One More Day (Counting on Hockey #2)

Chapter 16: 59 Days

"Meredith, this is your mother", Dad says.

"What the hell are you talking about?" I don't want to believe who she really is.

"Mere, this your real mother. The one that gave birth to you seventeen years ago", Dad says quietly.

My eyes fill with tears. The women looks at me with sad eyes. I just want to cry. She doesn't have the right to be here. I've never actually seen her before. Dad never let me see pictures.

"Mom?" I whisper quietly. She looks at me again. That felt so weird.

"Meredith", she says with happiness in her voice.

"Noah, let's leave these two for a few minutes. I need to go over to that store anyway", he nods to a store across the street.

"Noah stays with me", I demand, grabbing Noah's hand in mine. Dad agrees. He stands up, kissing my forehead, and walks across the street. Noah grabs a chair from an empty table and drags over next to me. I take Dad's seat.

"You're so beautiful. I didn't know you would ever turn out like this", my mother starts. She looks down at her coffee cup, examining the top. "I'm so sorry I left you and your father. The only hard mistake I have ever made. But I had to", she trails off.

I look like her, I can already tell. I had the same hair color as her when I was little. Our noses are the same, and the same eye color. I had always though I looked like only my father, but I can see my features in her.

"Why did you leave?" My voice cracks.

"I couldn't take it. Being a hockey player's wife. They call me the teams...puck slut. Your father tried to stop it, but it never worked. When you were born, the others thought I had you for the money I would get out of it, being with your father while I raised you", she takes a shaky deep breath. "I made the decision a day before I left, to leave and not look back. I knew I couldn't take you from your father. As a baby, he was your favorite person ever. You had a bond with him at that young age that I knew I wasn't going to break. I left you with him and signed over my custody in our divorce". Tears fall down her face, and mine.

We don't speak for a few minutes. Noah squeezes my hand a little. Mother wipes tears from her face and smiles at me, then looks at Noah. "I heard you had a boyfriend, Mere. Is this him?"

"No, he is just my best friend. This is Noah. My boyfriend's name is Cole. We're all friends. Cole is still back in Maine".

She looks puzzled for a moment, then smiles again. "Do have a picture of him?" She hesitates.

I pull out my phone from my purse. I show my mother the picture. It's the picture I show everyone. Me and Cole on the beach for my going away party. My mother looks contently at it for a minute or so.

"I've always had these questions for you. Would you mind answering a few?" I ask her. I really know nothing about her.

"Anything", she smiles at me.

"What is you name?" Lucy Harrison

"Where do you live?" Ann Arbor, Michigan.

"Do you have another family?" A husband, but no children.

This one, I have always wondered, Dad never had the real answer to. "How did you come up my name?"

"Well, it started with my best friend. Her name was Meredith. She died in a car accident a few months before you were born. But your middle names started when I was born. My parents were extreme Beatles fans. And our last name was Harrison. They named me Lucy, as in Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds. So, when your were born, I took a few names from their songs and made them your middle names. Hey Jude, and Eleanor Rigby. Do you like the Beatles, or at least have heard of them?"

I smile. "I love the Beatles. George Harrison is my favorite", I say. Her smile grows bigger than before.

"I have always known my child would take after me in one way or another". She studies her cup again, a ring of lipstick around the opening. Her smile disappears. "I'm sorry we had to meet like this. I didn't want it to happen like this. I got in contact with your dad a few weeks ago. He said he wanted to see me first, then ask you if you wanted to meet me. I didn't realize that you would be out here on a school night. Is everything going well in school?"

"Everything is great. I just had to pick up Noah from his hotel. He has a game tomorrow and since he had the night free to do whatever, we went out to the United Center and watched Blackhawks open practice. After that we met up with Jonathan Toews, Brent Seabrook, and Patrick Kane, and we wanted to go for a walk around because Noah I had never seen the city".

"Mere" she starts. "It amazes me when your father told me something about you and what you do life. I find it so fascinating how your life has become this amazing, and you are only so young. I'm very proud of the woman that you have become. Did you mean thee Jonathan Toews, Brent Seabrook, and Patrick Kane. That's amazing, how do you know them?"

"Dad, Cara, and I met Jonathan in his last year of college hockey. We kept in touch with him. He's like a big brother to Cara and I. I've known him for just about ten years. He took me to Boston a few weeks ago so I could see Cole and Noah. I met Patrick a few years ago, and I met Brent on that trip to Boston".

Dad comes back, standing to my left. "Everything good here, ladies?"

"Everything is good here. My husband should be here soon. It was very nice meeting you, Noah", my mother starts. She gets up. "Would you mind a hug?"

"Not at all", I say with a wide grin. I get up from my chair, and walk to her. My mother's arms go around my shoulders and neck, mine go around her torso. Her hugs feel different.

Like a mother's hug should feel.