Rooster: A Secret Baby Sports Romance Page 15

  Rory is so eager to show me just how much he wants me, what follows before we actually get ourselves to the bedroom is a comical series of mini-catastrophes, that result in bruises to his good leg, his bad leg banging twice against the frame of the bedroom door, and me tripping over my panties as I rush to get them off my body. When I finally get him into the bed, which involves part tip, part roll, and part climb, and I’m ready to spread myself out on top of him, Oscar begins to cry.

  It’s typical. I haven’t seen Rory in a week and here he is completely unable to fight off my advances, defenseless to my wicked urges, and our baby chooses exactly the same moment to wail like a banshee.

  “We can’t leave him can we?” Rory says, only half joking, his hand around the base of his swollen dick.

  “No”, I say, “As inviting the prospect, and as sexy as you are, I’m going to have to leave you for a moment and attend to our crying son.”

  “You are such a good mother.”

  “Don’t move a muscle and I’ll show you just how good a girlfriend I am too.”

  Rory smiles at me. “That’s progression”, he says.

  “What is?”

  “Boyfriend-girlfriend. You’ll be wanting to marry me next.”

  “Don’t joke”, I say. “If you don’t get working on getting yourself back together you might end up with more than you bargained for from your stay in the states.”

  Rory lets the idea hang while I attend to our son.

  “A marriage of convenience”, he calls out. “That would certainly sort out the visa problems.”

  “Don’t push your luck”, I call back. “You’ve only just become my boyfriend.”

  I can’t say the thought hasn’t crossed my mind before, and if Rory can’t get his work visa renewed, it might be something we should seriously consider. You know, for the benefit of Oscar, not because I can’t get enough of this incredible Irish stallion.

  “Done?” Rory asks when I appear back in the bedroom.

  “Done”, I say, pulling my dress over my head.

  “Next time, my turn”, Rory says, gathering me into him.

  “You just concentrate on what you do best. Lie there and make me come.”

  “That I will do gladly”, Rory says, “even with a broken leg.”

  Twelve.

  Rory

  I’ve seen Rocky, I know how this goes. If I put on some inspirational music, pound seven bells of shit out of a pig carcass and run up the steps of the town hall I’ll be back to full fitness in no time.

  First I’ve got to make sure I can walk. If this thing has gone wrong in any way, I’m fucked. If the bone needs resetting or my knee doesn’t bend or the muscle has wasted away too much from underuse I’m going to spend the rest of my life in Ireland, hobbling to the pub with a fucking stick.

  Today the cast comes off. It’s been less than six weeks, but it’s felt like a lifetime. A year in prison seems like a walk in the park compared to what I’ve just had to go through.

  Imagine waking up every day and not being able to get out of bed without any help. Stairs have been all but impossible, and then elevators have been pretty much off limits too, because of the way the cast was set to keep my leg straight.

  I’ve seen less sunshine than the average mole, and getting out at all from Izzy’s apartment has been an act of planning and organization on a professional level, way above the capabilities of common man.

  Getting to the hospital today was hard enough, but if I had to drag myself along the ground inch by inch, nothing could have stopped me from making it.

  Today is the first day of the rest of my life. Today, when they cut these white, plaster-cast manacles off me I can finally begin to think about training, working, playing, and staying here in the states with Izzy and my son.

  It’s not been easy for her having me like this, but we’ve come through it, stronger than ever. Izzy and I know what we want, and if my leg is fucked and I can’t play and the work visa runs out as a consequence, we’ll find a way to make sure we stay together.

  “Ready?” the doctor asks.

  Izzy squeezes my hand. “Fuck, yes, I was ready the day after you put this on”, I confirm.

  The nurse frowns and folds her arms over her chest. It’s the same one that didn’t want me to leave when I was staying here, and she looks like she’s hoping for an outcome that brings me back to her.

  I thought it’d be a pair of shears, and it probably still would be in Ireland, but here, medicine seems to have got modern. The doctor lines up the buzz saw, flips his goggles and places the blade at my ankle, ready to cut through the cast.

