Chapter 12 - The Ice Remains
The following Wednesday, the St. Paul Ice Arena was bathed in the crisp, golden light of the early morning sun cutting through the high transom windows.
The SafeSport review had been fully closed. Not only had my name been cleared, but the club board had voted unanimously to name me the Director of Junior Edge Development, accompanied by a thirty-percent raise and full health insurance benefits.
Owen was sitting in the front row of the bleachers, bundled in his winter parka, happily eating a blueberry muffin while doing his second-grade spelling homework on a clipboard.
I stood at the center of the rink, my skate blades buried deep in the fresh, clean ice.
Elena Rostova stood beside me, leaning on the boards, watching my top competitive student, a twelve-year-old girl named Maya, execute a flawless double axel, landing with a clean, ringing scrape that echoed through the empty arena.
“Better,” Elena shouted, nodding her approval. “Keep the free leg tight on the landing, Maya! Don't let the shoulders drop!”
Elena turned to me, pulling her fur hat down over her ears. “The ice does not care about family drama, Megan. The ice only cares about balance, gravity, and truth. If you lie on the ice, you fall. Simple.”
“I wish the rest of the world worked like that,” I said, resting my hands on the wooden dasher rail.
“It does,” Elena said, tapping my temple with her gloved finger. “Eventually. The fall just takes a little longer to happen. But when the liar hits the ice... they hit hard.”
My phone vibrated in my jacket pocket.
I pulled it out.
It was a text from an unknown number. But the words were unmistakably my mother’s.
*“Megan. The sheriff’s office arrested Lauren an hour ago at her duplex. She is in the Ramsey County jail on a two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar bond. The bank has frozen my accounts because of the audit. I have twelve hundred dollars left in cash. If you have any shred of humanity left, if you remember that I carried you in my womb, you will post her bail. This is your final chance to save your sister’s life. If you ignore this, you will never see either of us again.”*
I stared down at the screen for a long time.
Twelve hundred dollars left in cash.
Fourteen dollars and eighty-two cents.
The numbers danced across my memory. I remembered Owen sitting on the kitchen stool, twisting that silver rocket tissue paper in his trembling fingers, asking me if he was worthy of a present. I remembered the years of five-hundred-dollar transfers, the worn-out boots, the cold mornings, the endless sacrifices offered up on the altar of Lauren’s insatiable greed.
I didn't feel anger. I didn't feel triumph.
I felt completely, wonderfully free.
I tapped the screen, hit *Block Number*, and then deleted the thread without typing a single word in reply.
I slid the phone back into my pocket, zipped the zipper shut, and stepped out onto the ice.
“Owen!” I called out across the arena.
My son looked up from his spelling words, his face lighting up. “Yeah, Mom?”
“Put your boots on, buddy!” I shouted, carving a smooth, effortless circle on the gleaming surface. “Your turn on the ice! Let’s see that waltz jump!”
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Owen dropped his pencil, grabbed his skates from the bench, and ran toward the gate with a joy so pure and bright it made the frost on the glass seem to melt.
***
