Come to My Window

Holidays were the worst. Road games could be scheduled the day before or after and you could be thousands of miles from your family when presents were opened and dinner was served. For a job with so many perks, being a hockey player at Christmas was pretty tough.

Most of the single guys banded together. The teams did a nice job with meals and festivities, and as the years passed you tended to forget what it had been like when you were little, running to the tree. Mike had always wondered what the point was of wrapping a stick when you couldn’t hide the shape, but his mom had done it every year anyway.

This year, he was going home for Christmas and he couldn’t wait.


The trip would be quick, but at least he’d get there. The Capitals played in Vancouver on the night of the 23rd, and all the money in the world couldn’t buy a flight to Calgary when none was scheduled. He bought the first available ticket and would land at 12 PM, weather permitting. In Canada, the weather never permitted.

When the game was finally over – a win, no less! – he lay awake in his hotel room like kids all over the world would do the next night. When he fell asleep, he’d be going home. But if he didn’t fall asleep, Santa would never come.

Mike had even gone so far as to make a few Christmas wishes. He laughed at his childish self, but that didn’t stop him from thinking about them over the months he’d seen the giant tree at the US Capitol, or the miles of wrapping paper and ornaments in every store. The game in Vancouver had more Santa hats than the North Pole. So he thought wishes were appropriate this year.

1: No big weather delays. Please get me home on time.

2: Surprise my family. His father knew he was coming, but his mother and brother, aunts and uncles would be stunned.

3: This was the biggest, the wildest and the least likely to come true. Please let her be there.

Mike had missed something else while he was missing Christmas. For the last seven years, he’d missed seeing Elise Bessette.

Elise’s family had lived next door to Mike’s his whole life. He always knew when she was home by the light on in her room on the second floor. Little Mike would climb the latticework and knock on her window, scaring her every time. He’d grown up hanging out with the girl next door, who bloomed well before he did into a beautiful and poised grown-up version of herself.

When they turned 10, Mike was in the kind of love that put frogs in Elise’s backpack and pulled her pigtails. He’d rap on her window and make her play goalie while he practiced shooting – it was ages before he could put anything past her. At thirteen, they slipped notes in class and snickered behind their hands in sex-ed class. He used her window instead of the front door because he thought it looked cooler – and her parents were always surprised when he turned up in the kitchen without having ever come inside.

When Mike was 14 he kissed Elise at the rink after a hockey game. Her nose had been cold against his cheek and she tasted like cherry chapstick. He was growing fast, his obvious hockey skill bourgeoning and he finally felt that he might be something promising. There might be something about him that could match everything that was so magical about her. It was the first kiss for both.

Mike went away to Saskatoon for hockey seasons starting the next year. He came home as often as possible and Elise was always there, her light always on. She wasn’t waiting, she was just living her life and saving space for him. He got too big for the lattice and started using a ladder to climb into her window. Elise spent the school year accomplishing her own goals: president of the student council, valedictorian of her high school class. School in Saskatoon was an afterthought and Mike often sat in class wondering what Elise was doing at home. In the off-season he went right home and they picked up where they’d left off – best friends, and eventually something more.

When the end of the summer before senior year rolled around, they both felt that things were changing. Mike had been staying so late that the window became an exit they used to avoid getting in trouble. One night Mike and Elise lied to their parents and took off to the lake in her brother’s SUV. They meant to sleep out but it rained, so they folded the back seat down and camped in the car. It probably would have happened anyway, but in the close confines of the car it was impossible to ignore what they’d known all along. Elise cried the first time and Mike held her, and when they tried again they got it more than right. Mike came home whenever he could and by spring they’d become experts at sneaking out her window together.

Their last summer together was their first as boyfriend-and-girlfriend. Everyone had expected it and their parents decided they were finally old enough to be together. What parents didn’t know about the past year didn’t hurt them. But like all good things, time ran out. Summer ended, Mike was shipped off to Saskatoon and Elise was ready to start the next chapter of her life. With tears and promises, they parted ways.

That Christmas was the last time Mike saw her. He was still playing in Saskatchewan and barely made it home for the holiday. Elise was back from school for two weeks. It was bliss for a while, until Elise dropped a bomb.

“I’m not coming home this summer. I’m going to study in France.”

So she stayed away. Mike didn’t make it home for Christmas the next year and Elise got an internship in Toronto in June. They tried to keep in touch, but through no fault of their own they drifted. Mike went to the Hershey Bears the next year, and made his NHL debut. Elise called screaming and hollering and Mike said “I love you” for the first time in his life. He meant it, even though she was so far away.

“I love you too, Mike.”

But it was not to be – she was on the career track that didn’t allow for summer breaks. Mike started playing full time for the Capitals, a rising star who bought a house in DC and used the summers as an extended training season. He still went home, always looking at Elise’s window and wondering what she was doing. It had been too long to call her now.

Mike had missed the last four Christmases and knew from his mom that Elise had missed just as many. Since he was surprising his family, he couldn’t ask if Elise would be around this year. He just had to hope.

His flight to Calgary was delayed two hours but he made it. He was out of the taxi before it rolled to a stop and barged in the front door just as his family was sitting down the Christmas Eve dinner. His mother nearly had a heart attack. Hugs and a few tears went around, then they stuffed him with food. Mike imagined the extra workouts he’d owe, but asked for seconds and thirds. His mother squeezed a chair in next to him and would have held his hand but for the fork. Three months of hockey and the trip home had been stressful, but it all lifted as he sat at the table with his family.

