All That Matters

Sidney’s schedule became out of control without leaving us much time to settle into our lives in Pittsburgh. The differences were subtle, but they existed. Things weren’t exactly as they had been before we’d married and adjustments were necessary.

He spent most of his time at the rink and I spent most of mine neck deep in my own work in a space that I’d never dreamed I would have. I had my own studio and instead of having to spread my art out on the dining room table or the floor of an empty bedroom. It was a great distraction, keeping me focused on my art when Sidney wasn’t around.

In the few weeks we’d been back in Pittsburgh, we’d made a grand total of three trips in public. After all, Sidney had been adamant that he didn’t care when or how people found out that we were married. He’d been so forceful when trying to calm me, so sure that he didn’t mind no longer being seen as a bachelor.

Lesson learned as the wife of an NHL player: Sidney Crosby lies.

He cared.

He cared so much that we walked through Whole Foods just before closing on a Thursday night with our left hands shoved in our pockets as we carried separate lists and baskets.

We looked like strangers taking a similar path through the store. His eyes flitted around whenever I was within a few feet of him. He looked like a paranoid shoplifter with his pockets filled with loot.

“Christ, Crosby,” I muttered. “You’re worse than me.”

He didn’t reply.

“Oh come on,” I groaned. “Now you’re not talking to me in public?”

“I…” he muttered.

I sighed as he trailed off. He was trying to look fascinated by a box of pasta, refusing to look in my direction at all.

“You’re going to make me check out separately, aren’t you?” I demanded.

“It’s not a terrible idea,” he murmured with his eyes still on the box in his right hand.

I walked away.

I heard him sigh heavily behind me. “Wyn,” he whispered harshly. “Don’t be like this.”

I spun on my heel and stared at him. “You have made it perfectly clear that you aren’t ready for this. You don’t want to be seen with me.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to be seen with you.”

I saw him glance around the corner as if to make sure there was no one close enough to see or hear us.

“You’re hiding behind an endcap of tortilla chips, looking like you’ll get in trouble if someone sees you here. For some reason I can’t quite bring myself to believe you.”

“It’s just that this is new…”

I waited for him to complete his thought as he trailed off. But he made it clear he wouldn’t do so. His words lingered heavily in the air and his unwillingness to explain himself was enough to make me crazy.

“I’m going to go get the apples. Then I’m going to check out. I’ll meet you in the car, unless I decide I’m angry enough to just drive home without you and make you walk.”

He took a step towards me but stopped as I turned towards produce. I didn’t want him to chase me; I wanted him to keep his distance so I didn’t make a scene in the middle of a grocery store. I certainly didn’t want to become the crazy woman who threw apples at her husband during an argument.

Or the crazy woman who threw apples at Sidney Crosby in the middle of Whole Foods.

It was best if he just left me be for a few minutes.

I paid cash at the register, forced a smile for the cashier, and made my way to Sidney’s new SUV. He took longer and I could only assume he was giving me as much space as he could for as long as he could. He would likely double check his portion of the list and check out quietly, taking his time walking back to the vehicle.

He did plenty of thoughtless things, but that didn’t mean he didn’t understand when he needed to leave me be.

He returned a few minutes later and loaded his bags into the back alongside those I’d already placed there.

He slipped into the vehicle and held a single rose out towards me. “I know you prefer daisies and orchids, but this was all they had.”

I raised an eyebrow towards him but hesitated in taking the flower.

“Please don’t be angry with me, babe.”

“No more than a few days ago you were insisting that you didn’t care how people found out that we got married and now it’s like you’ve completely changed your opinion on the matter overnight. You can’t be seen in public with me, you won’t even look at me in a grocery store that is almost completely empty. I just don’t know what to think right now. Can you really blame me for being a little upset with you right now?”

He released a heavy sigh as he continued to hold the rose out towards me, waiting for me to take it from him. I was in no hurry to do so.

“Would you at least try to explain what’s going on?”

He placed the flower on my lap, realizing that I wasn’t going to take it from him. I watched as he rested his head on the steering wheel.

