Seeing Anne was more effective than a cold shower for Sean. How the hell did she find him? And at Charlie’s apartment, of all places!
“Oh good, you’re both here!” She said, inviting herself in and hanging her coat on the rack.
“Why are you here?” Charlie asked in an annoyed voice. Wait.
“You two know each other?” Sean asked. Charlie sent him a weird look.
“You know her?” She asked.
“I mean, kinda. She sat with me and Mase last night at the bar for a couple hours. I was going to tell you about it after breakfast but we uh... kinda got distracted.” He blushed.
“Oh, you two were having sex! How wonderful. Maybe I’ll have grandchildren soon!” Anne butted in.
“Grandchildren?” Sean asked, confused.
“Anne is my mother.”

If this was a cartoon, Sean’s head would have literally exploded. So that’s why she was asking so many personal questions about Charlie. And why she looked so familiar. Now that he knew who she was, he could see the resemblance between Anne and her children. She had the same mouth as Drew, and the same cheeks and eyes as Charlie.
“Why are you here, and what do you want?” Charlie asked, bringing Sean out of his thoughts.
“Honey, I just want to talk to you.” Anne said. “You ran away so quickly at the restaurant we didn’t get a chance to get to know each other.”
“If you wanted to get to know me, you wouldn’t have left when I was seven.” She growled. Sean could see her getting angry. He placed his hand on her low back and rubbed his thumb in circles.
“Believe me, I didn’t want to leave. But I had to! Please, just let me talk to you.” Anne begged. Charlie closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
“Let’s go to the living room. Baby, will you make some tea?” She asked. He nodded and headed back to the kitchen. He put some water on the stove and decided to disinfect the counter while he was waiting for it to boil. Shit, he was becoming domestic. When did that happen? The kettle whistled and he poured the tea for the women. If it wasn’t noon and he didn’t have practice in an hour, he would have grabbed a beer from the fridge to save his masculinity. Heading into the living room, he could hear their discussion.
“So. You want to explain? Explain.” Charlie was saying. He sat down on the couch next to her and leaned back, getting comfortable. He had a feeling they would be there for a while.
“You have to understand, Charlotte-”
“Charlie.” She interrupted. “No one calls me Charlotte. Not since dad died.”
“Very well. Charlie. You have to understand, I didn’t want to leave you and your brother and your father. But things happened and I had to leave. To protect you all.”
“What kind of things?” Charlie asked.
“I will never pretend that I was a good mother. I wasn’t a good person. I got involved with some people that I really shouldn’t have. Some very dangerous people. Situations escalated too quickly for me to get out of it once I realized how dangerous it was. The group I got involved with pissed off another group in the area, and I knew if I stuck around it would put you guys at risk. I had to run away to get them away from you.” Sean was surprised to hear her admissions. He hadn’t known what to expect, but he certainly didn’t think she would be so honest. “I also fell in love with another man. I didn’t mean to, but it just kinda happened. He-um. Well, I got pregnant. While we were in hiding. Once everything blew over, we just decided to settle down together. He had to run from his family and I had to run from mine. Rather than coming back and trying to explain to everyone why we ran off and why we were choosing each other over our own families, we decided just to stay away. It was cowardly, I know. But it felt right at the time. We have three children together now.”
She paused, letting it all sink in. Sean looked at Charlie. Her face was blank.
“Why come find me now?” She finally asked, swallowing.
“My youngest son, Robert, got sick.” Anne responded. Charlie’s head shot up. “He has cancer. When we found out, I realized how terrible a mother I had been to you and Andrew. I missed you two. I figured it was time I start making amends.”
“You figured you’d start making amends, or you heard your daughter was dating a professional athlete and thought maybe she could help you with hospital bills?” She asked, venom in her voice. As awkward as it sounds, her protective nature turned Sean on a little bit.
“I wanted to make amends with my children!” Anne protested. “Money has nothing to do with it.”
Just then, Sean’s phone chimed, letting him know it was time to start getting ready for practice. Charlie looked at him with a silent thanks in her eyes.
“I’ve heard you out. If there’s nothing else you have to tell me, it’s time for you to go. Sean has to go to practice and I’ve got things to do.”
“Charlie, please don’t shut me out.” Anne begged.
“I’m not making a decision now. Leave your phone number and I’ll think about contacting you again.” Charlie said. Sean was impressed with her maturity in handling this situation. Anne wrote her number on a piece of paper and slowly got up, heading for the door. She slipped her coat on and looked Charlie in the face.
“I hope you find it in yourself to forgive me. I want to make up for my mistakes.” She said, walking out the door. Charlie shut it and turned around, collapsing face-first into Sean’s chest.
“What the hell just happened?” She mumbled.
“Sounded like your mom was part of a gang. Or the mob. And you have three half-siblings, one of which has cancer.” Sean summed up. She picked her head up from his chest and he could see tears in her eyes.
“What do I do?” She asked in a small voice, one tear slipping down her cheek. He quickly wiped it away with his thumb.
“Call Drew and tell him everything. Talk to him about this. And when I come back from practice, we’ll discuss what we’re going to do.” She nodded and he kissed her forehead.
“I love you, Sean.” She said.
“I love you too, Charlie.”