Dinner was over around 4 PM, so Mike went to the garage to haul out the Christmas gifts he’d been sending his father in secret. They were wrapped and stacked inside a cupboard where no one would ever think to look. As he carried the first batch across the yard, he remembered. Then he looked.
Elise’s light was on. Mike hurried back to the garage, shoved the presents away and dug out the same ladder he’d used years ago. He was halfway across the grass before he actually thought about it.

I should ring the doorbell.

I look like a burglar.

What if she’s in there changing or something?

Oh my God, what if she’s in there with a guy?

He’d stopped in the middle of the yard, ladder in hand to have a debate with himself. Then he heard a voice.

“Mike?”

Elise was standing in the street, long hair uncovered and flowing over her dark coat. Her hands were stuffed in her pockets against the cold. And she was smiling.

“Elise!”

“Planning to climb in my window?” She walked across the grass, feet crunching the frozen top layer of snow.

“Is that not okay anymore?” he asked. But he didn’t care. He dropped the ladder and scooped her up into a hug years in the making. She threw her arms around his neck and squealed like the little girl he’d known.

“What are you doing here?! I didn’t know you were coming home! I mean, my mom didn’t know, because she told me you weren’t.” Her eyes were still navy blue, a color he’d never seen on another person. She had golden highlights in her hair and it was clipped up at the top, away from her gorgeously rosy cheeks and sparkling smile.

“Only my dad knew, everyone else was surprised.”

“Including me.”

Elise was really thinking Holy Shit. She’s seen Mike a million times since she’d last seen him in, always on TV. It felt like she’d known him all along – a few tragic haircuts, his chunky phase. But here he was, tall and broad and stronger looking, almost skinny even under his parka. His brown hair was short and spiky and he still had that chubby-cheeked smile that could melt a skating rink.

They stared at each other for a few moments, not speaking. Finally Elise started laughing, her breath visible in the twilight air. She grabbed Mike’s hand and pulled him toward her front door.

“MOM! DAD! MIKE IS HERE!” she bellowed. Mike felt like his heart might burst, that she was so excited to see him. Almost as happy as he was to finally be near her.

“Mike Green! What a surprise!” her mother hugged him like he was 12 years old, her father shook his hand like a man. When he stepped back, he instinctively reached for Elise’s hand again and found it waiting for him.

“You used the front door. Must be grown up now,” her father said.

Mike and Elise laughed, and she pointed out the window at the ladder discarded in the snow. “Almost grown up.”

Elise’s mom insisted on feeding him something, so they ate pumpkin pie with real whipped cream and drank hot chocolate with marshmallows.

“I watch all your games. Like every one. I have Center Ice and the NHL Network,” Elise said proudly.

Mike couldn’t help himself; he touched her hand where it wrapped around her mug. “I’m so sorry it’s been so long. How could so much time have gone by? Tell me everything about you for the last seven years.”

Elise worked in Toronto was a trial lawyer. Her firm was small but well respected and she got to choose the cases she took on. Her specialty was helping women and families. She had a nice apartment with two potted plants and a cat. “As I always feared, I have become a cat lady.”

Mike wondered if she was leaving something out for his sake. “What about your boyfriend? Is he feeding your cat?”

She smiled down at her mug. “No boyfriend. And that is my cat.” Sure enough a calico was curled up on the arm of the nearby couch. The cat yawned. “Now tell me everything about you.”

Mike told her all about hockey, about DC and about everything else he could think of. As casually as possible, he mentioned “no girlfriend.”

“Hmmm, I thought you must have a girlfriend because you’re looking so good these days. I see a different hairstyle every time you’re interviewed at a game.”

He instinctively touched his hair. “If I’d known you were watching, I’d have combed it first!”

“Did you really think I wasn’t watching?” Her dark eyes were perfectly clear.

Mike shrugged. “You have your own life now. I already took a lot of it for hockey.”

It was Grace’s turn to touch Mike’s hand. “I did it back then because I loved it. I still love it. Sometimes I even watch other teams’ games.”

“Not the Leafs,” he said with mock warning.

“Booooo,” she said. “But that Crosby’s kinda handsome....”

He pushed back from the table and hauled her up in one motion. She squealed again and ran up the stairs, leaving their dishes on the table. Mike would know the way to her room in the dark, so he followed at a walk.

It was like stepping into a museum. He remembered the photos on the wall, the blanket on the bed. Even the furniture was arranged the same. Mike ran his fingers across the dresser as he walked over to where Elise looked out the window. His hand went to the back of her neck and the watched the yard below fall into darkness.

“Long time since you’ve been in here.”

“Long time since everything.”

She looked up at him with the same expression she’d worn a million times. It took him a second to remember what it meant, and by then she was already kissing him. If the room was a time capsule, the kiss was a time machine. Suddenly he was 14 and nervous, 15 and rebellious, 16 and arrogant. He was 17 and saying her name in the back of a car with fogged up windows while the rain beat down outside. He was 18 and saying goodbye. And now, just like every time before, they were the only two people in the world.

“I asked Santa for you,” he said with a private smile.

She winked. “What do you think I wished for?”
____

Contest entry for annlie’s challenge: Hockey Writing Contest.

My player was Mike Green and my photo was this.  I was feeling Christmas-y, so I went with it.