Seven Year Ache

“You’re still here?” Dave joked, his voice hoarse but amused, having woken up shortly before to find Riley curled up on the couch reading a book.
 
Upon hearing his voice she looked over at him and when she saw he was awake she dog eared the page she was on and got up from the couch, tossing the book back into her bag before she took a seat in the chair beside his bed again. She looked at him for a moment, noting how exhausted he looked and told him, “Still here.”
 
“Good.” He said, and when she raised her eyebrow he sat up, carefully and slowly swinging his legs over to the side of the bed he asked, “Grab my slippers?”

She grabbed them from under his bed and put them on his feet, and when he carefully started to climb out of bed she got up and stood in front of him, asking, “What on earth are you doing?”

He grabbed a hold of her shoulder and stood up, still towering over her and said to her, “I'm not gonna get to do this at your wedding, so do me a favor?”

“What's that?”

“Give me one last dance huh?” When he said this her eyes welled with tears, not for the first time that day and she knew it wouldn’t be for the last. Dave reached out and wiped them away, and told her, “I only have so much energy right now kid.”

Riley let out a soft chuckle and helped him away from the bed, and she placed one hand on his shoulder, the other Dave grabbed with his own and as they swayed in one spot Riley told him, “I never knew you could dance you know.”

He shot her a look and asked, “What, you don't remember that father daughter dance we went to for all of five minutes when you were a kid?”

Riley laughed at the memory and said, “Yeah, we were there long enough to get through half a dance before we ditched the place and went and got milkshakes.”

“We should have stayed.” He said softly.

She shook her head, “That's one of my favorite memories.”

“You have some weird memories kiddo.” He joked, and when she rolled her eyes he smiled softly and told her, “When you were six, you jumped off of the deck railing into snow, and I remember hearing you giggling right up until you hit a big ice block underneath the fresh snow. I was so panicked, absolutely terrified and I leaned over the deck and you were staring up at me grinning. I have never wanted to kill you so bad in my life.”

Riley giggled at the memory, she didn't remember that one, but it was clear Dave was still less than impressed by the memory. They danced in silence for a few more minutes, each of them taking in the feeling because it would be the last, and when his grip on her loosened and his body got heavier Riley helped him back into the bed where he got comfortable and told her tiredly, “Grab the computer.”

She raised her eyebrow but did it anyway, setting it up on the table over his bed, he told her to play the DVD inside it, so she did as he asked but was presented with a black screen. She shot him a look and he gave her one back, and a few seconds the screen lit up with her five year old smiling face, missing bottom tooth and all. She was running around the backyard, laughing as she ran through the neat piles of leaves Dave had probably just finished raking into piles.
 
Finally, after what seemed like forever Dave called out in the video, “Ry what’s today?”
 
“My birthday!” She exclaimed excitedly, picking up a pile of leaves in her arm and tossing them over her head.
 
She giggled again as they came falling down on her, sticking to her hair and her sweater as Dave asked, “How old are you?”
 
“Five!” She yelled back, spinning in a circle.
 
There were a few more, quick videos that cut in and out from each other, another one of her birthday’s where Dave walked behind her and pushed her face into the cake, her playing soccer as a kid, Shea giving her a piggy-back ride on her graduation day cap and gown and all. And then finally there was one where Riley’s twenty-three year old self got a hold of the camera and turned it on Dave.
 
“Get that thing out of my face.” He mumbled, sticking his hand out in an attempt to swat her away from him.
 
“This is pay pack for you always having this thing in my face growing up.” She told him, and when he narrowed his eyes at her she told him, “Come on dad, you’re such a fun ruiner.”
 
Shea’s laughter filled the background and it wasn’t until that moment that Riley realized the video was taken in their old place in Nashville. The camera shook as she walked toward him and he told her, “Alright fine what you want?”
 
Again the camera shook, this time it was while she chuckled, right before she asked him, “Five ways Shea can stop playing like shit.”
 
“Hey! I heard that!” He called out from somewhere out of the camera’s view.
 
As Dave went on to list all the ways he thought Shea could improve his game Riley’s laughter got louder and louder before the camera cut out again and started at a video when she was first born, in fact it was so early in her life it was Dave filming them bringing her home for the first time. Riley frowned when she saw the back of the blonde head of her mother walking into the house carrying her, the camera caught her laughing at something Dave had said but Riley didn’t hear any of it, she was too focused on staring at the woman on the screen.
 
Dave reached out and hit the space bar, causing the DVD to pause on her mother, before he told her honestly, “I’m glad you look more like me. The only thing you got of hers was her eyes.”
 
Riley mumbled, “Only thing she ever gave to me.”
 
Dave reached out and grabbed her hand and asked her, “Do you know why I pushed you to fix things with Shea so much? Why I didn’t call you sooner? Why I still want you to go home?”
 