“I don’t know how to describe it,” he muttered. “I don’t want you to feel like this has anything to do with you.”

“Whether that is your intention or not, it has everything to do with me.”

“It’s my problem. I just have to figure out how to handle what I’m feeling.”

“What are you feeling?”

“I don’t know.”

I groaned and dropped my head back against the seat. “You really don’t get how this makes me feel.”

My voice was quiet but I knew that he heard me perfectly well. He stayed with his head on the wheel for a few more minutes, neither of us speaking.

When he finally started the car and pulled out of the parking lot I’d resolved not to speak until he could put his feelings into words. They didn’t have to make perfect sense. Frankly they didn’t need to make any sense; I just wanted him to make an attempt. We both endured the drive back to Sewickley in absolute silence. I was tempted to reach forward and turn on the radio just to introduce some sound to distract from the tension between us.

Aside from lifting the flower from my lap and spinning it a few times between my fingers, I didn’t move. He’d tried, the gesture itself was nice, but the sentiment felt empty when he wasn’t even able to tell me why he was acting the way he was.

We loaded the groceries into the house and put them away quickly, working in tandem without a word between us. The silence still weighed heavily and I took my time in getting ready for bed while Sidney unwound on the couch.

I didn’t wait for him to come to bed and lay alone staring up at the ceiling. I wanted to sleep. I didn’t care that the old saying directed me to never go to bed angry, I was angry and I was tired. I couldn’t get to sleep and heard the television click off in the living room.

Sidney stopped in the bathroom and after a few minutes emerged into the bedroom in a pair of boxers. He slid into his side of the bed, the king size mattress feeling too big and too small at the same time.

“I know you’re still awake,” he murmured.

I didn’t respond.

“You have every right to be angry with me.”

I felt him roll onto his side and face me in the darkness. I refused to look towards him. I didn’t want to make eye contact or see the expression on his face begging me to forgive him for being an asshole. I wanted to stay a little bit angry and he was right, I had every right to be upset with the way he’d behaved.

“I wish I could explain to you why I was so uncomfortable tonight, but I can’t find the words.”

He couldn’t find the words when we went out to dinner with friends a few nights later. He couldn’t even find the words when we stopped in a store on the South Side the day before they started camp.

He’d kept his distance on both occasions. He sat across from me at dinner and rarely spoke directly to me. We looked like we were on some awkward first date. From what anyone could have seen, it probably looked like we’d been set up on a blind date by the friends that we were with. It likely appeared that we hadn’t quite hit it off and it was unlikely there would be a second date. It certainly didn’t appear that we were together, married and sharing a home.

Shopping wasn’t much better.

He glanced around looking nervous and uncomfortable. He was touchy, even the slightest bit of attention from others in the store and he would duck behind a rack or pull his cap down over his eyes. His hands rarely left his pockets.

I wandered away and picked up the things that I needed without him. I left him to act like an idiot all by his lonesome. When I found him again he was tucked away in a corner near the dressing rooms messing with his phone. He was very clearly trying to make himself look busy and perhaps a little invisible. It wasn’t working, at least not on me.

“I’ve got what I need,” I mumbled as I walked past, hating myself for inserting myself into his newly formed behaviors. “I’ll meet you in the car.”

He made a move to follow me to the counter, but he stopped himself as though he’d thought better of it. The cashier didn’t check the name on my card, he barely made eye contact and for that I was thankful.

Sidney returned to the vehicle with a bag of his own.

He didn’t have a peace offering, just a new tie and a few shirts that he’d clearly picked up on the fly. I took the bag from him and settled it on the floor between my feet with my own purchases.

We remained quiet for most of the day. It wasn’t that I was giving him the silent treatment; I just didn’t feel like I had much to say. Until he could explain his behavior, I wasn’t sure what to do or what to say. I was just too frustrated with him.

More than that, I was frustrated with the situation.

I didn’t like feeling like I was only married to him behind closed doors. I felt like I was being hidden away.

