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I haven’t been around too many crying women and I don’t know how to handle them. I’ve never comforted one before. Women are still a peculiar animal to me. I always feel out of my element when I’m around them.
I just keep chopping and hope she stops soon.
“Was your dad crushed?” she asks as a tear slides down her cheek.
“I never met him.”
“But… Who raised you?”
Why are we even talking about this? It happened years ago.
“My stepdad.”
She puts her hand on her heart and looks at me like I’m a lost puppy or something. “I’m so happy you had somebody. Was it just the two of you?”
“Yeah.”
“He must have been a nice man to raise you all on his own.”
Nice is not the word I’d choose to describe Frank. Brutal. Relentless. Tyrannical. Those would be better words.
“He gave me a lot of skills.”
“What do you mean? What skills?”
Normally, I’d be more likely to knock someone out before I willingly shared any of this, but I don’t know. I guess I can’t say no to Jane.
“Hockey skills. Fighting skills.”
“Fighting skills?” She looks concerned.
“Frank’s goal was to turn me into the best fighter in hockey history. He’d make me fight him twice a day and do hours of hockey drills from the early morning until late into the night.”
“Oh my.”
Those tears start up again. Shit. I’m doing this all wrong.
“It has a happy ending though.”
“Does it?” She doesn’t look convinced.
“He succeeded. By a mile.”
“Tucker, you had to fight your stepdad. Every day?”
I shrug as I scoop the mushrooms up with my knife and drop them into the bowl. She watches as I take out an onion and start slicing it.
“It was only hard for the first ten years,” I tell her. “After that, it got easier. He was the one who got his ass kicked every day.”
I laugh. I’m expecting her to laugh too, but she looks horrified.
“It wasn’t all bad,” I tell her. “He was looking out for me in his own twisted way. And he did give me this gift. I’ve made tens of millions of dollars because of him.”
“The gift of beating people up?” she asks, looking at me with sad eyes.
“Exactly,” I say, relieved that she’s finally seeing it from my point of view. “What about you? Are you from San Antonio?”
I’m so captivated by her that I forget to continue with the omelet as I listen to her tell me all about her big family back in Shakings, Colorado. She’s close with her parents and with her brother and two sisters.