Shaking her head Riley asked him, “Why?”
 
“Because every part of me wishes I had tried harder to get your mom to stay.” Dave told her softly, his voice gruff but barely above a whisper.
 
“She wanted to leave, you can’t force someone to stay when they don’t want to.” Riley told him honestly, she had spent a lot of her life growing up wondering why. Why she didn’t have what all her friends had, why she left, why she didn’t want her. A long time ago Riley had decided it wasn’t her problem, that her mother had made her choice and it wasn’t her, so she should stop even wondering anything about the woman who had abandoned her. Easier said than done though.
 
“Yeah, but I didn’t make it easy on her, and I didn’t do much of anything to talk her out of leaving.” Dave told her, and Riley wasn’t sure why he was even telling her about this. He hadn’t talked much about her, except for whenever Riley asked, which wasn’t very often. Before Riley could respond he told her, “I don’t think I could have handled raising you if you looked like her.”
 
“I’m sorry she left dad.” Riley told him, reaching out to take his hand in hers, she gave it a squeeze and he returned that.
 
“Me too. But I think we did okay, huh?” Dave asked her, reaching over to hit the space button again.
 
Riley watched the computer screen switch from one home video to the next and she told him, “We did great just the two of us.”
 
Hours later, when the sun was beginning to go down and when Dave was barely staying awake for more than few minutes at a time it dawned on Riley that this was it. She was sitting in the chair by his bed, leaning against the side of it, hand in his, head on the bed and her eyes down on her feet on the floor when he squeezed her hand to get her attention. She looked up at him and he looked over at her, speaking barely above a whisper, “Promise me something?”
 
“Anything.” She told him, waiting for his answer.
 
She watched him take a few short breaths of air before he told her, “You go back to Nashville after this. You fix things with Shea.”
 
“Dad.” She couldn’t get much else out without fear of losing it so she kept it at that as her eyes filled with tears.
 
He shook his head gently and said, “You go back to Nashville and you marry that man Riley.”
 
“David.” She said sternly, and a small smile crossed his face at that.
 
“Riley Monroe Peterson, I’m not dead yet so you better still listen to me.” He warned her, going into a coughing fit that made her get up and rub his back for him. Once he was calmed down and laying down again he said, “I don’t know why he didn’t propose, but when he brought me to Vancouver to ask if he could he said something that made me know that I’d never have to worry about you again and that’s what’s comforting me right now.”
 
“He asked you?” She asked him in surprise, Shea had never mentioned that after he found out she knew about the ring all this time. Dave nodded his head at her and Riley asked him, “What did he say?”
 
“He told me if it came down to it every single time he would chose you over hockey.”
 
She smiled gently upon hearing that and asked, “He did?”
 
Dave nodded again, coughed a few times and said, “I told you, you picked a good one.”
 
“Yeah?”
 
“The best.” Dave told her, confirming her question. When she smiled again he told her, “So don’t make the mistake I did, don’t spend the rest of your life lonely and regretting not making things work with him. It’s so worth it.”
 
“Don’t hold it against me for getting sentimental but I’m so glad you’re my dad.” She told him, her eyes welling up with tears as she stood up and leaned over, kissing his temple.
 
He reached up and put his hand on the side of her face, holding her where she was for a moment before he let her sit down again and he told her, “I won’t hold it against you as long as you don’t hold it against me. You have made my life so worth living and I hope you know how much I love you kiddo.”
 
“I love you too dad.” He was surprised she didn’t call him Dave.
 
“I’m gonna sleep for a bit, okay?” He asked her softly, his voice low and almost inaudible.
 
Riley nodded her head, gave his hand a squeeze and while she blinked back tears, she waited until he was asleep to tell him, “Okay.”
 
- - -
 
It was almost ten by the time Shea arrived at the hospital, he had called to ask for the floor and room number during his layover in Seattle, so he didn’t bother with the front desk he just went up and navigated through the halls on his own. He hadn’t called or texted Riley, or done anything to let her know he was coming, and he was worried she might be angry when he walked in the room.
 
When he located Dave’s room he opened the closed door and walked inside, finding it empty aside from Riley sitting in one of the chairs, her head in her hands, elbows against her knees. He closed his eyes for a moment, breathed through his nose and when he opened his eyes Riley turned her head over to him, hearing him walk in. They stared at each other for a moment before her quiet voice rang out, asking him, “What are you doing here?”
 
“We have a few days off, I got approval to leave… I wanted to be here.” He told her softly, and he watched her nod her head slowly before she looked back down at the floor. He stayed where he was, unsure of what to do, but he told her, “I got the earliest flights I could.”
 
“I tried to call you.” Riley told him, she was hoping Shea would know her well enough that she wasn’t trying to get a dig in at him, she was just trying to let him know that she hadn’t intentionally not told him about Dave.
 