I didn’t want to push any buttons the day before he started camp. I had no interest in sending him off to work in the morning completely distracted or angry. I wanted him to have his focus. It wasn’t the end of the world, and it wasn’t the end of a short marriage. We were just having a little trouble communicating and eventually he would find the words.

Until he did, I would remain quiet and wait.

We shared dinner and he talked about his hopes for camp.

For him, camp was always like starting over. It was the beginning of a new season. He had new teammates to adjust to working with and leading as their captain. He had to help his team through the transition into the new setup with a few long-time teammates gone. He was nervous, though he wouldn’t admit to it. He wouldn’t quite touch on the way he was feeling. He was just trying to focus, to keep his head in the game.

“Are you looking forward to it?” I asked as I did what I could to push my own feelings aside.

He nodded. “It’s been a short summer.”

“Well, if you hadn’t been so busy…”

He chuckled and sent me a smile. “It was pretty busy. But it was great.”

I couldn’t help but smile in return.

“Still, it will be nice to get back to work. That first month of summer is always this great, relaxing time and then I spend the rest of the summer waiting for fall to come along.”

“You just want to be doing what you love.”

“I just want to play. Whenever I can. I don’t want to take a single day when I can play for granted. I don’t want to waste a day of it. I’ll have plenty of time to do other things when I retire.”

“If you retire,” I kidded.

“My body will tell me when it’s time for that. And it will happen.”

“Then what?”

He shrugged. “No idea. I’ve got quite a few years before I need to think about it. I have time.”

“You don’t even like to think about it, do you?”

“Not at all.”

“Do you ever think about the future?”

“Of course I do. Just not in regards to hockey. I think about hockey in terms of wanting to win as much as I can; to be the best player that I can. But I really only think about the future in terms of you.”

“In terms of me?”

He smiled again. “Of course.”

“Even if you can’t be seen in public with me?” I quipped.

He took a deep breath. “Just give me time.”

“For?”

“To figure shit out.”

“I’m your wife, you know that right?”

“Of course I do. I just don’t…I feel like…”

“Spit it out.”

“I want to keep you to myself.”

“You’ve been doing that for over a year.”

“Do you want me to make some big announcement?”

“No. I don’t want that at all. I want you to not treat me like a pariah in public. You don’t have to be affectionate or even hold my hand. But I want you to at least have some willingness to speak to me. I don’t want you to act like I’m a stranger.

“I’m not asking you to make out with me in the middle of a busy street. I’m not asking you to shout anything from a fucking rooftop. I just don’t want you to treat me like you’re ashamed of me.”

“Ashamed of you?”

“That’s how it feels, Sidney. I feel like I’m some sort of terrible embarrassment to you when you won’t even look at me when we’re in public. I don’t feel like you’re keeping me to yourself in some selfish way; I feel like you’re hiding me.”

He pushed his plate away and leaned back in his chair. He ran his hands through his hair, his watch and wedding band picking up flashes of light from the chandelier that hung above the kitchen table. He dropped his hands onto the table and hung his head slightly.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

“I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t want to bring it up tonight, not with camp starting tomorrow and everything.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were feeling like this when it started?”

“Because I thought it would pass. I thought you would adjust to it, ease into dealing with being in public with me. I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it if you were just having a bit of trouble adjusting.”

“You should have told me, Bronwyn. I don’t ever want you to feel like that. You’re the one who is supposed to tell me when I’m being an asshole, remember?”

“Sidney?”

“Yes?”

“You’re being an asshole and I kind of want to punch you in the dick.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Too far?”

He chuckled. “I’ve earned it, but please don’t. Or at least let me put a cup on before you do it.”

I laughed with him.

“I really am sorry, Wyn. I love you and I don’t want you to ever feel like I’m ashamed of you. I want to show you off, I really do. I just don’t want anything to hurt you.”

“You’re worried because I’m worried, aren’t you?”

“I know that you want people to like you and the people that matter love you. I just don’t want you to hear anything negative and beat yourself up over it. I want you to be happy. I feel like that’s my job to make sure that you’re happy.”

“Well, this isn’t working. I’m not happy.”

