Light the Lamp (37 page)

I had to stop thinking about Noelle. I’d never get through tonight if I kept thinking about her, wondering where she was and what she was doing and if she’d had enough to eat. There hadn’t been any more charges on my card since that first one.

Fuck
. I was still thinking about her. I looked back at the screen behind me again so I could remind myself what tonight was all about.

“
The only person in the world she was closer to than me was her father. The pair of them were inseparable. They didn’t just go fishing together—he took her to dance classes and was at all her recitals, he taught her how to skate and to ski. Anything she wanted to learn or try, he was right by her side, even with things like changing tires on a car and replacing the oil filter. She always loved her mother, too, but there was a special bond between Liv and her father. And he never made me feel like I was coming between them, even when I was.”
 

I didn’t miss Webs shaking his head and crossing his arms over his chest to my left.

The next slide was me in in a suit with an Islanders jersey and ball cap, lifting Liv off her feet so I could kiss her. We’d been at the NHL draft, and I’d just been selected in the first round.

“
My hockey career started to pull me away from her at right around the same time her father’s health started to take him away, as well. A week after I got drafted by the NHL’s New York Islanders, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Luckily, for the first few years of my pro career, we didn’t have to be separated. I was able to play for Fr
ö
lunda in Gothenburg, the
town where we’d grown up and where her parents still lived. That meant Liv could be with her parents
and
with me. We always knew there would come a point where I would have to go, even though I hated the thought of leaving her behind. But I knew she wouldn’t leave him. She wanted to help her mother take care of him. Liv spent much of her time making wind chimes because the music calmed him if he woke up in a night terror. It started as a hobby and grew into a business.”
 

I flipped the slide again, this one showing Liv with her parents, a forest of wind chimes blowing on the porch behind her. I’d been the one behind the lens taking the picture. It had been a lucid day for her father, and he’d wanted another family portrait, one where he knew who his wife and daughter were.

“
That day eventually came, the day when I had to leave, and so I went to New York by myself. For several years it was always the same. I would leave Sweden in September and come home to Liv and her wind chimes in the summer, once my hockey season was done. She came to visit me a few times, but as her father’s health got worse, her visits grew shorter and less frequent. I begged her to marry me more times than I could tell you. I loved her, and I hated being without her. One day, she finally agreed.”
 

The best of our wedding photos came up, with my parents by my side and hers by her side, despite the fact that her father didn’t understand what was going on during the wedding or the photo session. He didn’t know she was his little girl that day. He had this loopy grin on his face, one anyone who knew him would recognize as part of his confusion from the disease.

“
She still wouldn’t come to the States with me, though. Her father needed her too much, and so did her mother, for that matter. Liv didn’t leave until—”
 

I cut myself off, shocked at what I’d almost spoken aloud. But maybe I needed to. Maybe I needed to give it a voice. Maybe that was what Noelle kept telling me I was holding back from her, keeping hidden behind a wall. She wasn’t here, but if I could tell all of these people—my teammates and complete strangers alike—maybe then I could tell her.

If I could find her. If I could make her listen.

I swallowed hard, willing my voice to cooperate. “She didn’t leave Sweden until she found out she was pregnant. Liv believed that a family should be together, that a child needs both a mother and a father in order to thrive. Looking at the closeness of her family and the bond she had with her father, it’s easy to understand why she would feel so strongly about that. So, she came to Long Island to spend the NHL season with me. She missed her parents like you wouldn’t believe, but she stayed and kept making her wind chimes, until one night when I was gone on a road trip with the team. She had a flat tire on the highway, and because it was icy out, roadside assistance said they couldn’t get to her for hours. Liv had learned how to change a tire from her father, though, and while he might have forgotten those days, she hadn’t. So she decided to get out and do it herself instead of waiting for help. The sooner she could get home, the sooner she would be off the roads and safe. That was when a drunk driver in an eighteen-wheeler lost control on a patch of ice and killed both her and our unborn baby.”

It was so quiet in that ballroom you could hear every sniffle and every drawn breath—especially mine. I was breathing heavier than normal, and my heart was pounding like it did during the most intense hockey games I’d ever played, but I still had to keep talking. Because this wasn’t about death. This wasn’t about destruction. This was about finding a way to live again.

“
I don’t think it’s any secret if you’ve followed my career that my whole world changed that day. Losing Liv felt like I was losing the only good part of me, and I didn’t know how to keep going. But the truth was, I
could
keep going. I was still here, and alive, and there were more things I had to accomplish. She would never have wanted me to stop living.”
 

I pressed the button to move to the next slide—an image of a broken man, crying so hard he couldn’t focus on the camera. It was his mug shot on the night that he’d killed Liv. It was the image that had given me direction.

