Comeback (32 page)

I got the boys into the bath and sent the still blushing Elin off to do the same. I couldn’t read Swedish, so I settled on
Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets
for a bedtime story. I figured a few laughs would do us all some good. I’d just pulled that book off the shelf in the boys’ room when I heard Elin’s quiet voice behind me.

“Jessica?” She sounded worried, or upset, or…something.

I set the book down and turned, smiling to ease whatever her concerns might be. Chances were it had something to do with
É
tienne. “What’s up?” I asked.

“Can you… I mean, can I—” She cut herself off at a loud splash and giggle coming from the boys’ bathroom. “Will you come in my room with me?”

“Of course,” I said, following her out into the hall with a thousand thoughts racing through my head. Maybe he’d already tried to do more than hold her hand and neither Julianne nor I had noticed? I didn’t think that was the case, but there had been six kids and only the two of us. There was no telling what those two might have done when we’d had our focus on the game instead of on them.

I closed the door behind us when we got into her room and then sat next to her on the bed.

“It’s just—” She wrung her hands together and bit her lower lip, and she looked like she was going to cry. “I think I started my period.”

I wasn’t sure if that was better or worse than Elin needing to talk to me about
É
tienne having kissed her before she was ready for it. Either way, I didn’t have much say in the matter. She needed to talk to someone, and that was why I was here. Wasn’t it?

I took a breath and held her hand. Then we settled in for a talk. She wasn’t oblivious, thank goodness. Emma had done a good job with preparing Elin for the changes her body would go through. There are some things a girl just can’t be ready for until they happen, though, no matter how well prepared parents think she is.

I called Brie and asked her to make a run to the pharmacy for some appropriately-sized hygiene products, and I took some time explaining to Elin how she should use them. She had apparently been having cramps all day, and had chalked it up to being so nervous about spending time with
É
tienne. Now she knew that at least some of it was likely due to other causes. I gave her some Motrin for the cramps, and once she finished asking questions, we went to her brothers’ bedroom together to have story time.

Nils and Hugo had apparently given up waiting for us. Nils was asleep on top of his covers wearing nothing but underwear, and Hugo was reading
Captain Underpants
to himself, laughing out loud.

“Want me to finish reading it to you?” I asked Hugo, trying to reposition Nils so that I could at least get the blankets over him. The kids understood and spoke English really well, but Hugo had been struggling with reading it on his own. That had been one of the biggest adjustments for all three of them in switching to schools in the States, but he’d had the hardest time of them all. That was one of the main reasons Nicky read to them at night.

“I can do it,” Hugo said.

“All right, then.” I was happy to let him do it on his own if he wanted. That likely wouldn’t have happened a short time ago.

Elin told him goodnight and went off to her room. I flipped on the bedside lamp for him and turned out the overhead light.

Then I went back into the living room and got out my laptop. I was exhausted and wanted to go to bed myself, but I was never going to get my work done with the kids home and awake. After bed and before they got up in the morning seemed like the only times I would have to really focus, and I was determined to make the best of it.

Besides, I needed something to keep my mind occupied until Nicky called. He had been calling me every night on this trip, once the team was at their hotel for the night and he was settled. They had to fly from Nashville to Dallas after the game, so I had a while to wait, but I knew the call was coming.

“HELLO?” JESSICA’S VOICE
was groggy on the other end of the line. I knew it was late and she’d had a few long days in a row, but I really wanted to hear her voice before going to bed. Besides, we had an agreement: when I was on the road, I’d call her from the hotel every night. It kept me accountable to her, so she’d know I wasn’t doing things I had no business doing, like hanging out in a bar or hunting for pills, and it kept her from worrying about me.

“Did I wake you?” I asked.

“I wish. I’m trying to get caught up on my email.”

“You’re still working? It’s after midnight there.”

“It is, but I wound up taking the kids to meet the d’Aragons at the Saturday Market, and then we watched your game, so I didn’t get much done until they went to bed.”

If she wasn’t with me and trying to help me with the kids, she would be able to go about her life as usual. I hated that she had to make so many adjustments because of me. “Tomorrow, tell them you need some quiet time,” I suggested. “And I’ll make it up to you once I get home.”

“For one thing, there’s nothing you need to make up to me. And for another, I’ve accepted that there just isn’t going to be much quiet time while all three of them are out of school, whether you’re here or not. They need to get out and do things.” She went quiet for a minute. “We’re going to the work site tomorrow. I haven’t gone to check on things in over a week. Carter said everything’s going all right, but…”

“But you need to see for yourself because you can’t let go of things.”

“I’d gladly let go of some if I wasn’t a one-woman show.”

“For some reason, I don’t know how much I believe that.” She tended to do things she thought needed to be done, regardless of whether someone else could do it for her.

“Well, it doesn’t matter. The fact is I’m the only one.”

