Darkroom: A Moo U Hockey Romance Kate Willoughby (read full novel .TXT) 📖

Still in chickenshit mode, I decided maybe AJ was right. Maybe my dad would have some valuable advice for me. After all, he and my mother were, for the most part, happily married. They’d had speed bumps, of course, as all couples do, but they were still going strong. In fact, sometimes my dad went overboard in the romance department and my mom would pretend she was embarrassed but I think she secretly loved it.

Because I had to break the news of my diagnosis to them anyway and the roundtrip airfare home was miraculously under a hundred bucks, I booked the flight that was scheduled for one thirty that afternoon. Then, hopefully when I came back, I’d know what I needed to say to Indi and I could head to Carter Hall straight from the airport.

When I got to the house, my mother greeted me with joy.

“Hudson! What a wonderful surprise.” She hugged me tightly and I’m not ashamed to say that I reveled in the comfort of her familiar embrace and held on a few seconds longer than I would have normally. “Your father’s at the gym, but he’ll be home in a little while. Are you hungry? Do you want something to eat?”

“I could eat,” I said.

We went into the kitchen and she made me a turkey and swiss sandwich.

“Are you staying?” she asked. “I didn’t see a bag…”

I shook my head. “No, I’m flying back later this afternoon.”

She gave me a worried glance and placed the sandwich on the table in front of me. “Hudson, is everything all right?”

“Everything’s going to be fine, Mom.”

We sat at the table and she sipped a cup of coffee as I dug in.

“Going to be?” she asked. “That’s not exactly reassuring."

Luckily, my dad’s voice boomed up the stairwell from the street level. “Marlene, honey, I’m home!”

I stood as he came bounding up the stairs. A smile broke out across his face.

“Hudson!”

I returned his hug even though I still hadn’t forgiven him.

“Is that one of your famous turkey sandwiches?” my dad asked. “Where can I get myself one of those?”

“I’ll make you one.”

“You're the greatest, Marlie-bear. Extra mayo on mine. So what’s up?” he asked me.

“I’m here because I have something to tell you.”

A shadow fell over my dad’s face. “Damn it. I knew it! She’s pregnant, isn’t she? I told you she was just itching to get her claws into you. Isn’t it just like a—ow!”

My mother had appeared at his side in an instant and whacked him on the head with her spatula. Mayonnaise splattered everywhere and my dad threw his arms up in a gesture of defense.

“What the fuck, Marlene!” My dad’s face was red but my mom was still brandishing her spatula.

“I told you before I wasn’t going to listen to any more of that misogynistic bullshit and I meant it. Hudson isn’t here to tell us we’re going to be grandparents. If he was, Indi—who is a wonderful girl, by the way—would be here with him. Now shut up and listen because I have a feeling the news he has isn’t good.”

After wiping my mouth with a napkin, I gave my mom a look of gratitude as she took a seat next to my dad, still holding the spatula.

“All right. Here it is. I have a rare condition called otosclerosis. It’s not life-threatening, but it is serious.”

I laid out all the facts, including the uncertain state of my career. When I finished, I braced myself for ranting and raving. I wasn’t disappointed.

“What the fuck?” my dad said. “How long have you known something was wrong?”

Resigned, I said, “Months.”

“Months?” He jumped to his feet, unable to sit still. “Fucking months? Actually, that makes total sense. I’ve been wondering why you’ve been playing like shit. Now I know.”

“Dom, don’t. This isn’t his fault.”

“The hell it isn’t. I’ll bet if he’d gotten looked at right off the bat we wouldn’t be where we are today, with his career in the shitter. You nip things like this in the bud so they don’t get worse and ruin twenty-one years of blood, sweat and tears.”

“You’re wrong, Dad,” I said, and it felt damn good. “The only thing that would have changed if I’d seen a doctor right at the beginning is that I would have gotten the hearing aids sooner. That’s all. It’s not my fault. It’s not anyone’s fault. It was inevitable.”

Before Dad could say a word, my mom said, “Dom, your grandmother, Margaret, went deaf when she was in her twenties. I remember hearing the stories about how your father and uncles got away with murder because she couldn’t hear them sneaking around behind her back.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” my dad asked.

“If Hudson’s condition is in any way hereditary, maybe it’s your fault. Maybe it’s the Forte genes.”

Because some of the hot air seemed to go out of my dad, I didn’t point out that if Grandmother Margaret was the one with the gene responsible, I didn’t inherit it from a Forte, I inherited it from a Laramie.

“Regardless of fault, this isn’t the worst news in the world.” My mom held a hand up when my dad opened his mouth. “There are a hundred worse things I can think of than this. It sounds like he will still be able to play for the Dragons.”

“As long as the hearing aids can key into the stuff my ears aren’t picking up,” I said. “We won’t know until I try them out.”

“When will that be?” my mom asked.

“I have an appointment with the audiologist tomorrow, but it could be a couple weeks before I actually get them. They said it will take a while to adjust. I can’t just put them on and play. I’m supposed to start using them in quiet surroundings first and work up to noisier settings.”

“And hockey arenas aren’t known for their low noise level,” my mom said.

“Right.”

“What if