  “Careful with the leg”, I warn him.

  He smiles, steadies his hand and sets the blade whirring at a million miles an hour. It looks fierce enough to cut through bone and as soon as I think it, I can’t watch. I’ve no idea how he knows he’s not going to cut through my flesh, because that blade must be millimeters away from my skin.

  Half a minute later when I feel cold air around my kneecap and the cast like an open shell around it, I know it’s already over.

  Half of me doesn’t want to look, the other half knows I have to.

  “Done”, the doctor says, “now let’s see if you can bend it.”

  I sit up, just to see what I’ve got to work with. I look at the doctor, I look at Izzy and then I look down at my pathetic leg. There are holes, and dried blood, and scars from the operation, and the muscle has atrophied so much it looks like it belongs to someone else.

  “Fuck”, I say.

  The doctor flips his goggles again. “Bend”, he says, taking hold of my ankle.

  “It looks fucked”, I say.

  “One step at a time, Rory”, the donut faced wench of a nurse says. “When you bend it we can see if you can take some weight on it.”

  “Alright, fuck this”, I say, lift my knee and bend my leg. It hurts like hell, and I’m not even sure why. The bone has been fixed so it can’t be that.

  “Your muscles are weak”, the doctor says. “But the movement looks good. Straight again.”

  I straighten my leg again.

  “Six inches off the ground.”

  I can barely do it. I manage to lift my heel about an inch off the ground before I have to let it drop again, what feels like the weight of a family car on top of my shin.

  The doctor nods and writes something in his notes.

  “Ready to see if you can walk?” he asks me with a smile.

  My leg looks half the size of the other one. The difference, even after such a short time of inactivity, is incredible.

  I swing both legs off the bed, the bad one so unfamiliar it feels like someone else’s entirely.

  “I’ll catch you if you fall”, Izzy says.

  “Little by little”, the nurse says.

  I imagine myself jumping down from here and landing on the ground like a superhero, but that’s not going to happen, at least not today. What I imagine I’m capable of doing, and what I can actually, comfortably do, is wildly different. I hate admitting it, but right now, I feel the weakest I have ever felt, the most incapable, and it’s frankly embarrassing.

  I’m confident I’ll be able to get over this and I can see myself playing again, but right now, I’m not even confident this leg is going to hold my weight enough to keep me up.

  The doctor takes me on one side, the nurse on the other, and while I slide myself to the edge of the bed, they carry my weight.

  Twenty-six years old and it takes three people to put me back together, three and a half if you count Oscar too.

  I take the weight onto my good leg first, just to find my balance. When I’ve got it, I place the other leg flat down on the ground and shift the weight across into it slowly.

  Izzy looks concerned, even though she’s hiding that concern behind a wide, proud smile.

  I feel a stab of pain shoot up into my thigh momentarily before I shift half of the weight back into the other leg and balance myself equally. I can tell
one side is weaker than the other, but, even so, it’s definitely strong enough with the help of the other to hold me up.

  When I indicate that I’m ready to try and stand alone without help, the doctor and the nurse take a step to the side and wait for me to pull my hands away from them.

  I can feel my heart beating strongly in my chest, and for the first time in a long time, I feel scared. A lot begins with this first step and I don’t want to fuck it up.

  “Come on, Rocky”, Izzy says. “Let’s see how much you want it.”

  “Like you need to know”, I say, before taking my hands away slowly.

  Izzy claps, as I work out where I need to shift my weight to balance myself, my hips wobbly but strong, my leg refusing to give in.

  “Excellent”, the doctor says, and I feel like a fucking champion. “Now let’s see if you can walk.”

  Standing is complicated enough for someone that has spent the last month and a half sitting down, but walking, that feels so unfamiliar to me I have no idea how to begin. Which leg do I lead with? How long do I make my strides? How do I fucking turn around?

  It’s like my mind knows but my body refuses to respond to the signal. Or my body knows as well but is choosing not to risk it. The result is a lack of movement from both of my legs, good and bad, which frankly feels super fucking embarrassing. I’ve had my leg broken, I’ve not had a stroke, so why the fuck I’m having so much difficulty right now, I don’t know.

