Loved Twice by the Hockey Star novel · Chapter 7 of 32

Chapter 7: Four Hundred Dollars

Jodie looked at me.

The producer's breathing was still in my ear.

Nobody had hung up on me.

I was still on the air.

"Nils," I said. "Is my line open?"

A pause.

"Britta's still with us, folks," Nils said, and his voice wasn't smooth anymore. "Dad, you there?"

"I'm here."

"Hi, Dag," I said.

The whole state was listening to the two of us breathe.

"You're right," I said. "You were there. You were at the ER, too. Room four, three in the morning. Tell them what you said to me."

"I've got nothing to say to you."

"Then I'll tell them."

I looked at the paper snowflakes on the lounge tree.

I thought about Ingrid, asleep behind a curtain, and how she'd hear all of this someday.

I wanted her to hear me say it.

"You sat on the end of my bed," I said. "You'd read my chart. You knew exactly what to take from me."

"That's a lie."

"Then you took four hundred dollars out of your wallet. All twenties. You put your own coat on my shoulders. You said, 'If you love my son, you'll be gone before he wakes up.'"

On the radio, there was nothing.

"I wore that coat for two winters," I said. "Sheepskin. It had a hole in the left pocket. I've still got it, Dag. It's in a closet in Fargo."

A click.

Dag had hung up.

Live, on his son's show, in the middle of the morning drive.

Nils said, "We'll be right back," in a voice I didn't recognize.

The music came up.

I hung up.

Jodie took the phone out of my hand very gently.

"Holy hell," she whispered.

"Was that too much?"

"Honey, that was perfect."

Dag came anyway, an hour later.

I was at the nurses' station signing for Ingrid's lunch.

He came off the elevator in the sheepskin coat, a different one, and his face was purple.

"You little liar."

The charge nurse stood up.

So did two parents in the hall.

Before he got to me, the stairwell door banged open behind him.

Erik came through it in his practice gear, skates off, sweat still in his hair.

He'd heard it in the car.

He must have run every red light in Saint Paul.

"Dad," he said.

Dag turned.

"Son. You heard what she said about me."

"I heard."

"On the air, Erik. In front of the whole state."

"I heard all of it," Erik said. "Every word."

He walked up to his father and stopped in front of the nurses' station.

He was taller.

He'd been taller since he was seventeen, and I don't think either of them had ever noticed.

"You're fired," Erik said.

Dag laughed.

"You can't fire your father."

"I'm firing my agent. You'll get it in writing by tonight."

"I made you."

"You hid my kid from me," Erik said. "Go home, Dad."

Dag looked around.

Nurses.

Parents.

A janitor with a mop, not even pretending not to watch.

He'd spent his whole life being the most loved man in every room.

Nobody here loved him.

He walked back to the elevator, and nobody stopped him.

That night Jodie stayed with Ingrid.

"Go," she told me, practically pushing me into the elevator. "Sleep in a bed. Shower without a nurse knocking. I've got her."

Erik drove us home in silence.

He made no grilled cheese.

He stood in the dark kitchen with his keys still in his hand and looked at me.

"You were going to carry that ER alone for the rest of your life," he said.

"It was mine."

"It wasn't."

He set the keys down.

"I need you to hear me, because I'm only going to be able to say this once without falling apart."

"Okay."

"I didn't spend seven years trying to forgive you. I didn't care what happened on that road. I cared that you were gone."

His voice broke on the last word.

"I never needed to forgive you, Britta. I needed you to come home."

I crossed the kitchen.

I didn't let myself think.

I took his face in both hands and kissed him.

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