“
And she would never have wanted
him
to stop living, either. This is Artie Davis, taken only a few hours after he killed my wife. He’d been out drinking with some friends when the ice storm blew in, but he knew he had to get home. Artie was a trucker and an alcoholic, and he’d had an argument with his wife in front of their three kids before he had to head out with his next load. He wanted to be a better husband and father to them despite his addiction, and he wanted to find some sort of career where he could make the kind of money he made trucking but that would let him be at home more. But he hadn’t found it yet and his wife was frustrated with essentially being a single parent. Their argument got so intense that even though normally he would never drink and drive—and especially not in his diesel—that night, he did. He’s regretted it every day of his life since then. He doesn’t want to be that man anymore. Artie served some time in prison for driving under the influence and involuntary manslaughter. He lost his trucking license and will never be able to work in that field again. Now he’s out on parole, and he wants to find a way to make up for all of his mistakes. He can’t bring Liv back to life, and he can’t give me my unborn baby. There’s nothing Artie can do for me. But he can get back on his feet again. He can shake off the stigma associated with being an addict and a convicted criminal. He can find a new career and be a better husband and father. He can give back to the world as a whole, and that’s what the Light the Lamp Foundation is all about. We take people like Artie, who have made mistakes in the course of their addictions, and help them find the way to make the world a better place.”
 

I flipped to the final slide—a picture of me and Artie together this past New Year’s Eve in Times Square, where we were providing rides home to anyone who’d been out drinking.

“
He’s turning his life around now, and he’s making the world a better place. And there are a lot more Arties in this world, people with addictions who’ve made mistakes but want to find a way out of it. That’s what we’re here to do.” I paused a moment, taking a breath to gather my thoughts. “I hope you’re all enjoying your dinners. When dessert is being served, Jessica Lynch will be back to explain how the silent auction will work. There are a lot of amazing things to bid on—signed hockey pucks, jerseys, and sticks from not only the Portland Storm players who are attending tonight but also from other players from around the league. The Storm has donated some incredible prize packages, as well, like two tickets to travel with the team next year on a road trip or four tickets plus hotel and airfare to a game during the Stanley Cup Finals. Hopefully the Storm will be one of the teams playing, but even if we aren’t, that will be an amazing
experience for whoever wins it. Businesses around the city have also donated for those of you who might not be interested in hockey—spa packages, vacations, you name it. I think we have something for everyone. So enjoy the rest of the evening, bid on some great prizes, and afterward, we’ll have all of this cleared away for some dancing. Thank you again for coming. I can’t even begin to tell you how much it means to me to have you all here supporting the Light the Lamp Foundation.”
 

The room burst into applause, and another flash of blond hair streaked away from the corner table and out of the ballroom. It wasn’t Noelle. It couldn’t be. There was no reason I should imagine it was her other than wishful thinking, and what good would that do me? None. I started to make my way down from the stage and back to my seat, but Jonny intercepted me before I could get there. He grabbed hold of my arm. I turned to ask him what was going on, but the look in his eye stopped me short.

“
Noelle’s here.”
 

My head turned to where I’d last seen that streak of light-blond hair, trying to find her. I hadn’t been crazy, then, and it wasn’t just the dim lighting in the ballroom playing tricks on me. I
had
seen her.

“
She’s working the event. She just left with her cart to get the desserts for my table.”
 

Should I follow her? Would she want me to?
She still hadn’t called me or answered my calls, and she’d hardly responded to my text messages. I should probably leave her alone and let her make a move if she wanted to, but every muscle in my body ached to be near her again. I couldn’t seem to make up my mind when Jonny said, “She was crying.”

That made up my mind for me.

 

Instead of going
back to the kitchen to load my cart with dessert plates, I ducked into a quiet doorway in the middle of the hall and dropped to the floor, using the cart to provide a little privacy while I tried to dry up my tears.

This was the worst time in the world for me to break down like this, but I couldn’t seem to stop it. With every word that had come from Liam’s mouth, I’d been filled with emotion after emotion—love, loss, grief, anger, need, hope—all of it warring inside me at once until I felt like I would explode if I didn’t let it out. This was exactly what I’d known he had kept hidden from me, the same flood of feelings that had been dammed up behind his wall ever since Liv had died, and now it was finally out there, along with some other things I’d never expected. None of it was between us anymore, keeping us apart. Instead, it was surrounding us…possibly drawing us together.

I hadn’t even come close to sorting myself out and stopping my tears when Molly ducked into my little alcove and bent to her knees.

“
Are you all right? I saw you rush out just now…”
 

I
really
had to pull it together. I’d been doing such a good job for her in the few events I’d worked so far. I was hoping to make an impression so maybe she would find steadier work for me. I grabbed a cloth napkin off my cart and used it to dry my eyes. “I’ll be fine, really. I’m sorry. I just—”

“
Noelle?”
 

The tortured sound of his voice was all it took to make the tears well up in my eyes again.

Molly looked from me to Liam and back again. “I didn’t know you knew Mr. Kallen.” She didn’t sound upset, just surprised.

She couldn’t be any more surprised than I had been when I learned he was the man behind this charity, let alone when I’d found out what had driven him to create it in the first place.

“
Can we have a few minutes?” Liam asked Molly.
 

I wished she would tell him no, that I had to work, but only because I hadn’t had time to process everything I’d just learned yet. I hadn’t had time to let the fact that he’d lost not only his wife but his baby, settle in. I hadn’t come to terms with how, instead of looking for revenge against the man who had taken them from him, he looked for ways to help him and other people in similar circumstances.

Liam Kallen wasn’t just a man who was dead set on helping me; he was a man with a heart big enough that he wanted to help even the people who’d left him broken.

And whether I was ready to face him after learning all of that about him yet or not, I couldn’t deny any longer that I loved him. All of him. Even the parts that wanted to take care of me without letting me take care of him in return.