“You’re not?”

“Not at the moment. It’s not like I’m miserable, I just feel uncomfortable more than anything else. We need to find some kind of balance before this drives us both nuts.”

“I’m more concerned about it driving us apart.”

“It’s going to take more than that to get me to pack my bags and leave your sorry ass.”

“I’m glad. But still…”

“We’ll figure it out.”

He sighed and picked at his dinner for a few more minutes, but it was clear that both of us had lost our appetites. We scraped the remnants into the garbage, rinsed our plates, and headed to bed earlier than what was normal for us.

It was the first time in a week that I slept wrapped in his arms. The bed didn’t feel so expansive when we kept ourselves confined to such a small portion of the mattress. It was like an island where we were safe from the rest of the world and I decided to relish in the feeling of it for as long as I could.

I was still tucked against him when I woke in the morning. His arm was wrapped around me and my head was on his chest. I could tell without looking that he was awake, the rise and fall of his chest more rapid than it was when he was sleeping as soundly as he tended to.

“Morning,” he murmured.

“Morning,” I replied as I stretched, trying to bring my muscles back to life after a long night without moving.

I’d slept like the dead and my joints threatened to creak as I pulled away from Sidney and felt the blood rushing into limbs that had fallen asleep throughout the night. I fought back a yawn and rolled onto my back.

“Sleep well?”

I nodded. I’d slept better than I had since we’d returned to Pittsburgh. And while we hadn’t quite tackled everything that needed to, at least I’d had the chance to air my grievances.

“When do you have to leave?”

“A little while.”

“Can you stick around until after breakfast?”

He shook his head. “I’ll eat when I get to the rink. I’ll shower there too.”

“It’s like you don’t even need a house,” I joked.

“I could live out of my car.”

“Especially given how big that sucker is.”

He shook his head and pushed himself up to lean against the headboard. “Do you really hate it that much?”

“I don’t hate it; I just think it was overkill.”

“Do you know how many carseats that thing can hold?”

“Don’t even joke about that. We aren’t ready for one carseat let alone a bunch of them.”

He was trying to get a rise out of me and it was working. He’d gone overboard with the Land Rover that he’d purchased for himself. It was like he’d been trying to prove a point, picking a luxury vehicle that seated seven people and adding as many extra features as he could. The steering wheel was heated and the headlamps cleaned themselves. It was more than anyone needed and I was convinced he’d spent the money just to spite me for putting up such a fight over his insistence about buying me a car.

He was smiling as I watched him roll out of bed and pull on a pair of jeans and a shirt.

“Should I wish you luck?” I asked as he shoved his wallet and phone into the pockets of his jeans.

“It wouldn’t hurt.”

He approached the bed and leaned down towards me. He planted his hands on either side of my arms, practically pinning me down.

“Good luck,” I murmured as his lips sought mine.

He kissed me slowly, seeming hesitant to pull away.

“You’re not mad at me anymore, right?” he asked.

“Right,” I replied as I licked my lips.

He tasted like chapstick and toothpaste, and smelled like the musk that made me shiver.

He left for the rink not long after and I set about finishing a project that I’d started earlier in the week. I didn’t bother with getting dressed or doing anything with my hair and simply locked myself away in my art room. The bright white walls put me in the spirit to create and kept me distracted for the majority of the day and the days following.

Sidney wore himself out each day of camp and said very little about it when he was at home. We would chat for a few minutes about it over dinner, but he was so tired by the time he got home, that he wanted to clear his head.

Each night after dinner he would pull me into the living room, pick a movie at random, and drag me down onto the couch with him. We would sit quietly, go to bed at the same time, and each morning I would wake up in his arms.

It was a new pattern, but we fell comfortably into it as camp moved forward day by day.

It wasn’t until the end of the first week that it changed.

I heard the door slam from inside my art room. I was hesitant to even glance out the door to see what was going on, but I knew hiding would do me no good. I peeked out the door in time to see Sidney storming up the stairs and towards the bedroom.