  If it takes this much time to work out how to put one foot in front of the other, how am I meant to get fit enough to get back into the team in two weeks?

  “Rory?” Izzy asks.

  “I know”, I say, “I’m doing it.”

  I’m strong enough to do it, I know that, but that’s not it anyway. It feels like I’ve got some kind of mental block restricting me from moving forward.

  I look at my toes that wiggle themselves back up at me as though they are saying hello and I look at the smiling doctor and the grimacing nurse and then Izzy who could not be any more perfect, but I still can’t move.

  “We can try again later if you’d like?” the doctor says, addressing Izzy as much as he addresses me.

  “No”, Izzy says. “We are not leaving until he walks over here.”

  I feel completely inept right now. Unable to play hurling, unable to play ice hockey, unable to look after my son and unable to even walk. Izzy lifts Oscar out of his buggy and sets him in her arms.

  “Rory O’Connor, if you want to us to be a family, you’ll grow some balls and walk over here, right now.”

  “Tell me you love me first and I’ll do it”, I say.

  “I’ll tell you I love you when you get here.”

  “That means you already mean it”, I say, smiling.

  Izzy narrows her eyes. “Just get over here”, she says.

  Alright, I can do this. I know I can do this. If I can become a trophy winning hurling player and survive a year in jail, if I can get through an abusive childhood and create something as special as Oscar, if I can find someone like Izzy and fall in love, I know I can walk six feet across the hospital room floor and into her arms, bad leg first.

  I lift it slowly, a dull ache throbbing through the knee, move it forward a foot and drop it back to the ground, heavier than I want and almost so forcefully it unbalances me. The doctor rushes in, but I hold up my hand to indicate I’m okay, wobbly, but ok, and able to continue.

  “Easy, Rory”, the fat nurse says.

  Easy? I’ve never had it easy my whole life. My good leg comes into the air, glides through it gracefully and kisses the ground again as smooth as a falling petal. I’m doing it. Step by fucking step, I’m walking. Alright, I’m doing it like a seventy-year-old, but I’m still doing it. Bad leg up, wobbly through the air, but a better, much more controlled landing this time.

  Good leg up, through and down. I’m getting faster. Bad leg not even all that bad anymore, worse of course, but if the good leg is almost perfect, everything else is going to pale in comparison. Up, across, down, shift, good, bad, good, bad, and before I know it, I’m there, heart beating so quickly I feel like I’ve run it, smile so thick across my face my cheeks hurt.

  Izzy’s crying. “I love you”, she says.

  “I knew that already”, I say, my hands around her, pulling her into my chest. “I love you too.”

  “That was terrible, Rory”, the nurse says, and I have to laugh. “I’ve seen ninety-year-old stroke victims do better than that on their first attempt. Embarrassing. Frankly embarrassing. And you’re supposed to be some hot-shot, ice hockey player, right? Well it’s a good job your manager wasn’t here to see that. Ten times more and then I’m taking you off to physio. Think you can handle that?”

  “I can handle that”, I say.

  “Good, because if I take you like that, she’ll send us both away and I’ll have to recast the leg.”

  I hand Oscar back to Izzy, spin myself around and walk back towards the bed, already more confident.

  “Did you have a limp before?” the nurse asks, when I’ve gone there and back two times.

  “No”, I say, looking down at my legs, already feeling a thousand times better.

  “Then don’t pretend you’ve got one now. Ten times Rory, I’m counting.”

  Every pass I make I get stronger. Every kiss Izzy gives me feels like a ball of fire. I’m going to do this if it kills me. I’m going to pull myself back together, walk, run, skate and claw my way back out of the pit that Brad has put me in. Oscar and Izzy are up on the other side and there is no way in hell I’m going to do anything that jeopardizes that. I love hurling, I’ve even come to love ice hockey but nothing will ever compare to the love I feel for Izzy and my son. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her, I’d already be back home drowning my sorrows in a pint of Guinness, fighting a ban and looking for answers in all the wrong places.

