The Tales of a Professional Hockey Player

Chapter 35: Paint Job

~Eleanor~~November~

The last two weeks have been great. Ophelia started daycare and has been going three days a week for a total of about ten hours. I know I was reluctant at first, but it has helped me so much. I managed to respect my deadline and I even wrote more than half the book since I started sending Ophelia to daycare. She seems to love it. She comes back with drawings and other crafts every day, smiling wide when she shows them to us.

To put it simply, I have been living on a pink cloud with glitter all over it since the reading. I woke up the next morning and, even though I was sore from sleeping on the floor, I hadn't felt this good in a long time. We spent that day together with Ophelia and, for the first time since we moved from Windsor, I felt like we were whole and not two parts of a family that don't fit together anymore. I saw Ben every day since then. He either comes over to have dinner with us after practice or he comes by in the morning to pick up Ophelia to drop her off at daycare. He even spent the night at my place twice when dinner ran late. We went shopping together a few times for furniture for his new house and we start painting today.

I dropped Ophelia off at Matthew's since the daycare is closed on weekends and the taxi pulled up in front of Ben's place a few seconds ago. I haven't been here since the night of the reading and many things have changed already. The more obvious is the car parked in the driveway. It's a white Toyota Corolla that seems not new, but recent. A car seat is already installed in the backseat. Apart from the car, he had the driveway paved, the lawn mowed, and the trees trimmed. It looks like someone is finally taking care of the place after a few years of it being left alone. It's a really pretty house with its grey pointed roof and stone exterior. A big tree hides the house from the street just enough to create privacy. I try to stop myself from imagining Ophelia playing in the front yard because we don't know for how long Ben will be staying here. He might have to sell the house sooner than he expects if he gets drafted somewhere else next season. The thought stresses me so I decide to push those thoughts aside and knock on the front door.

"You know you don't have to knock," he says with a big smile as soon as he opens the door. I shrug, getting on the tip of my toes to kiss him lightly. He's wearing black sports pants and a grey t-shirt that shows the muscles on his arms without it being too tight.

"I like seeing you open the door. So domestic." We both laugh as I enter the house. He set up the drapes on the living room floor, and two paintbrushes and a paint roller are set beside the two one-gallon paint cans he bought at the hardware store yesterday.

"So, you bought a car," I say, looking at the color he chose for the living room. It's a soft grey, similar to the one we had in our apartment in Windsor.

He hums to answer. "Yeah, I got it yesterday. I told you I was planning to buy a car, right?" I nod, still looking at the paint can. "I was done with paying for cabs every day. That shit gets expensive." He adds a little laugh at the end, but I still get the feeling that he's trying to justify himself.

"I am not mad, Ben, relax. You have every right to buy yourself a car." I chuckle. And it's true, I am not mad. I just feel a little nostalgic. A house and a new car, I am simply not used to Ben being able to afford such things, and I think it will take me a while to get it through my head that he is not poor anymore. And neither am I. We are not poor anymore, we don't have to think twice before going out to dinner or buying the things we need, and we don't have to worry about being able to provide our daughter with everything she needs. But there's a difference between not being poor and being extra rich. Neither of us is extra rich but a few more years in the NHL could make Ben earn more money than he'll ever need, and I can't say that I am not worried about what that could do to him. He's always been so determined to have a better life than the one his parents could afford, so I am afraid of the lengths he'll go to to accomplish that. This year's contract is only the beginning after all.