There wasn’t so much as a simple greeting sent my way; strange given the fact that he generally shouted one from the door.

His keys were still swinging on the hook next to the kitchen door as I passed by. His shoes were next to the door, kicked off haphazardly and left where they landed. I took a moment to set them upright and grab a couple of bottles of water from the refrigerator before making my way towards the stairs to find out what was happening and why Sidney’s mood was so drastically different than he had been when he left the house that morning.

He was sitting on the edge of the bed peeling his socks off of his feet when I stepped into the room. He didn’t look in my direction as I walked past to place one of the bottles of water on his nightstand.

“Hey,” I murmured quietly.

He didn’t reply, tossing his socks towards the hamper and missing.

I sat down next to him only to have him rise immediately to his feet, storm across the room to shove the socks into the hamper, and then head towards the bathroom without a word. I watched him go and jumped as the bathroom door slammed behind him.

It was rare that Sid was angry enough to slam doors. It was also rare that he would simply ignore my presence. I felt like I was starring in a reenactment of the Sixth Sense as he walked past me as though I didn’t exist.

I stood and checked the bathroom door. He hadn’t locked it and I took my opportunity to enter the room as I heard the shower running. I closed it quietly behind me and took a seat on the counter between our sinks.

“What’s wrong?” I asked over the sound of the rushing water.

He didn’t answer me.

“We’re not in public; you don’t get to treat me like I don’t exist right now.”

Still, he said nothing.

“Christ, Sidney! Would you just tell me what the fuck is going on?”

He peered around the wall of the expansive shower, a scowl present on his face. “Just give me a goddamn minute,” he growled as he stepped back into the water.

“For what purpose?”

“Why don’t you just Google it?”

“What do I need to Google and how does Google have more insight than your wife?”

“My name. It’s all you’ll need.”

I avoided web searches that had anything to do with Sidney’s name. I no longer checked on blogs or news stories. I assumed that all I needed to know I would hear from the man himself, but he wasn’t letting me in and I was quickly growing aggravated.

I slipped my phone out of my pocket and typed his name quickly. I sighed when I realized what had happened.

The first link to appear was all that I needed to see to tell me what was wrong with Sidney and why he was in such a terrible mood.

Practice was open to the public that day. Anyone and their uncle could attend the practice that morning. And they had. It was a great thing for the fans, but it turned out to be a terrible thing for the secrets that Sidney was trying so hard to keep to himself.

It appeared that at some point during the practice Sidney had removed his left glove to adjust it. He’d left his ring on, forgetting initially and not going back to right it, thinking that no one would be seeing his hand. In the process of the removal and replacement of his glove mid=practice, Sidney had revealed everything.

Someone with an iPhone had nabbed a quick picture of the silver band on his left hand and the cat was essentially out of the bag. The story had broken, the internet was aflutter with rumors, and Sidney was in a rage over it.

“Okay, so they know,” I said as the water cut off and he stepped out of the shower.

He was fuming as he wrapped a towel around his waist, water dripping from his curls. I watched as beads of water rolled down his chest, a few of them catching on his necklace and lingering there before finally splashing to the floor in what felt like some cruel form of slow motion.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“It is such a violation of my privacy!” he growled harshly.

“You wore your ring in public. Someone took a picture. It’s not like someone broke into our bedroom and took pictures of us having sex. No one is violating you right now. They probably managed to take the picture at the right moment and didn’t even notice until later.”

“This doesn’t upset you?”

“I thought we’d decided that this wasn’t a huge deal. That this would come out when it came out and that was that.”

“I didn’t think it would happen like this.”

“You ran that risk when you chose not to make a statement.”

“Did you want me to make a statement?”

“No. That’s not what I’m saying. We’ve already discussed this.”

He glanced towards me for a moment then focused in on the mirror as he began the process of shaving.

“Shutting me out isn’t going to do you any good. I wasn’t the one who outed you.”

“You may as well have been.”

“Excuse me?” I demanded. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“How long do you think it will take for people to figure out who you are?”

“I’m no one special, Sid.”

