Wild Ice (16 page)

Chapter Seventeen

Promise Me

The next morning, JD felt
something he hadn’t felt in years. Peace. After spilling his guts to Lauren yesterday, a sense of relief washed over him. It was a strange feeling, this feeling of serenity. Cathartic, really. Sure, all of the emotions were still there, but sharing his feelings with Lauren had released them and the weight of his grief didn’t seem quite so heavy anymore.

Life would go on. It
already had for Darla’s family. They’d dealt with what had happened the best they could and kept on moving forward. Their acceptance didn’t tarnish her memory and they weren’t being disloyal to the woman they loved. In fact, it was just the opposite. They all got on with their lives because that’s what Darla would have wanted. It’s what the human race did. No life was immortal and it was what you accomplished here on earth that mattered.

Darla had
spent her precious time on earth helping those less fortunate than her. She’d made a difference to people who needed a hand to help them up. She’d been a glittering jewel to her family and she’d shown JD what it was like to discover love for the first time. She showed him what it was like to be needed, appreciated and loved unconditionally. It made it that much more important for him to return that love. He still had time to give back and reciprocate life’s blessings.

The funny thing about
death was that life still continued on despite it. The seasons still changed, the moon still rotated around the earth, the sun still set in the west every evening. The birds still migrated and made their trip south for the winter. No matter how hard he’d tried to stop time, JD had only managed to entomb himself inside Teal Manor with Darla’s memory. By locking himself away in this place, JD had tried to defy all that. He couldn’t stop the earth from spinning. He was just one man. Ironically, it only took one woman to make it spin in the first place. JD was the only one stuck in the past; fighting the present with every breath he took. Everyone else had moved on. Now it was his turn.

When he first lost Darla, he couldn’t even think about a life without her, much less navigate through the fog of grief and take care of himself. Now…now enough time had passed that a new life didn’t seem so unthinkable.

He wasn’t the first person to lose someone they loved. It happened every day all across the world. Countless lives were lost to unnecessary death. It was what you did
after
their death that mattered just as much as during.

So w
hy was it so difficult to move on? What was he afraid of? Judgment? He never used to give a damn what people thought about him. Especially not some wetlands nymph who cared more about birds than—no, Lauren was so much more than that. She was the first burst of sunlight he’d seen in the last year. She was incredible and she made him want to be more than he was. He wanted her to be proud of him. He wanted her to look at him like she looked at those birds of hers.

Maybe that was the problem. He actually cared what
Lauren thought about him. But who said she even thought about him at all? That was the problem with being out here alone with his thoughts. All he did was
think
. He never used to think so much. He used to wear what he wanted, do whatever he wanted, foot the bill for entire dinners for his teammates, wear two-thousand-dollar suits, buy sunglasses that cost more than most people’s rent…

And then he had it all taken from him in the snap of a finger. What good was any of that if he didn’t have someone to share it all with? His teammates didn’t count. They all had their own wives and girlfriends and those who didn’t had a different girl in their bed every night if they wanted.

He couldn’t do that to himself or Darla’s memory—bury himself between the legs of some faceless bimbo—even though it could be arranged easily enough. There were plenty of willing women within slapshot distance of any hockey arena who would give anything for a night with one of the UNHL’s finest. That road would only intensify his grief and JD was smart enough to realize that. Sex, booze, drugs…they were all things that could probably help numb the pain, but it would only be temporarily and JD needed more than just a fleeting feeling of euphoria.

The road he’d chosen probably wouldn’t put him on the fast-track to healing
, but at least he didn’t have some foreign substance coursing through his veins or a bottle suctioned to his lips. If anything, he was feeling a little better each day. Especially since he’d met Lauren.

Lauren. She reminded him that there was a lot more to life than just his own self-pity. He’d noticed
a lot of little changes in himself since she arrived. Small things that might seem insignificant to most people but were monumental to him. Things like opening the curtains in the morning instead of sitting in the darkness all day. Things like shaving regularly and making an effort to go outside in the morning to drink his coffee even if it was just in hopes that he might see Lauren in the field. Then she’d come over and share her account of the bird activity that day and he’d watch her eyes dance.

At least he was making an effort. It was more than he could say a few months ago.

JD didn’t want his life to be meaningless anymore. If anything, he was desperately searching for something meaning
ful
. Something to justify all of the pain and emptiness in his heart and in the world at large. This mystified him. Was he really
searching
for something? He’d come to Teal Manor to give up, to throw in the towel, and now all he thought about was finding a way to fill the emptiness and break out of this grief-filled prison.

He’d been trudging along in a fog for the past year. What would he do if it actually cleared?

* * *

Lauren took her coffee outside and sat on the little bench near the property line. Aunt Cora had placed the green bench there because it had a nice view of the birdfeeders in the backyard. She said it was the perfect place for daydreaming.

Lauren could use a daydream right now. After
yesterday, she was feeling raw and emotional. JD had finally opened up to her. He told her things she suspected he hadn’t told anyone else. Lauren knew a little bit about grief and loss, but she couldn’t imagine suffering the kind of loss that JD had. No wonder he’d been so distant.

As much as he obviously wanted to isolate himself, Lauren was glad she was here to help him through to the other side of his grief.
He was kind of like a wounded bird. Except in JD’s case, his wing had long healed and he was just too terrified to try to fly again.

Lauren watched as finches
and sparrows pecked at the sunflower seeds on the ground under the birdfeeders.

