Pipe Dreams(12)

As he watched, her blue eyes slowly filled up with tears. "It never works, Daddy. You know that. We'll never win."

That was the precise moment he realized things were far worse than he  thought. He pulled Elsa into his lap and she hugged him like he was a  life preserver in the middle of the Atlantic. "You won't come out with  me today?" he asked softly.

She shook her head. "I don't want to leave Mom alone."

"Maybe Tad is coming over to keep her company."

"Tad bailed," she said.

"He . . . what?"

"He left and he's not coming back."

Fuck. "Is Mom sad about that?" he asked, hoping the answer was no.

"She cried and cried. I could hear her when I was trying to fall asleep."

Mike closed his eyes against a sudden burning sensation. He hated this  for Elsa. All this fear. "You know, things are kind of rough right now. I  sure am sorry about that. But I don't think Mom wants you to hide in  your room feeling sad. You can still have pizza with your dad. And maybe  ice cream."

"Pancakes," she said. "I want you to make pancakes."

"Okay!" he said, leaping at this idea. Anything to get Elsa feeling  better. He wondered if he had any pancake mix left from the last time  she stayed over with him. They could swing by the store . . . He stood  up, lifting her against his chest as if she was still a preschooler.  "Let's go fire up Daddy's giant stove." He'd have to warn Lauren that  they were on their way.

"No. You have to make pancakes here." Her blue eyes begged.

"Here? Mom might not like that." I won't either.

"She doesn't eat anymore. Ever. But if you make pancakes she'll eat. I just know it."

His heart sank all the way to the floor. "That's why you want pancakes?"                       
       
           



       

She nodded. "It will totally work."

"Um . . ." He set Elsa down on her feet. "You go look for pancake mix in the kitchen, okay? I'm going to talk to your mom."


• • •

He didn't get to dine with Lauren that night.

Pancakes and bacon were made and consumed. Shelly choked down a pancake with obvious difficulty. But she did it for Elsa.

Then she quickly opened a kitchen window, and cold air filled the  kitchen. She and Elsa pulled on sweaters which were already stashed on  the backs of their dining chairs.

When he gave Shelly a curious glance, she mumbled that the smell of food  cooking was something she couldn't really tolerate lately.

Mike wondered what Elsa had been eating, then. The answer was revealed  when he opened the freezer to find stacks of frozen kids' meals. Unease  coated his gut. Shelly had always prided herself on making everything  from scratch. No wonder Elsa was terrified. Food from a box was the  equivalent of Armageddon in this house.

That night he put his little girl to bed the way he'd done a million  times. Well, not a million. He traveled too much for that. But it felt  good to tuck her in knowing that he'd eased her mind a little.

His child was suffering. In all her eleven years, he'd never seen her so  scared. Not even when she broke her arm and had to have surgery to  repair the break.

Mike kissed her forehead one more time and closed her bedroom door  quietly. Shelly was waiting for him, sitting at the bottom of the steps.

He sat down beside her. "Hey," he said.

"Hey." She didn't look him in the eye. "I have a couple of things to tell you. You want the good news or bad news first?"

"The good news." And please make it good.

"Divorce papers are done. I got mine from FedEx today, and yours went to the clubhouse."

"Wow. Okay." For a split second his heart soared. He knew it weighed on  Lauren to date a technically married man. Then reality kicked in.  "What's the bad news?"

"I got some test results from Johns Hopkins."

His spine tingled. "And?"

"Same as Sloan Kettering, only they put a number on it."

"A number?"

"The five year survival rate for this kind of cancer at this stage. It's . . ." He heard her swallow roughly. "Twelve percent."

His stomach dropped all the way to his shoes, and he almost asked her to repeat it. There's no way twelve could be right.

How the fuck could that be right?

She sat very still beside him, not breathing. And he had a déjà vu  moment. Twelve years ago they'd had a different but equally terrifying  conversation. I'm pregnant, she'd said at that time. He didn't think  there was anything as scary as that.

He'd been wrong.

Now his throat closed up as it had done the other time, too. "I'm so sorry," he croaked out.

"Me, too," she whispered.

His mind whirled, trying to adjust to what it might mean. What she'd  said was so big he knew he'd need a couple days to get his head around  it.

He might be making a lot of pancakes this summer.

"Take Elsa away in June," Shelly said suddenly.

"What?" he gasped, playing catchup. "Where?"

"Doesn't matter. Ontario. Disney World. Take her on vacation. I can't do  it right now. Too many treatments. And there will be more specialists.  She'll end up just going to day camp if she stays here with me. I'll  have to get my parents to move in with me to get her back and forth."

The tightness in his chest doubled down. Shelly's parents were jerks.  They'd shamed her for getting pregnant when she was a teenager and  shamed her again for having an affair and getting divorced. Elsa didn't  like them all that well, either.

His little girl's summer looked grim.

"I'll think of something," he said. But would he? If he couldn't get  Elsa to leave the house for pizza, she wouldn't be bamboozled into a  three week vacation, no matter how exciting.

"We'll talk tomorrow," Shelly said quietly. "Or the next day."

"Okay," he said, hearing in her voice that he was dismissed. He stood  up, spotting his car out the front door, waiting at the curb. When he'd  parked it there a few hours earlier, things in his life were completely  different.

He left Shelly alone there in her quiet house, grateful to escape to  his, where Lauren was asleep on her back, a book open on her chest.  She'd been trying to wait up for him.

He climbed into bed beside her, carefully removing the book and shutting  off the light. He stretched an arm toward her sleeping body. But  something made his hand pause just over her arm. All he had to do was  roll closer and hold her.                       
       
           



       

She would wake to his kisses, and sink into his embrace. They could make  slow, sleepy love to each other, and he could leave the day's troubles  behind.

Afterward, he could tell Lauren all his problems. They would all come  pouring out, every terrifying fear he had for the future. She would  listen like the true partner that she was. Hell-she might even fire up a  spreadsheet to try to find some answers.

Instead, he recalled his hand, letting her sleep. Something stopped him  from going there. It was the bone-deep suspicion that this was all his  fault. That hubris had finally done him in.

Waking Lauren to hear his nightmare suddenly felt like a colossally  selfish thing to do. Instead, he watched the woman he loved as she  slept. Lauren had plans to look at apartments in the city. Soon. If he  opened her laptop right now he'd probably find it open to the New York  Times real estate search engine.

The woman he loved needed him to move away to a new life in the city.

The woman he'd married needed his help on Long Island.

And the little girl who called him Daddy was hurting so badly.

He'd made different kinds of promises to all of them. As he blinked into  the darkness, it became perfectly clear that he couldn't get through  the next few months without breaking some promises. Maybe breaking some  hearts.

Lauren couldn't fix it for him. And maybe he didn't deserve to have her try.

He lay awake listening to Lauren's gentle breaths, feeling his happiness slip away into the cool springtime night.





EIGHT


WASHINGTON, D.C.

APRIL 2016


"God, this is a total gongshow," Lauren muttered to herself.

Watching game number five was like revisiting her old life. It didn't  matter that she wasn't supposed to care anymore. It didn't matter that  she'd given up hockey. The stadium thrummed with energy. The thwack of  the puck flying off a stick and the crash of skates into the boards was  the soundtrack of her whole life. And not just the parts she'd shared  with Mike Beacon.

Hockey slang had been a part of Lauren's vocabulary since she learned to  talk. If milk spilled from her sippy cup onto the kitchen table, her  father would grab a "Zamboni" to wipe it up. If he and her mother bumped  each other in the kitchen, it was a "hip check."