Cam sighs, lifting his phone and unlocking it. Whatever he sees on the screen has him sucking in a hard breath, his hand trembling lightly in mine, and when he drops the phone into his lap, I see it’s some kind of weather app, open to the radar. “It’s storming in Pittsburgh,” he says hoarsely.
“It is. Is that a problem?”
He closes his eyes, letting out a heavy breath. “I don’t like when it storms. I especially don’t like when it storms when I’m not home. When I can’t be there to make sure my family is safe.”
He must see the questions in my eyes, so he keeps going, his voice quiet and a little forced, like it’s painful for him to get the words out. “My wife died the night Ethan was born. She had preeclampsia in the last seven weeks of her pregnancy, but it was mild enough that they managed it with extra monitoring and a bunch of other things, including inducing her at thirty-seven weeks. We had heard inductions can take forever, but Ethan was in a hurry to be born, so it was pretty quick, and god, it was so amazing. Riley was three, and all I could think about was how excited I was to call my mom and have her bring Riley to the hospital to meet her brother. I love being a dad,” he says softly. “Then and now. But all of a sudden, everything went wrong. Lainey started bleeding, really badly. I took Ethan from her so the doctors could work, but before I could even wrap my thoughts around what was happening, they were rushing her to surgery, and I was alone in the room with a new baby in my arms and no clue what was happening to my wife.”
Cam closes his eyes, taking a long, slow breath. “They toldme that, because of the preeclampsia, her uterus couldn’t contract properly after delivery. They tried so hard to save her, but she was bleeding too much, too fast, and they couldn’t stop it. She was gone twenty minutes after Ethan took his first breath. It was storming when they came out to tell me. It was raining hard, and the thunder was so loud it rattled the windows of our hospital room while the doctor told me my wife was gone.They did everything they could, she said. But they couldn’t save Lainey, and suddenly, I was a single father of a three-year-old and a baby who was only two hours old.” Cam blows out a breath, squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head. “Obviously, a thunderstorm didn’t kill Lainey. It was just really bad fucking luck. But for some reason…” He trails off, and when he opens his eyes, they take on a pleading look, like he’s begging me to understand him.
And I do. My heart is shredded for him, for his kids, and for what they lost. But somehow, I know that, in this moment, what he needs is psychologist Maddy, so that’s what I give him.
“It was storming when you lost your family. Your most important person. Your life became something different that night. Something scary and unexpected. Your brain made that connection, and now when it storms, your body reacts. It goes into fight or flight mode, because your brain is telling you that something terrible is about to happen to someone you love. It doesn’t matter that rationally you know better. Brains are mysterious and powerful, and once it wires itself, it takes a lot of work to undo the connection.”
He gives me a small smile. “It’s been more than ten years. When I’m in town during a storm and I know where Riley and Ethan are, where my mom is, I’m mostly fine. But away games are harder. When they told us flights were cancelled because of the storms around Pittsburgh and we wouldn’t be able to get home tonight, I just…spiraled. Ethan has hockey practice, and Riley is at school for the play, and my mom is handling all the drop offs and pick-ups, so I couldn’t know for sure that they were safe. I didn’t want to call my mom or Riley because they don’t know about this part of me, and I don’t want to put it on them. Especially not on my kids. I paced my room for a while, staring at the weather radar, willing the rain to stop. And when it didn’t, my chest got tight and I couldn’t breathe. That’s when I came up here, hoping the air would help. It didn’t.” He studies me intently, his eyes dark and serious. “But you did.”
Now it’s my turn to smile a little. “I didn’t do anything.”
“You were here,” he says, and my stomach swoops at his gravely tone.
He glances down at his phone, still open to the radar, at the dark red moving slowly right across the city of Pittsburgh, and shakes his head slowly. “Do you think…” He trails off. “Do you think maybe you could stay up here with me for a while? I hate being alone in a hotel room under the best of circumstances.” Huffing out a laugh, he looks up at me. “Lainey used to sit with me on video calls for hours when I was in hotels the night before games because after curfew, I would be bored out of my skull. It probably drove her insane, but she never showed it. She was good like that.”
Cam talks about his wife with humor and so much affection, but there’s something else there too. A relief, almost, in giving me this piece of her. Of them. It makes me wonder if he ever talks about her like this—and if he doesn’t, whether he wants to.
I don’t know if it’s the balmy Florida night or the quiet, empty roof, or just the man sitting right in front of me showing me a side of him that I’m struggling to find anything but irresistible, but the question is falling from my mouth before I can stop it.
“Do you want to tell me more about her?”
CHAPTER NINE
CAM
Do you want to tell me more about her?
My heart clenches at Maddy’s question. The ease and curiosity in it. And I wonder how she knew. How she understood that giving her that little piece of Lainey had the dredges of my panic attack lifting, a kind of lightness taking its place.
“It’s not weird?” I ask, hoping she says no, because sitting here with her on the dark roof, her hand still in mine and her green eyes fixed on me, I’m suddenly desperate to stay up here, talking to her, for as long as I can. And not just because it’s a distraction from the fact that I’m more than a thousand miles away from all the people I love most in the middle of a thunderstorm. People I haven’t heard from yet tonight. I shove away the little licks of panic that threaten to resurface.
It’s also because I like to talk about Lainey, and it’s not something I do all that much anymore. Of course I talk to my kids about her, tell them stories and show them pictures to make sure they know their mom. Who she was. How she was. How much she loved them both. But time passes and life happens and all ofa sudden, it’s been weeks since I thought about what Lainey was to me.
But then the woman who’s dug herself straight into my heart asks me to talk about her, and it’s like she’s given me a gift I didn’t know to ask for. A space to talk about the woman I once loved. To remember that she was here and what we had was real, even if it couldn’t last.
“Why would it be weird?”
I huff out a laugh. “Because Lainey is my late wife and you and I spent a night together where I fucked you into the mattress and the shower wall and on a dresser and every other surface in that hotel room, flat and otherwise. It was the best night I’ve had in years, and I don’t think it’s a secret that I would really, really like a repeat.”
Maddy mock gasps, her eyes widening as she presses her free hand to her chest. “You would?”
I laugh, nudging her knee with mine. “Brat. And thank you.”
“For what?”
“For distracting me from my existential angst over a thunderstorm.”
“Don’t do that,” she says seriously. “Don’t minimize it. You feel it, so to you, it’s the realest thing in the world. If you ever want to find some coping mechanisms for the anxiety, one of the therapists on my team can help you with that, but don’t make it less than it is.”
This is the opening I’ve been waiting for to ask her the question that’s been on my mind for two weeks, and I walk straight through it. “What if I wanted you to help me with it? The way you did tonight.”
She shakes her head, red ponytail brushing her shoulders. “I helped you through a panic attack tonight. That’s way different than therapy that helps you find a way to manage your anxiety long term.”
