2. Thirty-one
And we're not afraid of the dark. I mean, we don't love it, but who does?
April 1, 1988
It was a few months shy of Robin's eight birthday, but Robin's father had gotten her an early birthday present. Robin was surprised that, for effectively the first time in her life, her father had bothered to get her anything at all. Indeed, Robin Charles Scherbatsky, Sr. cared for very few things. (He spent the bulk of his time with cigars, rather than people.) But one thing he did care for was hockey. So, on that Friday evening in early April, Robin found herself sitting courtside at the Vancouver Canucks' final game of the 1987–1988 season.
Robin knew the Canucks had played an incredibly disappointing season so far, but she still had her eyes glued to the ice, her nose pressed up against the glass so closely that she had to step back every few seconds to clear it as it fogged up. She watched the puck dance around the field, and she jumped a little each time the Canucks goalie — Steve Weeks — successfully went in for the save. Initially feigning interest in the results of the game, by the end of the second period, Robin Sr. had also stepped up to the glass to witness the Canucks go out with a bang, beating Minnesota six to one.
When she got home, Robin took that night's copy of the Canucks' official Breakaway magazine and hung it on her wall. But before she taped the magazine closed, she flipped to the page that contained her team's roster, grabbed a bright pink highlighter off her cluttered desk, and encircled Steve Weeks' name with a heart. Over time, Weeks became a staple conversation piece in the Scherbatsky household despite the fact that the Canucks hadn't qualified for the playoffs. At school Robin's daydreams would involve fame-by-frame replays of each of his saves from the game against the North Stars — he'd managed to save all but one shot.
In the years that followed, Robin would collect all the memorabilia she could find. At the library, she would search for old magazines and newspapers just to secretly clip his previous stats from the seasons and paste them on her wall. One day, a classmate showed her Weeks' O-Pee-Chee trading card, and she offered up five cards of her own just to guarantee it would be hers. She begged her father to buy more tickets to Canucks games, and she even managed to convince him to get her a Steve Weeks jersey.
So, on September 16, 1991, when Steve Weeks signed with the New York Islanders, Robin was inconsolable. Never mind that Weeks hadn't played a meaningful game in weeks — no pun intended. That Monday, Robin refused to go to school, even though the school year had just started. She even refused to go to hockey practice. Instead, eleven-year-old Robin took down all the posters she'd hung and shoved them in the bottom of her desk drawer. She tore up each of the newspaper clippings and ticket stubs she'd saved over the past three years. Yet she refused to tarnish the jersey she'd worn to every game, hoping to be noticed. She held it close as she wept in bed, her tears drenching the jersey number, her favorite number — thirty-one.
April 1, 2014
Despite being married to Robin for nearly a year now, Barney had never set foot in Robin's childhood home. Robin Sr. hadn't been back there since he'd moved to New York with Carol, but he had decided to sell the house, and he had been kind enough to give Robin a full twenty-one hours to book a flight, pack up her things, and say goodbye to the house where she'd spent her first fourteen years.
It was already early evening by the time Barney and Robin had arrived at the dusty mansion. As they made their way into Robin's childhood bedroom, Barney felt as if the space had frozen in time. From the calendar on the wall, to the report cards stacked on the desk, to the labeled polaroid of Robin and her first crush hiding underneath her books, nothing seemed to have been touched since 1994 — the year Robin finally stopped being her father's son and became her mother's daughter. Barney couldn't help but wonder how different Robin's life would have been had she not been caught in a position that "compromised" her father's image of her. Would she have continued playing hockey? Maybe even gone pro? Would she have ever made it to New York? Would their paths have ever crossed?
Barney's reverie was cut short by the sound of Robin opening a creaky drawer. Out of it she pulled a wrinkled jersey labeled "Weeks" and numbered thirty-one. Barney opened his mouth to make some quip about celebrity crushes, but he immediately stopped himself when he met Robin's eyes. He watched the tears well up while her hands clutched the well-loved, well-worn fabric. He stepped forward and knelt beside her, taking her hands in his own and holding her gaze until she closed her eyes and sighed. When she opened them, Barney was still kneeling beside her, offering her the silent support he knew she needed during times like this.
The aura of nostalgia in the space intensified as the setting sun darkened the room, and Barney remembered that Robin Sr. had already shut off the utilities in the house. Barney helped Robin to her feet, realizing they had very little time to make progress on the task at hand before they would be shrouded in literal darkness in the almost-certainly-haunted labyrinthine house. Robin took a deep breath and hesitantly placed the jersey in the large box designated for donations. Barney watched her do the same with her pucks and gloves and anything else from the part of her life that Robin seemed to want to forget so desperately that she had barely spoken to Barney about any of it.
Robin eventually turned her attention to the other possessions she would need to clear out before the following afternoon, but Barney stood transfixed. As he studied the jersey at the bottom of the box, he was suddenly reminded of the two personalized ones he had seen Robin wear over the years — one numbered three, the other numbered one. Barney had always wondered why she owned two jerseys with two different numbers, but watching her just moments before, grappling with those digits and her fractured past… Somehow it all made sense.
