“Hey, Hummingbird.”
My good mood doesn’t just fade, it’s torn away from me, kicking and screaming.
The first time he called me that, I was just shy of seventeen, working the breakfast rush at the little diner that kept me caffeinated and fed all through high school. I remember darting between tables with plates balanced on my arms, coffee pot in hand, brain already juggling a dozen things at once.
“Slow down, Hummingbird,” he’d said when I bumped into him on my way by. His smile was easy and his laugh even easier—laid back in a way no one else in my life had ever been.He’d started showing up a couple times a week after that, always sitting in my section. I didn’t mind that he was several years older than me. He didn’t mind either, which…looking back now, should’ve been a flashing neon red flag.
“Shawn?”
“So youdoremember me.” His laugh is different now. Rougher. Too many cigarettes, too few good decisions.
I huff out a humourless laugh. “Kind of hard to forget.” On top of being my husband for seven years, he’s also the father of my child. Even after the affairs, the gaslighting, and the flat out lies, I could never truly hate him—not when he gave me Sam. But I can, without hesitation, resent the hell out of him for the wreckage he left behind. For the years of balancing bills like a circus performer, praying I could keep the creditors at bay.
“Guilty,” he says, and I can picture the smile that comes with it. Handsome in that crooked, cocky way, like he still thinks I’m the naive teenager who melted when he leaned on the counter and looked at me just so.
“What’s new?” he asks, as if the last six years have been nothing more than a blip.
What’s new? Oh, not much—just raising our son alone while juggling three jobs to pay off the debt you racked up in my name. Thanks for signing the divorce papers, though.
“What do you want, Shawn?”
“Shit, Hummingbird. No need to be frigid.”
I hate how much I loved the name when he gave it to me. I’d never had a nickname before. A late in life, surprise only child of parents who had better things to do than pay attention to the kid they were supposed to be raising. How I craved that attention. Any kind of it. How he gave me what I’d always wanted and how special it made me feel.
It didn’t last. He changed. Or maybe I did. I got pregnant halfway through my undergraduate degree. Shawn and I gotmarried, and he wanted me to leave school to play the wife and mother. But I refused to quit, even when my life tipped off its axis. I finished my degree with a baby on my hip and went straight into my master’s in physiotherapy.
The schedule was brutal. Classes all day, work when I could, motherhood always. I studied at night while Sam slept in the next room, often falling asleep over textbooks. Somehow, I made it work. I always did.
I graduated and found a job right away, finally working in the field I’d always wanted. Sam was in a great preschool. For a little while, things were okay.
But while I was building our future, Shawn was tearing it down. He drank more. He disappeared more. He lied, covered his tracks, and tried to make me believe his behaviour was my fault. Like I wasn’t giving enough to the marriage. When he started taking it out on Sam, picking him apart for every perceived flaw, I’d had enough.
And apparently, he had too. He left when Sam was seven.
“What do you want?” I repeat. He already thinks I’m a cold bitch. I may as well give him what he expects.
“I just wanted to check in. Heard you got a new job.”
“Yeah. So?” I have no idea who would have told him and I won’t give him the satisfaction of asking.
“You could have told me you were working for the Otters, Elliot. You know they’re my team.”
I laugh bitterly. “I’m sorry, Shawn. I didn’t have your phone number or any other way of contacting you. Also…I didn’t want to. So, there’s that.”
I hear a muffled curse on the other end of the line, like he’s holding the phone away from his mouth. “You get any perks with the job? Tickets or merch?”
I shake my head, still stunned that this is the conversation we’re having after years of silence. “I don’t know. Probably.” My voice is flat. I haven’t exactly had the luxury of goingto hockey games, not when every spare hour has gone to working offhisdebt.
“Typical. You and the kid don’t even like hockey.”
“So you do remember your son,” I snap, the bitterness tasting sharp on my tongue. “He’s great. Thanks so much for asking about him.” I should tell him Sam is practically best friends with Ben Michaels, just to watch him lose his mind.
“Maybe I should see him sometime.”
The words slam into me like a bucket of ice water. My chest tightens. “That is not what we agreed on, Shawn.” I let him walk away clean after the divorce, with no child support and no visitation, because he made it clear he wanted no part in raising Sam. In return, I didn’t go after him for the credit card fraud he committed by getting cards in my name. That was the deal.
“Well, things change. I’m doing alright now. My girlfriend just had a baby. We’re getting married in the fall. Or whenever she loses the baby weight.” He chuckles, smug and careless. “Who knows? Maybe Sam wants to know his little brother. And maybe I’m looking like the more stable parent right now.”
