“I appreciate you helping her out, duchess. More than you know.” He sighs. “Soph, she’s never been good at being different. When she was younger, it was really hard. Other kids can be fucking brats at this age, and when they know she had a dad on top of it who was—” He hesitates.
“A famous world-class hockey star?”
“Close enough. But yes,” he growls. “Yes, they get real nasty. They’d tell her how much she disappointed me. Pure bullshit. I’llnever be anything but proud of my girl. Same with Dan, and he got in trouble a couple years ago. Punched a boy who mouthed off about her feet in front of him. That was a fun parent-teacher conference, let me tell you.”
And he shifts closer again.
This time, his knee scrapes my outer thigh.
I’m feeling stars instead of seeing them for the first time, even as my heart aches for poor Sophie.
“That’s horrible! It must’ve been so hard for your family. With her feet and the crappy comments, I mean. I never even asked her what’s…” I trail off.
“What’s wrong with her?”
I wince. “Why does she need those shoes?”
“Ah, yeah.” He rakes a hand through his thick hair, and I try—I really try—not to stare at the way his biceps bulge like Hercules’ second coming. “The technical name for it’spes planus,which just means flat feet. Most folks live just fine with it, but hers is severe. Her arches should’ve developed around age six, but they didn’t turn up like the doctors hoped.”
“Oh. So she’s been wearing the ortho shoes since then?”
“Basically. A few more years, and I might try taking her in for surgery, if she wants, but she’s a skittish girl. She hates hospitals to hell and back, and the procedure we could try isn’t a total guarantee.”
“Theyarestressful. Especially for a sweet little girl.”
My heart swells with empathy.
“When I took her in to speak with the specialist last time, she nearly had a panic attack and we had to leave. He said surgery’s an option, but there’s also a slight chance she’ll grow out of the worst of it. I’m still hoping it might fix itself and we won’t need to do anything.”
“Does that happen?”
“It has. There’s a chance, or so they say.”
I nod hopefully.
Poor Sophie.
She’s definitely the kind of little angel who doesn’t deserve this.
“So the shoes help support her feet, right?” I ask.
“Yes, and manage her pain,” he tells me. “She’s unlucky. Like I said, a ton of people have flat feet and don’t wind up with problems at all.”
“I’m so sorry.”
I dwell on his words.
She’s blessed to have a lovely supportive dad and a caring brother, a stable home, but it’s so unfair that she has to go through this.
One day, I’ll have questions for God.
Nicequestions, but still…
“As far as disorders go, it could be worse,” he continues. “She had claw toe when she was a kid early on, and there was no way around that surgery. Her hospital experience wasn’t the best. My ex insisted on flying her to Minnesota for it because she didn’t like how short the NYU doctors were, so what did they know? Completely stupid shit, going all the way to Mayo, when Soph could’ve been back at home the same day, recuperating.”
“There’s the anxiety,” I say sympathetically.
“Yeah, right the fuck there.” He stares into the water. “The shoes are more of a temporary fix, a wait and see. If it gets worse, we’ll have no choice but to consider the corrective surgery.”
