The Hockey Star's Forgotten Baby Mama novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: The Shoebox

Leighton learns her daughter and her best friend have been mailing drawings to Johnny for a year and forbids him to write back, until Lulu opens a shoebox of his notes and the last one says he'll find her at a game.

"I have no idea," I said.

It was the truth, and it was the worst thing I could have said.

Johnny's eyebrows went up.

The daycare teacher stopped stacking chairs.

"You don't know who mails your kid's letters?"

"I didn't know she had letters."

Lulu tugged his hoodie.

"Aunt Stevie mails them," she said. "In the blue box by the bakery. Every month. She lets me lick the stamp."

I closed my eyes.

Behind me, the door opened and a whistle jingled.

"Okay, who wants mac and cheese," Stevie sang, and then she saw who was standing by the tiny table.

She stopped so fast her sneakers squeaked.

"Oh," she said. "Oh, no."

"Stevie."

"I can explain."

"Please do."

She held up both hands.

"Last fall she drew him a picture. Number 27, eating spaghetti. It was the cutest thing I've ever seen. So I mailed it to his team's fan mail, with my PO box on it."

"And then?"

"And then he wrote back!" Stevie looked at Johnny, half guilty and half starstruck. "You wrote back. Who writes back? You sent a puck!"

"I send a puck every time," Johnny said.

"I KNOW. She has twelve."

Lulu nodded hard. "I keep them under my bed."

I looked at Stevie.

Stevie looked at the ceiling.

She had no idea.

Nobody in the world knew who Lulu's father was except me.

And now he was standing in the Ice Box with a crayon drawing of himself in his hand.

"I thought she was drawing a man on TV," I said.

"I am a man on TV," Johnny said.

"Thank you. Very helpful."

He almost smiled.

Then he crouched back down to Lulu's height.

"These letters got me through a bad year," he told her. "I'd like to keep writing back. If that's okay with your mom."

Lulu turned to me with her whole face lit up.

The teacher was watching. Two other parents were watching.

Every one of them knew his face.

In a week, every one of them would know Lulu's.

"No," I said.

Johnny stood up slowly.

"No?"

"She's four. You're a stranger. I don't know you."

"You've known me all day."

"I've known your blood pressure all day."

The teacher made a small noise into her coffee.

Johnny held out the drawing to me.

"I'm not trying to make trouble."

"Then don't write to my daughter."

I took the drawing.

That was when Lulu understood.

Her chin wobbled. Then it set, hard and square.

I knew that chin.

I'd been looking at it in a hotel bed five years ago.

"You're MEAN," she shouted. "He CAME. I told him to come and he CAME and you're SENDING HIM AWAY."

She threw herself on the rug.

She kicked one rain boot off. It hit the fish tank.

Johnny looked down at the screaming child at his feet, then at me.

"I'll go," he said quietly.

"Thank you."

He stopped in the doorway.

"For what it's worth, she draws a great goalie."

Then he was gone, and my daughter was howling into the carpet.

It took me twenty minutes, a juice box and a promise of pancakes to get her into the car.

Stevie drove. I sat in the back next to the car seat and held Lulu's sticky hand while she hiccupped herself to sleep.

"So," Stevie said to the rearview mirror. "On a scale of one to ten."

"Eleven."

"I really thought he'd send one autograph."

"Twelve pucks, Stevie."

"He has very good handwriting. You'd like it. It's neat."

"I'm not going to like his handwriting."

"He dots his i's with little circles."

"Stop."

She waited one whole block.

"Your dad owns the team."

"I noticed."

"Your sister was wearing Number 27 like a handbag."

"Half-sister."

"Half-sister. Are we fired? Are we both fired? Do I need to start a GoFundMe?"

"He can't fire me without a reason. He'd have to make one."

"He'll make one."

"I know."

She glanced at me in the mirror.

"Leighton," she said, in her trainer voice. "Why'd you go white when Castelli walked in this morning? Like, actually white."

I looked at my sleeping daughter.

At her dark eyelashes. At her stubborn little chin.

"Low blood sugar," I said.

Stevie handed a protein bar back over her shoulder without a word.

She knew I was lying.

She let me.

At home Lulu woke up long enough to eat two pancakes and demand a bath with the green bubbles.

I tucked her in at eight.

At eight fifteen she padded into the kitchen in her goalie pajamas, holding a shoebox.

It had a hockey sticker on the lid. NUMBER 27, it said in purple marker. KEEP OUT.

"You can look," she said solemnly. "Because you're sad."

She set it on the table.

Inside were twelve pucks and twelve folded notes.

Each one was written on Chicago team letterhead in small, careful print.

"Dear Lulu. That's the best goalie I've ever seen. Keep your stick on the ice. 27."

"Dear Lulu. I never ate a spaghetti that big. Do you like meatballs. 27."

"Dear Lulu. My dad died this month. Your picture is on my fridge. Thank you. 27."

I had to put that one down.

Stevie was leaning in the doorway with her arms crossed, not saying anything.

The last note was on different paper. Portland Glaciers letterhead. Dated three weeks ago.

"Dear Lulu. Guess what. I'm moving to Portland. You've been telling me to come for a year, so I'm coming. Come to a game. I'll find you. 27."

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