“The club in Halifax. This past spring at Diesel. There are pictures.”

“There have been pictures. They still don’t know who I am. Who’s to say you didn’t marry some childhood friend back in Cole Harbour over the summer. Maybe you eloped in Vegas. They don’t know a damn thing, just that you’re wearing a wedding ring.”

“They’ll put it together.”

“So what?!” I shouted. “Why does that even matter?”

I hopped off the counter and stood next to him for a moment. I glared, waiting for him to look my way, but he averted his gaze as best he could.

“You are ashamed of me, aren’t you?”

He stopped, placing his razor in the sink. Half of his face was still covered in shaving cream as he glanced towards me.

“I’m not ashamed of you.”

“Oh, so this is just you being weirdly protective? You’ve got an awfully sensitive way of showing it.”

“It’s not about you, Wyn.”

“You keep saying that and I keep trying to believe you, but that’s utter bullshit. This has everything to do with me. I’m your wife. When people find out that you’re married, they’ll wonder about me. They’ll wonder who I am and why you married me. I think about that shit all the time and I try not to worry about it. But you’re not helping those feelings at all.

“It’s like you’re not just trying to hide the fact that you got married this summer, it’s like you’re trying to hide me. And if I didn’t know how much you loved me, the things you’ve done to prove that to me, I might have my doubts about whether marrying you was a good idea.”

I walked out of the bathroom, refusing to offer him a chance to say anything in reply. I needed to get away from him. I grabbed my pillow and headed for the spare room down the hall as I heard the water in the sink running as he finished shaving.

He wasn’t far behind me but by the time he figured out which bedroom I’d claimed, I was already making the bed.

“It’s too early for bed,” he muttered.

“I’m not going to bed; I’m just getting ready for bed.”

I pushed past him and out of the room. I heard him groan as he followed me down the stairs.

“Can you just let me cool off before you start getting pissed off?” he asked as I walked into my studio.

“Too late,” I muttered as I shut the door.

“Wyn!” he hollered.

“Fuck off, Canada.”

“Seriously!?”

I opened the door briefly. “You need to figure some things out and I don’t want to punch you in the face. You’ve got me so angry that I don’t want to look at you. Calm yourself down and stop being a prick. The world isn’t ending so stop acting like it.”

I closed the door again and heard him walk away after a few minutes.

I couldn’t concentrate and instead wound up reading through the blog posts that the picture had instigated. It was well after dark when I finally closed my browser window and emerged from the room.

Sidney was sitting on the couch but followed me quickly up the steps.

“You’re not sleeping in here,” he said as I turned down the covers on the bed in the spare room that I’d chosen.

“Yes, I am.”

“This isn’t healthy.”

“Your reaction isn’t healthy.”

“Just come to bed.”

“Not happening.”

“Why are you being so fucking stubborn?”

“It’s what I do. Now, let me get some sleep.”

He stayed in the doorway as I turned off the lights. I watched as he took a step forward.

“Don’t you dare.”

“Bronwyn, please.”

“I gave you time to calm down, now you need to do the same for me.”

“You’re seriously going to sleep in here?”

“Come get me in the morning before you leave.”

He stood where he was for a moment before muttering, “Un-fucking-believable.”

“Go to bed.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too, Sid. But I’m still mad. Go to bed.”

He didn’t linger any longer and the next time I saw him he was standing quietly next to the bed. I hadn’t slept well and it didn’t take much more than the sound of his breathing to wake me in the morning. He was standing there waiting for me to notice him.

“Still mad at me?” he asked.

“A little.”

“You ever going to forgive me?”

“Eventually.”

“You want to come to the rink with me?”

“And step into the middle of that media circus? I don’t think so.”

“You’re going to make me handle that alone?”

I nodded. “You’re the one who took your fucking glove off.”

He groaned.

“It’s true.”

“I know. I just don’t know if I’m ready for this.”

“Will you ever really be ready to reveal something personal to your adoring public?”

He shook his head.

“Just try to have a good day and don’t come home angry or I might move into this room permanently.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Don’t test me.”