Maybe Aunt Cora had brought
Lauren to Hayley’s Point for more than one reason.

* * *

That
afternoon, JD decided to do what he hadn’t had the strength to do before. He went into the master bedroom and stood in the doorway of the walk-in closet. The closet was full of designer suits and ties from his hockey days. There was a time when he enjoyed getting dressed up on game days and wearing a nice suit to the arena. That sophisticated style quickly earned him the nickname Hollywood from his teammates. What could he say? He liked to look good. Signing multi-million dollar contracts year after year meant he could afford it. It was an image as well as a lifestyle and once upon a time that image mattered to him.

He and Darla had been the best-dressed couple in the league. She lived for the public events and always shined like a diamond on his arm. But none of that superficial stuff mattered
much at the end of the day. What mattered was the man he was underneath the Armani suit and silk Tom Ford necktie.

JD
looked down at his tattered sweatpants and threadbare T-shirt and sighed. He’d really let himself go. There was no reason to get dressed up after Darla passed away. The last time he’d worn a suit was…the day of her funeral. The memories of that day flashed through his mind and knocked the wind out of him. It had been the second worst day of his life and he couldn’t bear reliving it in his mind.

He looked back at the closet and took a deep breath. When he first moved into Teal Manor, h
e’d stored the box in the back of the walk-in closet and tried to pretend it wasn’t there. Darla’s clothes and jewelry had long since been divided among family and the rest donated to charity and all he had left was the box he’d shoved behind his suits.

There wasn’t anything valuable inside,
but just because the contents of the box didn’t hold monetary value didn’t mean it wasn’t valuable to
him
.

He went inside the closet and
pulled the box out from underneath a pile of blankets and a shirt that had fallen off its hanger. It was time.

* * *

JD carried the box from the closet
and set in on the bed. He ran his hand over the tape on the seam before ripping it open. Carefully, he emptied the contents onto the satin comforter. The papers that tumbled out were invitations to charity events and fundraising dinners, a calendar, empty envelopes... The contents of Darla’s desk.

After he’d sold their house in Red Valley, he’d dumped the drawers of her desk into the box without even going through it first.
He hadn’t been ready to look what was inside.

JD looked at the pile of papers and sighed.
When he’d boxed up his wife’s home office, the scraps of papers meant the world to him. They were his last connection to the woman he’d lost. Now they were just a pathetic reminder of the life he wouldn’t have. But was that such a bad thing? He could make a new life for himself. Until now, that thought hadn’t crossed his mind.

Mel sniffed at the papers. Could he smell Darla’s scent? It was probably long gone by now. The dog settled down by the foot of the bed, remaining in the room for moral support.

A piece of paper with the words
MOVE ON
caught JD’s eye and he pulled it out of the pile.

“Move on,” JD said out loud and Mel whined in response.

It was a sheet of Darla’s stationery. She had written: “Get boxes and bubble wrap for the MOVE ON 12/1.”

JD remembered this. It was from when the women’s shelter moved to a bigger building. It was just a simple note scribbled in haste
, yet it meant everything.

Move on.

“Promise me you’ll play hockey again when I’m gone.” Darla’s voice broke through the evening silence and JD squeezed his eyes shut.

The memory was vivid and
her voice was strong and unwavering. They were sitting by the fireplace in the living room of their house in Red Valley. The wine glass in her hand was full, but she didn’t drink the crimson liquid; she just ran her finger slowly around the rim of the glass.

In the past,
when JD didn’t have a game the next day or when he wasn’t on the road, he and Darla would have been out on the town on a Saturday night. But Darla was too weak to go out anymore. Her social calendar had been replaced with doctor appointments and treatment schedules. Now that she’d forgone another round of chemo, their calendar was empty and ominous.

But
JD didn’t mind staying in. He’d rather have Darla all to himself anyway.

“JD?
Are you listening to me? I asked you to promise me you’ll play hockey again when I’m gone.

“Darla, I wish you’d stop talking like that.” How was he supposed to treasure his last moments with her when all she talked about was his life after her death? Not only did he not want to talk about it, he just couldn’t fathom life without her.

“Why?” she asked.

“Honey, I don’t want
to think about that right now.”

His tone was gentle yet firm but she pressed on anyway.
“You need to,” she insisted. “You
should
be playing right now…”

“You know I couldn’t concentrate on hockey right now.”

“I know, but… Just promise me you’ll go back to it, okay?”

Was that a promise he could make?
Would he be able to play again? Did he even
want
to? Without Darla…

Finally, he relented and promised her and she sighed with relief. “I’ve made my peace with the cancer, JD. It’s okay.”

No, it wasn’t okay
, he screamed inside his head. She couldn’t just give up.

“I’m not giving up,” she said as if she could read his thoughts. “I’m being realistic. This
is
going to happen and we can either accept it or spend needless, precious time trying to fight the inevitable.”

They sat in silence for a while but JD knew she had more to say on the subject.

“I want you to know that after I’m gone, it’s okay for you to be with someone else,” she said softly.

“No, Darla,” he smacked the thought away. “I don’t want to be with anyone else.” He set his wine glass down next to hers on the table and turned to face her.

“You’re not eighty years old, JD,” she said, facing him with equal determination. “You’re young and I don’t want you to die old and alone and miserable all because of me. Promise me you’ll be open to loving someone else.” She cupped his face in her hands. “Promise me.”