  When I look at her and what we’ve created together I know I’ll always be happy, and nothing can take that away, least of all a jealous ex-boyfriend, a broken femur, and the entire American government.

  Visa or no visa, if Izzy and I love each other, nothing can keep us apart.

  “That’s ten”, I tell the nurse, who has been sat down in my wheelchair for the last five laps.

  “Good”, she says. “I’ve seen way better, but I never had very high expectations from you Rory O’Connor.”

  Why doesn’t that surprise me? “So where next?” I say, pumped up and keen to continue.

  “The physio is next”, the nurse says. “And you’re going to like her. She’s even more of a hard-ass than I am.”

  “I’m sure we’ll get on like a house on fire then.”

  “Do what she says well, and I’m sure you will. Grab your things, and let’s go, we’re already late and she’ll be waiting for us.”

  Izzy puts Oscar into the buggy and grabs my bag for me. I’m waiting for the nurse to get out of the wheelchair and then realize she has absolutely no intention of doing so.

  We stare at each other for a while before it dawns on me.

  “You know how irritating it is to have to keep pushing people around in these?” she says.

  “I know”, Izzy says before I even get a chance to answer.

  “That’s not fair”, I say.

  “Excuse me?” the nurse says. “The physio is on the other side of the complex and we are already late. Ready Izzy?”

  My eyes go to the mother of my child. “I’m ready”, she says.

  “Then that leaves you, Rory”, the nurse adds.

  “You want me to push you?”

  The nurse lets her leg spring up so it’s pointing directly outwards. “How else am I going to get there with a broken leg?”

  I shake my head. “When I’m better”, I say, edging my way behind the chair. “I’m going to make sure I get you season tickets for the Islanders. I’ve heard they’ve got a lovely crowd.”

  “At this rate, I’m going to be dead by the time you get bet
ter”, she says. “I’ve got more confidence in coma patients recovering than I have in you being able to even get your uniform on correctly.”

  “We’ll see”, I say, grabbing the handles of the wheelchair firmly and accidentally on purpose knocking her leg into the doorframe on the way out. I’m so determined to prove her wrong, I’m halfway down the corridor before I remember I’ve only just relearned how to walk. I pause, look back to the room and see Izzy only just leaving with Oscar’s buggy.

  “Better, Rory O’Connor”, the nurse says. “We might even make a Ranger out of you yet.”

  Thirteen.

  Izzy

  This life is made of measurements. We put things in neat little categories because it makes us feel like we have control. We can measure progress or failure, or we can see how close or how far away we came to something. It’s everywhere. The ice hockey rink, the school calendar, the shoes you put on in the morning or the diapers your son fills up with his shit.

  One week, ten feet, two years, or a moment that passes in the blink of an eye.

  They are describing Rory’s comeback in the newspapers as nothing short of a miracle. The Lazarus of the NHL, once thought to be dead and buried, now back, bigger and stronger than ever.

  Pages and pages of statistics. His life in numbers. His whole career spread out in paper and ink and given a value. One million dollars, one broken leg, one son, one visa about to expire.

  There is a campaign, a petition, an official online group and several more unofficial ones and we still don’t know what’s going to happen. All these numbers, all these official statistics, and what we are left with is an illusion of control no matter how hard you scrutinize it.

  What I have are things you can’t quantify. I have hope, I have love and I have fear in bucketfuls I’m running out of places inside me to carry it.

  Rory’s return has been nothing short of incredible. From the day he had the cast taken off, he hasn’t stopped. What someone else in his condition would struggle to do in a year, Rory’s done in a week and a half.

  He’s not back to a hundred percent strength yet, but even at ninety and climbing, he’s head and shoulders above almost everyone else. Getting there has not been easy, but in doing so he’s not only proven his capability, he’s proven his commitment too. The renewal of the visa relies on an ability to show a number of things, but longevity, desire, and raw talent are definitely near the top.