Page 41 of From Ice to Home
His face shifts in front of my eyes. From cautious calm to absolute shock, shock slowly transitions to clear anger. Theanger in his eyes quickly shifts to understanding, and then turns to laughter. A small humorless laugh erupts from his throat.
“You’re joking,” he says cautiously, lowering his hands and looking at me, almost pleading that he’s right.
“I’m afraid not, sir.” I keep his gaze, unable to look away. “And I know this is not what you expected. And it’s not the way I wanted to do things. I want you to know that IknowI should’ve come to you first. I should’ve taken the time to come to you and ask for your blessing and your daughter’s hand. But things escalated very quickly.”
Pastor mark clears his throat, looks down at his hands which he lowers slowly. He balls them into fists, before opening them again. He sets them gently on the desktop in front of him, not saying anything.
“Sir?”
“You married my daughter,” he says, his voice soft but with a sharp edge that’s unmistakable. His hands are trembling slightly as he rubs at his beard.
“We got married, yes,” I tell him again. The words still feel strange.
“My daughter, Hannah, married you in Las Vegas.” His voice is soft, like he’s processing out loud instead of asking me to confirm his worst nightmare. “My oldest daughter, my first born.”
He gets up from his seat, his hands visibly shaking as he turns away from me. This is not the way this should’ve gone. But I can’t sit here and lie to him after everything.
“It all happened so fast. The next morning when I woke up, she wasn’t there.” Before I realised what I said, I quickly clear my throat and move on, not wanting to get too stuck on the fact that we spent the night together. Although we did so in the confines of marriage, it still feels like it shouldn’t havehappened the way it did. And I’m very sure her father would agree.
“I’ve been trying to reach her all week. Yesterday, I saw a post on social media posted by Micah. That’s how I knew she was here in Georgetown. As soon as I finished my game, I got on the first flight out. I just wanted to talk to her about…everything.”
He turns around, his face blank—which scares me even more. He might be the pastor of the town, but he’s still a man. A man I’ve wronged in no uncertain terms.
“That’s why she’s been like this…this whole week,” he says, covering his mouth with his hand. “I knew she was hiding something, but I never thought…this?” he asks, his eyes pinning me to my seat. “Lucas, we didn’t raise her this way. I didn’t expect this. Not from either of you.”
I lower my gaze to where my knuckles are white from gripping my cap. Slowly I get up, needing to be able to look him in the eye like a man. He’s shocked and hurt…he’s blindsided. He’s done nothing but love and support his daughter in everything, and he’s been there for me in ways I can’t ever say thank you for.
And now we throw this at him, expecting him to just come to terms with it.
“I’m not going to stand here and tell you that Hannah and I made the best decisions this past week,” I start. “But I would be lying if I said that I thought we made a mistake. We found each other in Vegas after being apart for so long…everything felt right. Yes, we shouldn’t have done it in this way…but you won’t be able to convince me that it was the wrong thing to do. Because I’m not sorry that I made her my wife. I am, however, sorry for how I did it.”
Pastor Mark is quiet as he looks at me. It’s clear that his thoughts are running at a million miles per hour and I can only hope that God is at the head of all of them.
“Your father?” he asks, his voice soft. “Does he know?”
“Nobody knows.” I sigh, just thinking of how I’m going to break this to my family. “Just you and two of my teammates. And I had to tell the team’s manager. He gave me the day to come and talk to Hannah, to get a plan for moving forward. Tomorrow morning I have to get back to New York and then they want to be able to give some sort of press release so they can get ahead of this story.”
He walks to the window, scratching at his beard as he looks outside. The silence stretches between us and I’m no longer sure if I should stay or if I should rather leave. Hannah and I got married without thinking about the consequences, about the way it would affect her life and my own…as well as the lives of our families. Now we have to deal with it and I know that Pastor Mark is someone who will be able to help guide us through this—if he gets over the shock of it all. Just as I’m about to give up hope that he’s going to say anything else, he turns toward me.
“You’re taking her with you tomorrow? To New York?” he asks, his gaze narrowing slightly.
I have no idea if Hannah even wants to come to New York with me. We haven’t spoken about what would happen tomorrow when I need to leave. It all feels too much, too big for the time we have to figure things out.
“We haven’t talked about it,” I tell him honestly. “We decided to give this our all and that’s when I came here to talk to you.”
Pastor Mark nods. “I suppose that’s a yes then. You can’t possibly give it your all with her being here and you over there.” He shakes his head in disbelief, pinching the bridge of his nose before looking back at me. “Do you have any idea what you two entered into? What this means for you? For your future?”
Pride rears its ugly head. We may have jumped into this,but we’re still adults who have been functioning on our own for the past five years. We’ve stood on our own and now we’ll do it together.
“I know getting married is a big deal, sir. But we can do this. We’ve been together before and it was…” I trail off, not sure how to describe the happiness I felt when we were together. “I didn’t want our relationship to end back then. This is our second chance to make things work.”
“Lucas, marriage isn’t a game.” His gaze softens as he looks at me. “It’s not something that’s entered into on a whim. This is serious, this is a promise you made in front of God. This will change your entire life, it requires sacrifice, it shifts all your priorities, and if it doesn’t…” He shakes his head, dragging his hand across his beard. “Are you ready for this?”
I feel the weight of his gaze as if he’s pulling back the layers of my resolve, testing my words for truth.
“I’ve never done something halfway, sir. I’ve always given my everything no matter the situation. And with this, this marriage to Hannah, it will be the same. I won’t fail.”
His eyebrows lift slightly, a glimmer of something unreadable in his expression. “Those are big words,” he says, his voice steady and sharp.
