Page 65 of Gravity
The dressing room is a hurricane after the game. We’ve stripped our gear and showered in record time, leaving behind heaps of sweaters, sticks, and equipment. MacKenzie grabs the puck from his third goal, and I bring my sweater with Bryce's nametape on the back. We caravan en masse to the hospital, and when we arrive, we drag the coolers of soda and Gatorade that we’d normally be drinking in the dressing room up to Bryce's room. MacKenzie and Janne are both whistling theOléas we march through the halls. Tonight, the party is here.
And it is a party. Bryce is smiling and misty-eyed. He grabs me tight and kisses me hard when I lean in, and the team catcalls and wolf whistles us as I cradle his cheek and deepen the kiss. I give Bryce my sweater with his name on the back, and MacKenzie gives him the puck from his hat trick goal. Someone streams the replay broadcast of the game on ESPN to the PlayStation hooked up to the in-room TV. Someone else orders takeout, and enough hamburgers and French fries arrive to feed an army.
Before the game, Bryce's ventilator was pulled back, and now, the intricate array of tubes and piping that were draped over him are gone. He spent two hours with a respiratory therapist this morning, learning how to breathe through his tracheostomy. Learning, too, how to take care of his healing airway. I stayed with him, because when he goes home, I'll be there, helping him with everything he needs. We learned how to clean his tracheostomy cannulas and how to pump his feeding tube and flush and clean the lines. After, I washed his hair with the nurse aide, and then rubbed lotion into his hands and feet and legs. Tomorrow, we have a date to walk the hallway while we practice his breathing exercises.
Without the ventilator and the maze of tubes attached to his tracheostomy valve, he is more mobile. As the night wears on, and as our teammates begin to fade and say farewell andbonne nuit,Bryce makes room for me on his bed. Gingerly, as delicately as I can, I crawl in beside him and open my arms.
He fits against me like he was made to live there. We both sink against each other, him going boneless, me holding him to me like I'll never let him go. He rests his cheek on my chest, careful with his valve, and I run my fingers through his hair as I kiss the top of his head.
“I love you,” I whisper.
He draws a heart on my chest and kisses the center of it.
I imagine the moment when he says the words. When all of this has passed and his injury has healed. He’ll take my hands in his, look me in the eyes, and—
I let the dream hang there, suspended in time. I would rather hear them from his lips than in my mind.
But until then, I'll fill the space between us with love so he never feels alone. “I love you,” I whisper again. “And tonight, while I was on the ice…”
I describe the game for him. How it felt like we were skating together, and how he was more than with me, he was a part of me. I feel him smile as his finger continues drawing hearts on my chest, my abdomen, my bicep. I talk until his eyes close and his lips part, and then I kiss his hair and take his hand. “I love you,” I say again. “Tu es dans tous mes rêves.” You are in every one of my dreams.
His hand twitches in mine as if he heard me in his own dreams.
ChapterTwenty
Hunter
To no one's surprise, we sweep Ottawa, beating them twice on their home ice to win the second round of the playoffs.
After both games, we scrambled to the team bus and drove like bats out of hell back to Montréal to bring the post-game celebration to Bryce. After Game Three, he was up and moving around the room and he greeted us all with bear hugs. After Game Four, we moved the party from his hospital room to the cafeteria, and we threw open the doors to anyone who wanted to join us. Our little old ladies and gentlemen from the rehab wing, our giggling kids from the cancer wards, and the nurses, aides, doctors, therapists, and staff who have helped Bryce and the team all came to celebrate.
We're the first team to win the second round, and we have to wait for each of the other matchups to go all the way to their Game Sevens before we learn that we’ll be playing New York for the Eastern Conference Championship.
Those extra days off we earn are devoted to Bryce.
Bryce and I have completely taken over his routine care, and under the watchful eyes of the nurses, we change and clean his feeding pump and tubes, clean and dress his tracheostomy, and practice his respiratory therapy four times a day.
Jacques has created a stabilization and conditioning regimen for him, and we spend two days with a physical therapist to learn each of the stretches and plyometrics that Bryce will perform at home. Gradually, carefully, he'll increase his workouts, making sure his oxygen saturation, heart rate, and surgical repairs are all working to heal each other. Keeping his strength up means nothing if he can't breathe, or if he pushes himself so hard his surgical repairs rupture. At home, we'll be reporting all of his vitals, both before and after every workout, to Jacques.
At the end of week, Dr. Morin gives Bryce the all clear to go home.
The team is there when Bryce is discharged. Coach Richelieu, the executive staff, and even the owners have all come to wish him well. Everyone is waiting for him when he walks out of his ICU room for the last time, and he's greeted with a wall of applause that stops him in his tracks.
The media is outside the hospital, too, because Bryce's injury became national news as his ambulance was streaking across the city of Montréal. The Étoiles have posted daily Instagram updates, and Bryce has shared photos of himself holding up handwritten notes that readAllez MontréalandJe vous aime tous. Across the city—and the country—photos of Bryce's sweater number 11 have appeared in the windows of restaurants and stores and homes.
The hospital is good about deflecting the media, and Bryce, me, and the team escape through a staff garage out of sight. We convoy back to Bryce's, where the guys have spent a day readying his place. They packed the cupboards with food for me and stocked Bryce's feeding packs in the fridge and freezer. Rehydration and nutrient IV bags share space with bottles of beer and frozen burritos. IV poles are staged next to the couch and the bed. The floors are sparkling like glare ice, swept and mopped to a high shine. If there's a transferrable skill from hockey to real life, sweeping and mopping are it.
They've hung a banner across Bryce's living room, too.Bienvenu!Someone hand-painted it, but that someone looks like they have Shrek's penmanship.
Of course, someone else stuck googly eyes on most of Bryce's picture frames, and there's a gift basket on Bryce's bed filled with bottles of lube, a few dildos, gay porn magazines, and a pair of fuzzy leopard-print handcuffs. “Don't go too wild,” MacKenzie cautions. He spins the handcuffs around one finger and points at me. “He is healing!Alors, be gentle!”
Bryce rolls his eyes, but he's smiling when he pushes MacKenzie and the rest of the degenerates out of our bedroom. They sprawl around the kitchen and the living room, and for the next few hours, we are together, the way we love to be. We've quickly transitioned to talking with Bryce through text, so as the conversation flows, we keep our phones in our hands and read his replies on the team chat. He sends everyone to the floor in howls of laughter when he texts to Slava that he is looking forward to beating him in a pull-up contest before his tracheostomy is closed. Slava can invite a few kids to come hang on Bryce's legs, too, to make it more fair.
Eventually, they leave, and then Bryce and I are—finally—alone. No doctors, no nurses, no heart monitors. I take his face in my hands and kiss him.
“Mon amour,” I whisper against his lips. “Welcome home.”
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