleep, but I’ve been checking on him every twenty minutes so don’t worry. He woke up for a little bit but Anna sang a bedtime song or something to him and he just went right back to sleep. Anna was a little worried but I suggested the Cinderella movie and she’s been fine. Sorry about the whole ‘battery’ thing, but it was the only analogy I could come up with.”
Sophie’s heart melts in her chest, and she silently prays that she is not dreaming. “How many times has she made you watch Cinderella?”
Matt looks stunned. “What?”
“I know Anna, and I know its now late afternoon, so how many times has she made you watch it so far?”
Running a hand through his hair, Matt confesses, “Only like three times….but you know its fine, she’s a great kid so I don’t mi-”
Before he can see it coming, Sophie peaks up on her tiptoes, leans in and gives him three short kisses on his cheek. She bites her lip sheepishly afterwards, and the skin where her lips touched tingles wildly. “Thank you Matt,” she says, seriously and with whole hearted sincerity. “Thank you for everything. You have no idea how much this means to me.”
He smiles, touching a hand out to Sophie’s shoulder. “I actually think I do. And like I said, it’s fine. There is just only one thing I want in return.”
“Name it.”
He takes a breath before he releases it, knowing that it might frighten her. “The minute your father is back to full health, we try the date again. I believe you owe me.”
As predicted, Sophie’s response is to turn her flushing face and chew her lip. But Matt expected that.
Truth was, when they had come home this morning, Sophie had fallen asleep in the car on the way. He had carried her inside and laid her in bed, before tracking down some blankets. He had been fully intending to sleep on the couch, but when he went back to tuck her in, her hands had reached out for him, needing him close again like they had been at the hospital.
After kicking off his shoes and shrugging out of his jacket, he climbed in, choosing to lie respectively on top of the covers. His arms held Sophie as she slept; her head back on his chest as if that’s where it belonged. The quiet had given him more time to think, time to realise that while the night may have started out with him trying to win over Sophie to tear her from Deryk, things where now changing.
He doesn’t just not want her with Deryk; he doesn’t want her with anyone, except himself. He wants to try another date, to get to know even more about her. He wants to spend more nights like this, with her cuddled against him in his arms. He knew however that she would shy away from it, her defence mechanism after having the feeling of sharing too much with someone as she had done with him last night.
Good thing he’d decided not to take no for an answer.
“Matt, you don’t want to do this,” she whispers, “You don’t want to date me. My life is…..well it’s chaotic. You’ve seen that. You’re a great guy, such a kind guy; you deserve someone who has things more….together.”
He steps forward to her, moving his hand from her shoulder to her cheek. She backs up a little, until she is against the cupboards, but Matt doesn’t shy.
“I don’t want to date someone who has things ‘more together’, I want to date you.”
It takes a little while, but her eyes eventually meet his.
“You’re a great girl Sophie, you’re pretty and smart and funny, and you are far stronger than anybody else I’ve ever met. I’m not asking to marry you, just for another date.”
“Are you sure?”
A grin crosses his lips as his hand moves to the back of her neck and he leans in. Her lips meet his and they share a kiss, one that steals all of Sophie’s breath, answering her question.
She can’t deny that she likes Matt, or that there is ‘something’ between them. But parts of her life have been so closed off from everyone else for so long that she’s not sure she can just let him in like this.
Then it dawns on her that with him standing her in her kitchen after spending the night with her and the day with the most important people in her life, maybe she already has.
“I’d…I’d love to go on another date,” she replies, smiling sweetly. “Maybe the next one will have a better ending.”

***
By late the next morning, Sophie is showered and dressed, the house clean, Jul at day care just for the day and Anna at school, everything taken care of.
Giving herself a moment to finally take a breath, she walks into her father’s room and takes a seat on his freshly made bed. It remains empty, but she has sacrificed a few pillows from her bed that had formally just decorated her room to ensure to raise his comfort levels when he returns.
The doctors had told her yesterday that they expect to be able to release him in a few more days, and she had texted Matt last night to tell him the good news.
‘Good 2 hear’ had been his reply, before going on to drop hints about what he was thinking of planning for the do-over date she supposedly owed him.