---------------

Sean walked into the locker room and made a beeline for his goalie’s stall.
“So Anne showed up again today.” He said.
“What?” Steve yelled, catching the attention of a couple their teammates. Most of whom had heard bits and pieces of the story about the crazy woman at the bar.
“Yeah, we were at Charlie’s place and there was a knock on the door and there she was.”
“You’re serious?” Steve asked, looking up at him with wide eyes. “At Charlie’s place? Why?”
“Turns out, Anne is Charlie’s mother.” Sean swore you could hear a pin drop in the usually boisterous room.
“The bitch that left Charlie and Drew when they were kids is the same psycho who hounded you about her all night at the bar?” Brayden asked. Sean nodded. “That’s fucked up.”
“Oh, it gets worse.” Sean said. “But I’ll tell you about it after practice.”

---------------

“So tell us what’s going on.” Brayden said, leaning against Sean’s Rover. He, Steve, G and Kimmo had waited for him in the parking lot after practice. Sean sighed.
“I’m not sure how much of this she wants getting out, so you can’t talk about this with anyone. I mean it, not even your women.” They nodded. “So it turns out Anne is Charlie’s mother. It sounds like she got involved with a gang or the mafia or something like that and shit went down and she had to go into hiding.” The guys’ eyes were wide. “She got pregnant during that time and decided to settle down with this guy instead of coming back and now her son has cancer. That’s where it’s a little fuzzy. She claims her son getting cancer made her see that she was a bad mom, but I don’t know. Charlie seems to think she’s looking for a way to get money for hospital bills.”
“What do you think?” Kimmo asked.
“I could definitely see both sides. I mean, she could feel terrible for what happened and want to fix things with Charlie and Drew. Cancer does that to people. But at the same time, why is she doing this now? Why approach me and talk to me? Why bring up the fact that I’m a professional athlete making a lot of money?” The guys nodded their agreements.
“I think you need to be careful.” G said. “Talk to Homer about it and tell him what’s going on. That way if anything happens, he knows about it already.”
“That’s a good idea. Thanks.” Sean said.
“It might not mean much, but I definitely did not get a good feeling from her.” Steve added. “It probably just confirms everything, but yeah. I just feel like she’s trouble.”
“And you know when Mase speaks, it’s the word.” Brayden laughed. Steve pushed him.
“Alright guys, I gotta get home to my girl.” Sean said with a smile.

They said their goodbyes and headed off in different directions. When Sean got back to his apartment, Charlie was waiting with food for him. She was still in her uniform and looked exhausted.
“I feel like we just did this, but backwards.” Sean said, referring to the meal. She smiled and sat down with him at his kitchen table.
“I talked to Drew. We both agreed that I should keep communication open, but be careful about it.” She said as they dove into the meal she cooked.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I talked to some of the guys about it.” He responded. “They said pretty much the same thing. G suggested I tell Paul about it so he’s aware. You know, in case we need anything.” He wasn’t sure what her response would be. She’s always been such an independent woman, who hates relying on others for anything.
“That could be a good thing.” She said, surprising him. They finished eating and she picked up their plates, taking them to the sink. He thought about the last time she had done that, earlier that morning, and felt himself twitch to life. He got up and followed her to the sink, pinning her against the side.

“Leave them for later.” He said, spinning her and grabbing her ass. He hoisted her up onto the counter next to the sink and bit into her neck. “Right now, we have some business from this morning to finish.”

Notes