“Thank you for coming by on such short notice,” Aurora says. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay for dinner?”
“No, no, honey, thank you. I just got to a good part in this thriller, I need to know if Simone did it.”
Aurora chuckles. “Well, I wouldn’t want to keep you from your thrillers.”
The two women exchange a few more words and Betsy leaves.
“All right, Emett, go change, please, and wash your hands. I’ll heat up the soup. Um, make yourself comfortable,” she says to me and goes into the kitchen.
And apparently, my new comfortable is following Aurora, which I do.
She doesn’t comment on it, and a moment later, the little guy comes running from the same hallway he disappeared to a moment ago. “All done. Do you want to watch some hockey? Mommy records some games for me if she’s not home.” He takes my hand and drags me into the living room.
It takes me by surprise that I haven’t thought of hockey the whole evening, when usually, it’s always on my mind. But I nod,and Emett turns on a game. Thank God, not one of ours. I wouldn’t be able to re-watch that failure again.
A moment later, I feel a small, warm body burrowing into my side as Emett settles right next to me, resting his head against my chest and I stop breathing.
Another piece of my control crumbles to the ground right here and now. By all means, I should pull away, but I can’t. Instead, I pull him closer, draping my arm over his body as we settle in.
I can feel Aurora’s eyes on us, but she doesn’t say anything.
Emett comments on every play, noticing far more than even I would. He’ll make a phenomenal player one day, and with a startling pinch in my rib cage, I realize that he might’ve never gotten the chance.
That day…if that day went any differently, he might’ve died without having a chance to breathe.
I pull him in even closer, swallowing a thick lump that has formed in my throat.
“Well, well, well, who do we have here with us tonight?” Aurora wheels in an older man, his speech slow and somewhat slurred.
Seth Johnson looks frail and very sick. His skin sagging and there are visible dark circles underneath his eyes. What a difference five years made in his condition. Who was once an imposing man is now a shell of his former self.
“Good evening, sir. Sorry to barge in on you guys.”
“Grandpa! It was me.” Emett jumps up excitedly. “I invited Mr. Brick for noodle soup.”
Mr. Johnson chuckles but it shortly ends in a choked cough. “Dad.” Aurora runs up, pulling a straw into his mouth. “Let’s not do any laughing right now, okay?”
He looks tired and dejected but nods solemnly.
“This is my father, Seth. And you know who Severin Minaev is, Dad,” she introduces us.
“That I do.” He smiles.
“Okay, I’ll leave you to your hockey for a bit while I warm up the soup,” Aurora says and walks across the open floorplan toward the kitchen.
For a few minutes, we watch the game in silence, just wincing every time one player checks the other into the boards but soon enough Emett can’t help himself and starts talking about everything under the sun, making both Seth and I smile.
“He’s a good kid,” Mr. Johnson rasps, and I nod in agreement.
“That he is.”
“You’ll take care of him? And my Rory girl?” He pins me with a look that says more than his words. “All these years later…” He trails off, coughing.
Seth Johnson remembers.
He doesn’t take his eyes off me until I nod.
“Always,” I tell him, and find that I’m not lying for the sake of a dying man.