April 1, 2005
Robin wasn't sure if her nausea was the result of nerves or turbulence, but she was almost certain she would throw up before the plane landed in JFK. After receiving the offer from Metro News 1, Robin had dropped everything to prepare for the move and had barely given herself time to process what it would mean to leave Canada. Robin was grateful one of her acquaintances had helped her find an apartment in Brooklyn — one less thing to worry about. Though she had never seen it, she was grateful the landlord hadn't raised any questions about the five dogs that would be residing with her. A sudden jolt of the airplane had Robin's hands clutching the armrests and saying a prayer — both for herself and for her canine counterparts in the cargo hold.
The constant rocking of the aircraft prevented the flight attendants from offering passengers refreshments, leaving Robin with nothing but an unsettled stomach, reeling thoughts, and an old Sports Illustrated magazine to keep her occupied for the five-hour flight. As the plane finally touched down and the seatbelt sign turned off, Robin was grateful to be on solid ground again. Robin had never felt any specific way about flying in the past, but after that treacherous journey and the fact that she'd been assigned a seat relatively far back (seat 31B to be precise), she was almost certain she was being tested by the universe.
Robin made her way off the plane, offering the flight attendants a quick "thank you" as she disembarked. The scent of the airport was familiar, though she hadn't been back in so long. While some things had changed since her first visit in 1994 like the color of the chairs and the font on the signage, the essence of the airport felt the same — felt so very New York. This time, Robin was not a tortured soul on a "father-son" trip desperately searching for a place to bury an heirloom locket — the one thing reminding her she was more than what her father thought of her. This time, Robin was here as a career woman coming to chase her dreams and take advantage of everything she knew this city would be able to offer her that her hometown wasn't.
After several minutes of waiting and searching, Robin finally found a taxi large enough to fit her luggage and her dogs. The driver took them to their new home through the circuitous Belt Parkway, affording Robin stunning views of the bays. The brisk spring air made the thirty-one-minute drive feel like mere seconds. While exiting the cab, Robin took in the stunning brownstones and caught a glimpse of the sunset. Finally standing alone on the sidewalk, Robin took a deep breath and whispered to herself.
"Hey, New York, it's Robin."
April 1, 2020
He knew her name. He knew all of their names. There was Janice, Holly, Margaret, Penelope, Mandy, Kiersten, Emily, Tara, Julia, London, Summer, Katherine, Joyce, Sheila, Priscilla, Lily, Haleigh, Sasha, Christina, Farrah, Alice, Jordan, Georgia, Brittany, Ingrid, another Christina, Destiny, Cassandra, Kailey, Tessa, and Maria. Maria was the one he still wished he could take back — a sentiment he resented and one that filled him with immense guilt. Indeed, Maria was the one he still wanted to forget — something he would never be able to do. Because Maria… Maria was the one pregnant with his child.
He called her "Number 31" because she reminded him of Robin. He knew it would upset her if she ever found out, and he hated himself for it. But this was his sick, twisted revenge. Part of him wanted Robin to find out just so she might have a reason to speak to him again, even if only to castigate him for his callousness. And he would often wonder why he was acting like this. But that was just it, wasn't it? Acting? There were three people who had ever seen the real him — the true, unadulterated Barney Stinson. This was not the Barney Stinson who would draft up sex contracts on napkins or obsess over every woman's cup size. This was the Barney who would pull out all the stops for your professional success, who would watch your teenage pop star music videos with you with rapture, and who would go out of their way to fight your demons with you.
Only three people knew that Barney. The first was his mother, whose support could only go so far as there was really only so much she could know about her son's adult life. The second was his ex-wife, whose very name brought up so much pain he could only whisper it to himself in moderation. And the third was Maria, who had somehow uncovered the depths of his spirit in just one night. This was a relationship he wanted to protect for his sake, for her sake, for Robin's sake, and for the sake of everyone else around him. The less they knew about "Number 31," the less they would understand what truly drove him to do the things he had done — things he was only beginning to understand himself.
Barney wondered how the line between acting and existing had long since blurred beyond recognition. When did all the years spent hiding behind bespoke suits and religiously documenting sexual exploits stop serving their purpose of self-preservation and instead turn into an excruciating form of self-destruction? Barney analyzed himself in the restroom mirror and reminded himself: He asked for this. He wanted this. He was the reason he was in a hospital — in the OB/GYN clinic no less. No amount of regret or resentment or naïveté would alter that undeniable fact. Unlike his wedding, this was not a scenario in which he could employ a flimsy excuse and attempt to crawl out a window.
Barney dried his hands and straightened his tie before leaving the restroom and making his way to the examination room the receptionist had directed him to after they'd exchanged their usual pleasantries. This was a performance staged on a set tinged by the scent of rubbing alcohol and illuminated by fluorescent lights that simultaneously elicited notions of comfort and anxiety. Somehow, despite being his eleventh time accompanying Maria to a prenatal visit, Barney's heart rate still seemed to multiply with each step he took towards the door. As he had done each time before, he took a deep breath before he knocked.
"Hey, Masha, it's Barney."
Author's Note: I initially drafted significant portions of this chapter in the middle of the night in my notes app in March 2021. The morning after this drafting session, I learned that all my progress had somehow been deleted. Since then, writer's block has had a chokehold on me. Somehow I have made it through, and after almost two years of radio silence, I am delighted to present you the second chapter of "True Story."