“Have you talked to Kally about that?” I asked. In the early days of his foundation, it hadn’t made sense to have more employees. I understood that. Getting funding, establishing a presence within the community, all of that took time to really get underway. But with the amount of work that the two of them had put into it over the years, the organization had grown a lot. Jessica was still the only one getting most of it done, though. I wanted her to have help, particularly now that she was doing more with her personal time. I really wanted her to have help from a purely personal standpoint; the more free time she had, the less guilty I would feel for stealing so much of it for myself.

“I’ve been able to do it all on my own just fine to this point,” she said. “I just have to figure out a new system is all.”

“You told me before that you’ve been taking work home with you when you leave the office for a while now. Does he know that?”

“Liam doesn’t need to know that. I get everything done. There aren’t any problems.”

“And you aren’t allowed to have a normal life because you’re filling it with work,” I finished for her. I didn’t know why I was getting so indignant about it other than because I wanted to take some of the weight off her shoulders.

“It’s not normally this bad. It’s just that there have been a lot of changes in my life, and I haven’t found a good solution…yet. I will.”

“Hmm,” I said.

“What does that mean?”

“It means I don’t completely buy what you’re selling.”

“Hmm,” she said back. “Well, whether you’re buying it or not, nothing’s going to change in the next few days.”

“No, I don’t suppose so.” I hadn’t called to start an argument with her, and it felt as though that was the direction we were heading. I figured I might as well change the subject. “So you took the kids out with Danger’s family?” I asked.

“I did.” Immediately, she sounded more relaxed. “Nils and Hugo sampled pretty much every kind of food they could get their hands on, and Elin had a nice time with
É
tienne.”

“You’re sure?”

She hesitated before answering. That didn’t seem good.

“As sure as I can be.”

“You make it seem like you’re not sure at all. Was he—”

“It’s nothing to do with
É
tienne,” Jessica cut in.

“Then something else is wrong with Elin?” I sat up on my bed in the hotel room, ready to act before I really understood what was going on.

“Nothing’s wrong with her. She’s just growing up.”

And her mother was missing it. So was I. “You’re sure she’s all right?”

“She’s got some girl things going on. Do you want me to fill you in on all the details? Because I really think it’s probably better if you just stay in the dark, but you’re her uncle and her guardian so if you—”

“Never mind,” I interrupted. “I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know.” Elin was twelve and old enough to be thinking about boyfriends and dating and all those kinds of things. Lord knew that meant she was old enough to hit puberty and deal with all the things that brought with it. “Do you need anything from me?” I asked, almost as an afterthought and hoping that she would say no.

“We got it all sorted out. Everything’s fine,” Jessica assured me.

I breathed a sigh of relief. My sister really
had
thought of everything. How would I have handled whatever it was if Jessica hadn’t been there? Would Elin have even come to me with something like that? I wasn’t entirely sure. She hadn’t even wanted to talk to me about her note from
É
tienne, so why should I think something more intimate than that would be any different? “And you? Did you have a good time at the market?”

I’d been to the Saturday Market a few times in my years in Portland. It was a huge open-air market they set up in Old Town on the weekends, with all sorts of crafters and tradespeople, artists and vendors. A person could spend hours there and never get bored.

“It would have been nicer if you were there, too. And speaking of you,” she said, laughter evident in her tone. “What on earth were you chanting with the crowd after they scored on you?”

I sank back on the bed, putting an arm behind my head. “You saw that?”

“The camera was right on you, and you had your mask off. We saw every bit of it.”

That wasn’t good. That meant it was bound to be all over the hockey media by now. And
that
meant I’d have to deal with a bunch of ribbing from the boys. “You’ll laugh if I tell you.” It was honestly more than just a little embarrassing.

“I laughed anyway. Tell me.”

“Well, every arena has different things they chant to get under the skin of the visiting team. I tend to make up my own version of their chants in a way that does the opposite.”

“And?”

“I was saying,
Ericsson! Ericsson! Ericsson! You rock. Sprinkle on some salt. You rock.
”

She was practically giggling on the other end of the line. “Sprinkle on some salt?”

“Like rubbing salt in a wound.”

“That’s hilarious.”

“I told you you’d laugh.” But now I was laughing, too, and it felt good. “I miss you, Jessica.”

She sobered up right away, making me wish I hadn’t said that.

But then she said, “I miss you, too.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “Fantasy,” I said to lighten the mood. “
Lord of the Rings
or
Game of Thrones
?” We’d played our This or That game a few times since that first day at the Japanese Gardens, but it never got old.

“Are we talking books or the film or TV versions?”

“You choose.”

“
Lord of the Rings
, then, the movie version.”

“I thought books were always better than movies,” I said.

“
Almost
always.”

“I’d take
Game of Thrones
, but give me the books.”

“You can have them. They take an eternity to read. Which house will win in the end? Stark or Targaryen?”

“What, you’re ruling the Lannisters out already?”

“Bad guys never win in the end, and if there was ever a house that went bad, it’s the Lannisters,” she said. “Bad guys don’t get ahead and stay ahead. That’s not how literature works. They have to get their comeuppance.”

“True. I’ll take the Starks. Jon Snow is going to end up saving Westeros.”

“He’s not a Stark,” Jessica argued. “He’s a Snow.”