Page 68 of Hat Trick

I choke back a cry. I box up the little girl who so wanted love and was handed mistrust and judgment on a silver platter instead. And then I put her away—because I love Marshall, and if this is the moment where I’m forced to decide between wallowing in my own pain or comforting his, I will choose the latter each and everytime.

Pressing the gloves together, I place them both in Marshall’s lap. “You need to keep these,” I whisper, hating the way my voice quivers with emotion. “My dad”—I suck in a deep breath—“he gave them toyou, Marshall. They’reyours.”

He watches me with an inscrutable emotion, his gray eyes searching my face. “Put themon.”

“What?” I let out a rough laugh. “I don’t think . . . I mean, they’re a little big forme.”

“Humorme.”

Not wanting to disappoint him, even though I feel mighty ridiculous as I do so, I tug on the right glove. My fingers don’t even reach the tips and it looks like I’m playing dress-up. I meet Marshall’s gaze; he only nods his head in a “keep going”gesture.

Allright.

As I slip on the left, he begins to speak, his voice a deep rumble that warms me up and strips away the hurt: “I’ve had the gloves for years. I should have given them to you on the day of your father’s funeral or right after that. I didn’t, and I’ll regret that forever. After you left, your uncle pulled me to the side to give me a box of your dad’s belongings. I looked inside. All hockeystuff.”

Inside the well-worn glove, my fingers brush against what feels like a sharp edge of paper. An envelope, maybe? Frowning, I strip off the other glove so that I can dig into the left one and pull the envelopeout.

“I never really gave it much thought,” Marshall goes on, and even though I’ve got my focus on the task at hand, I can feel him watching me. “The other day when you were talking about your mom and your relationship with her, I decided it was time to give you these. I found the box again, thinking that there might be something else in there for me to give to you, too. A trophy of your dad’s, maybe. I don’t know. I just didn’t expect to findthese.”

I want to pretend that my fingers aren’t trembling—that would be alie.

Cracking the seal open on the yellowed envelope, my heart leaps to my throat as I widen the flaps. There are more envelopes, all much smaller with a RETURN TO SENDER stamp emblazoned across thefront.

And they’re all addressed to my childhoodhome.

27

Hunt

Gwen’sbeautiful face blanches when she opens the envelope—and I don’t blameher.

I didn’t open the envelope when I found it the other day; it would have been an invasion of privacy. Back in middle school, I remember Mark bitching about his ex-wife sending back every letter he wrote to his daughter. I wish I knew why he didn’t just put down his foot and make shit happen, but you can’t ask questions to thedead.

All I know is that when I finally noticed the thick envelope in the box Mark’s brother had given to me, I suspected what they were, and that perhaps they’d unintentionally ended up in my box. Mark didn’t know about my relationship with Gwen in college, and so it makes little sense that he would have given them to me with some ulterior motive. Call it a stroke of good luck or not, but I knew Gwen had to havethem.

I watch her now, the way she’s trying so hard to hold back the tears. Her shoulders shake with the smallest movements. She flips through the envelopes, not opening a single one but seemingly counting each and every time her father tried to reach out to her . . . and every time her mother stood in theway.

“You look like you need a hug.” My voice sounds as though I’ve swallowed a bucketful of nails. If she recognizes that I said the same words on the day of her father’s funeral, she doesn’t mentionit.

But she does set the envelopes on the counter, along with the hockeygloves.

And then she’s throwing herself into myarms.

I lock her close, binding her to me as I whisper into her hair. “I’ve got you, honey. I’ve gotyou.”

Her sobs are quiet, her pain wrapped up so tight within her walls that the only way to tell she’s crying is by the way her shoulders shake with each indrawn breath. For the next few minutes, I only hold her. I cradle her to me like she’s the most precious thing I’ve ever held; I wrap her tight in my embrace, giving her every ounce of strength that I have, letting her know without words that I will keep us upright, that I won’t let usfall.

Baring my childhood to her wasn’t easy—particularly because I didn’t tell her the one event that changed the course of my life forever. It’s the reason that I ended up in foster care, the reason Dave went to jail, the reason he continues to blackmail me as though something that I did at eight years old should be counted against me for the rest of mydays.

The honest truth is that I can’t bear to see the affection in her eyes be replaced with disappointment—or worse,disgust.

I’ll tell hersoon.

I make the vow to myself, repeat it over and over again as she remains curled up against mychest.

When she pulls back, I run my thumb beneath her eyes, catching moisture and dashing it away. “You okay?” It’s a moronic question but it nevertheless needs to beasked.

“My fantasykiss.”

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