She’d found it a little funny how he had insisted on taking her out again, and if she was being honest, it wasn’t only strange because of her connection to his team mate, it was more that he seemed to genuinely want to spend time with her. Not just get a drink or meet in a hotel room and have sex then go separate ways until next time as it was with Deryk, but actually want to hang out with her. He even had seemed to enjoy spending time with Jul and Anna, which Sophie had to admit, melted her heart a little to see.
Her father was a wonderful role model and carer of his grandchildren, but having another male around was something Anna had enjoyed.
“I like Mr Matt,” she had told Sophie when she put her to bed last night. “He’s pretty and funny. He’s a bad singer, but he has a pretty smile. I think he is like the prince from Cinderella. Don’t you think Aunt Sophia?”
Sophie had laughed it off. “I suppose he does have a nice smile, but he is much too old for you Anna.”
“Haha! I don’t like him like that!” Anna had squealed in giggles. “But it was cool to be friends with a boy who doesn’t eat crayons like the stupid ones in my class.”
Sophie laughs again now just thinking about it, and takes a seat her father’s bed. She leans over and opens the first draw of his bedside dresser, needing to take him some clothes when she goes to visit today.
He is a simple and organised man, exemplified by his bedroom. A bed, a dressing table, beside draws and a closet full of nicer clothes being the room’s only real possessions. Photos of Ashley, Sophie, Annabelle and Julian line his walls though; the only possessions of his that he feels are truly valuable.
From his organisational skills, and years of doing the laundry for the house hold, Sophie knows exactly which draw to look in to find the different items of clothes he had requested she bring.
In the very first one, underneath his various piles of underwear and singlet’s, Sophie stumbles across his wedding ring.
She hasn’t seem him wear it since her mother left, but knowing that he’s kept it all this time brings on the same hot wave of anger that she had experienced at the hospital.
Ashley hasn’t come by in the past day or so, and Sophie is somewhat grateful for that, unsure as to whether she will be able to hold back this anger if she is to see her. While there was a small minute of debating it, Sophie did call her yesterday to fill her in on their father’s health scare, but as usual, she only received Ashley’s answering phone.
She grips the ring hard in her hands, wanting to throw it out.
Over the years she had tried to encourage her father towards dating, feeling that he deserved love and to be happy. But he had always replied that he was happy, happy with just his two daughters, the only females he’d ever need.
Tossing the ring back in the draw and closing it securely, Sophie sighs. She wishes he would sell it or something, just get rid of it and all it resembles, the years of his life he wasted with a woman who cared more about the size of a mans bank account rather than that of his heart.
The irony isn’t lost on her though, as she guiltily remembers the silver bracelet that Deryk gifted her, the only piece she has kept. It maybe not the most expensive token he has ever given her, but it’s really the memory attached to it that is reason for why she is yet to sell it like the others.
Perhaps it’s not entirely fair to throw Deryk’s advances in to a seedy type category and bathe Matt in glory. There is a softer side to the tough hockey player that Sophie has seen on several occasions. Like peacefulness on his face as he holds her in his arms after sex, his fingers softly strumming through her hair. Like a shy smile creeping upon his lips when she teased him about a goal he scored once while she was there watching, Lindsay away with friends for a few days.
And most special of all, the almost gentle glisten in his eyes when he had presented her with the silver bracelet in question. There had been no garbage about seeing it and thinking of her, or wanting her to wear it and think of him. He had given it to her to show she was his.
There were no engraved words anywhere on it, but there needn’t be. It claimed her and she had been unable to sell it, purely for that reason.
Now she sees her fault, she is just like her father. Holding on to things that she should be letting go of. Holding on to memories of things past.
Her phone calls to her from where she left it in the lounge while vacuuming, and she grins when she reads the text message.
‘I’m thinking movies nxt week for the date’ it says, “I’ll even let u pick.’
She knows they’ve got a road trip beginning tomorrow, a busy one, and with the extra time off she has asked for to help look after her father, next week fits perfectly.
‘You’ve got a deal Mr Niskanen :)’ she quickly types back.
Once she sees it’s sent, she packs up her father’s clothes into a bag and track down her keys and wallet. But before she leaves the house, she does one more thing.
She retrieves the bracelet and makes a note to drop by the pawn shop on her way home.