“Everything is fine. I just had an idea.”
“Tell me more.”
The next day, while the kids were at school, Uncle Teague, Law, and I shoveled a path to the pond. Then we cleared the snow off the surface, and deemed the ice pretty damn smooth.
“You know, this might actually work,” Uncle Teague panted, tossing one last shovelful of snow out of our makeshift rink.
“I think so. I’m pretty sure it won’t be expensive to get secondhand skates,” I mused, jumping up and down a few times.
Law looked worried but tried not to show it. “Are you sure the ice is thick enough?”
Uncle Teague jumped a few times, then shrugged. “Feels like it. I can ask my dad if he has his old ice fishing gear somewhere. He should have an ice drill if you really want to know. The pond isn’t that deep though, so it should be pretty solid. It’s not a lake or anything.”
“I don’t know how these things work, but making a hole in it just to check feels weird,” Law admitted, grimacing a little.
“Aww, desert boy,” I teased, grinning. “Don’t you worry. If you give me shoe sizes, I’ll get all your kids cheap skates. I think I can get them sharpened somewhere for sure.”
“Sharpened? Isn’t that dangerous?”
Uncle Teague smiled. “No. It’s much more dangerous to try to skate with dull blades. Sharp ones glide better.”
“Can you get helmets, too? Do they need other gear?” Law asked, still looking troubled.
“Look, we don’t need to do this at all. None of us need to get skates,” I said gently. “But I promise it’s not dangerous.”
Law took in a deep breath, then nodded as he came to a conclusion. “Okay. But helmets are a must.”
“I would’ve gotten them those anyway.”
And that’s how my grandparents helped fund the endeavor enough for me to be able to get the kids skates, helmets, and knee pads. Just in case. They were all secondhand, and it took me a few days to find everything, but when I finally had it all and tried out the ice, I realized how much I’d missed skating.
I hadn't done it a lot, and I’d always had hockey skates—because boys weren’t allowed figure skates in our family—but that was fine. Here, I could glide on the ice as much as I wanted and even the fact that I was still in hockey skates now didn’t bother me.
The pond was the size of maybe half of a hockey rink, so it wasn’t big enough to get real speed going, but I circled it leisurely, until I heard an excited squeal from one of the kids.
Soon, they ran on the path we’d made down to the pond, looking impressed and excited and—in Marlie’s case—a bit scared.
“You’re skating!” Tristan yelled as he slid onto the ice in his shoes. “That’s so cool!”
I waited until they were all standing on the ice, then circled them, sped to the other end and back, stopping abruptly right in front of them. I didn’t do the spraying the ice trick, because Marlie was already worried and I didn’t want to startle her.
“Itiskind of cool,” I admitted, grinning. “Would you guys like to try it, too?”
Marlie shook her head immediately. Harper looked thoughtful. Tristan on the other hand?
“Can we?” he turned to look at their dad. “For real life?”
“Uncle Teague knows how to skate too, and he and Uncle Charlie should be here in a bit. Oak thought it might be fun for you. If any of you want to try, Grams and Gramps helped out with getting you guys gear that Oak found. There’s skates, helmets, and knee pads on his porch over there.” He pointed to my cabin.
“I really wanna try!” Tristan practically screamed, at which Law told him to calm down.
“I think I want to try? If someone helps me?” Harper asked timidly, but I could tell she was into the idea.
“Uncle Teague and I will be there every step of the way, I promise. Now, I can’t promise that you won’t fall, so you’ll likely have a sore butt tonight, but once you get the hang of it, it’ll be pretty easy.”
Marlie went to Law and took his hand. She was clearly not going to even try, at least not yet. That didn’t surprise me at all.
Uncle Teague and Charlie arrived with the dogs in tow just as I was putting my blade guards on to walk to the cabin with Harper and Tris.
