Page 16 of The Rest of the Story
Oh, yeah. Sorry. I beat you on being the first player in the league married to a man. Another player, too, but I’m not gonna tell you who unless you come down for a visit.
Je n’en reviens pas! Calisse, Moogs. You are something else, mon capitaine.
Back at you, Bunny.
Congratulations to you and your mysterious husband. Totally not an Outlaw, je suppose?
I sent a zipped-lips emoji.
Mort de rire.
We eloped, so you can be the one to have the big ol’ gay wedding, since you like all that fussy stuff. Gonna invite the commissioner?
Oh, putain de merde
Just make sure I get an invite. Plus one husband.
Au revoir!
* * *
Shea healed beautifully.
He was diligent with his rehab, and he started putting more and more weight on his broken leg. There was a fine line between aggressive healing and pushing too far, but Shea walked it perfectly.
By the end of June, the surgeon removed his external fixator. He wasn’t cleared for anything strenuous—no skating—and he still needed to rehab every day, but he was walking on his own eight weeks after his femur had been shattered.
We flew to Connecticut, where Amelia and John threw us a back yard wedding party, and then the four of us went up to Maine, where we rented a cottage on a fishing island and woke up to buoy bells and slowly-burning fog every day, ate clam chowder and fish and chips and steak and lobster, and hiked and fished and filled ourselves with fresh, clean air and breathtaking ocean views.
From there, we were birds on an opposite migration, and we flew south in the summer and joined my mother in South Florida. She met us at the airport, all five feet of her decked out in tropical print and wearing her floppy hat, and she leaped up and down when she saw us coming through the concourse. She hugged us both at the same time, her arms straight up over her head and her face buried in between our biceps as she screamed.
Florida was a dream, all the moments and memories I’d never had with my mother as a teenager made up for now. She had decked out her condo withJust Marriedparty gear, bought a three-tier wedding cake, and had a bottle of fabulous champagne on ice ready for us when we walked in the door. We took the party to the beach and chased each other in the surf, my mom laughing like she was a college student on spring break, not carousing with her son and his husband.
She made us frozen margaritas as the sun set, and we watched the sky shift into a dazzling watercolor vista as the tide tickled our toes and we shared stories and the same beach towel.
She took us to meet all her octogenarian friends. We played bingo and bunko and gin rummy, and we closed down beachfront bars that were local hangouts and where we were the youngest patrons by multiple decades.
Every evening, some live cover band, a retiree version of teenage garage bands, set up a portable stage on the beach and played the classics. Shea and I danced together barefoot, and then we danced with my mom, taking her out for spins on the sand.
One night, a Simon and Garfunkel cover band sang “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” and I held her in my arms as she rested her cheek on my chest. “I love you, Mom,” I murmured into her hair.
“Baby, I love you, too,” she said. “And I love that husband of yours a whole heck of a lot.”
I rented a Jet Ski and took my mom out for thrills and shrieks. Shea, more sedate, rented a paddleboard and took her out to the coral reefs, where they snorkeled in the shallows and chased tropical fish and sea turtles and took underwater photos of the two of them thumbs-upping the camera.
My mom made a bit of a show out of how she took an Ambien every night before bed. That pill, she said, with her margaritas, knocked her completely out, dead to the world, wouldn’t hear a thing. I get my subtle ways from her, apparently. But I called her on it, making slow love to Shea from midnight until, when we were finally finished, 4:00 a.m., and he sighed and moaned and whimpered and gasped and toe-curled through every hour. The sheets were fucked, and the bed frame was six inches askew, but in the morning, my mom was pert as a cricket and well rested, while Shea was still boneless and dreamy, sweet as stolen honey when he kissed me, trying to play footsie beneath the breakfast bar and entice me back for seconds. Or, rather, sixths.
We drank coconut margaritas and frozen piña coladas and bottomless mimosas. I cooked dinner, my mother ordered brunch in, and Shea gained six perfect pounds.
It was bliss. It was utter, complete bliss.
The day before we were set to leave Florida, Mike called. He was laughing when I answered. “So, one year with the Outlaws?” he said, once he could speak.
“That’s what I said.”
“One year, and then I had to get you out of there.”
“Can’t believe you got me into this mess. What kind of agent are you?”