He nodded his head and said, “My phone was off.”
 
Riley nodded her head slowly again but didn’t move, so Shea walked toward her, he sat down in the seat beside her, his body turned so that he was facing her as best he could. He placed his hand gently on her lower back, and she pushed her hair out of her face before she looked at him and said, “I haven’t been able to leave yet.”
 
“When?” Shea asked, unable to finish his sentence.
 
“Couple hours ago. Seven-ish, I think.” Riley told him, and Shea thought about it for a moment. He was sitting in an airport in Seattle reading a book when it happened. He let out a sigh and Riley leaned into him, putting her head on his shoulder, her forehead pressed against the side of his neck and Shea wrapped one arm around her shoulder and the other reached out and slipped around her hands in her lap.
 
After another half hour of the two of them sitting like that in silence Riley pulled away from him and sat up straight, using both her hands to rake through her hair and push it out of her face before she took in a shaky breath and told Shea, “We should go.”
 
“Are you ready to?” He asked her, standing up when she did.
 
“No, but we have to.” She said softly, sliding her hand into his as they left together, Shea reaching out to carry the bag of Dave’s things for her.
 
She leaned against him in the elevator, and as they stood outside and waited for a cab Shea asked her, “Where do you want to go? His place or the house?”
 
“The house, I can’t go to the condo right now.” Riley told him as a cab pulled up and Shea leaned into the open passenger side window to ask if he was free.
 
Shea opened the backseat door and Riley got in before he slid in beside her, and they sat in silence for the twenty minute drive to the house they had bought, nestled by the Okanagan Lake. They had argued about it for months five years ago, Riley didn’t see the need for another house but Shea wanted something for the summers when they came home. He was looking at it long term, a place to take their kids in the summer, a place they could live once he retired. Riley saw it as a waste of money, to only use a house in the summers but in the end Shea won their argument and bought the place in Kelowna over the place in Sicamous.
 
As they pulled up in the driveway and Shea paid for the cab Riley looked up at the house, and for a moment she thought of how every time she or Shea brought it up Dave refused to live here instead of his condo. She smiled softly as Shea fished out his keys, flipping through them until he found the right one and he wrapped his arm around her as he guided her up the steps and unlocked the house.
 
It dawned on Riley as they walked inside and there was no dog greeting us to ask Shea, slightly panicked, “What about Dug?”
 
He smiled at her and told her, “Mike has him.”
 
She let out a small breath, and nodded slowly before she glanced around. As Shea set the bag of her dad’s things on the counter in the kitchen she walked over to it and unzipped it, pulling the laptop out. She fired it up long enough to eject the DVD from it and she confused Shea as she walked past him with it and went into the living room. He followed her in there and watched in confusion as she turned the TV on and put the DVD in before she dropped onto the couch. As a home video started Shea walked over to her and sat down beside her, laying his arm across the back of the couch, his palm resting against her shoulder.
 
Riley had finished watching it long after Dave fell asleep, in fact it had only finished playing on the laptop a few minutes before the heart rate monitor started beeping, but she needed to watch it again. As it went through the video of bringing her home as a baby Shea asked her, “Is that your mom?”
 
Despite them being together for over ten years Shea had never even seen a picture of the woman. Riley nodded to his question and told him, “Yeah.”
 
“Man you look like Dave.” He stated, and Riley let out a chuckle, nodding her head again. She pulled her feet up and under herself on the couch and leaned into his side, resting her head on his shoulder as they both watched the TV screen. When a video of the two of them dancing at some get together several summers ago came on he said, “Finally one I remember.”
 
Riley chuckled and he rubbed her arm for a few moments, and then she asked him, “Why didn’t you tell me you asked him if you could marry me?”
 
Shea’s cheeks flushed as he told her, “Honestly? I didn’t want you to be angry with him for not telling you.”

“I never would have been.” Riley told Shea, laying her arm across his stomach her hand resting on his side.

As another old home video came on, this time of Riley’s kindergarten ‘graduation’, Shea watched her run over to Dave, who was clearly holding the camera, her little five year old body bouncing back and forth as she ran, kind of like a penguin in Shea’s opinion, he smiled and told her, “You were a cute kid.”

She smiled, and when she caught a glimpse of Dave, twenty some years younger, on the screen she turned slightly into Shea a little more, her eyes welling up with tears. When he felt her do that Shea wrapped both arms around her and turned in his position on his couch, pulling Riley tightly into his chest as she cried. He ran his hands over her hair, kissed her temple and held her as tight as he could without hurting her. He wondered if he would ever be okay with the fact that he had missed being there for her by a few hours, because right now, as he held her while she cried, he was so not okay with it, but he was here now that's what mattered in the end.