At five o’clock, I pick Stanley up from the park. Since his arm is in a sling, I drive, and he gives me directions. I can’t begin to guess where he’s taking us. When we finally pull into the parking lot, my confusion only increases.
Ahead is a large, open lawn surrounded by trees and illuminated by stadium lights. In the center, there’s a smooth, glassy surface encircled by a low fence. As we approach, I realize what I’m looking at, and I wonder if this is his peculiar idea of a joke. “This is an ice-skating rink.”
“Yep.”
“We don’t have skates.”
He points to a little wooden building with a peaked roof. “We can rent some in there. They sell hot chocolate, too.”
I stare at his cane, then at his broken arm. He just stands there, smiling. Apparently he’s not going to address the obvious—that for someone in his condition, ice-skating is about the most risky activity imaginable, outside of throwing himself repeatedly down the stairs.
“I don’t know how,” I say.
“That’s okay. I barely remember, either.”
He told me he used to skate as a child, until he broke his scapula. Does this have something to do with that? Probably. Even so, this seems like a foolish way of confronting his demons. Like a burn victim deciding to overcome his fear by setting his house on fire.
His smile fades. “I haven’t gone crazy, honest. I just want to go out and stand on the ice for a few minutes. I don’t really know how to explain this. It’s just something I need. And I thought . . .” A light flush rises into his cheeks. “I thought it would be easier, if you were with me.” He looks away. “I’m being kind of selfish, I guess. If you don’t want to do this, we don’t have to.”
My gaze wanders back to the rink, which is currently deserted. The ice looks solid, though the weather doesn’t seem cold enough for that. It’s probably not even real ice, I tell myself. Lots of rinks use a chemical substitute like high-density polyethylene. That would explain why it’s so hard, even though the temperature is above freezing. And even if it is water, there’s absolutely no risk of drowning; I just have to keep reminding myself of that.
“Let’s do it,” I say.
We rent two pairs of skates and sit on a bench.
The light of sunset has mostly faded, and colors are muted. The ring of stadium lights is on, but not at full power; they glow with a soft white radiance. All around us, snow falls in fat flakes, piling up on the bench and on our clothes and hair. I lace up my skates, then lean down to tie his, knotting them securely and looping the slack around his ankles for extra support. “Do they fit okay.”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
For a few minutes, he just stares out at the ice, his expression distant and closed off. I notice the fingers of one hand digging into his thigh. “Stanley . . .”
“Sorry.” He exhales a tense breath. “Having second thoughts.”
Awkwardly I fold my arms around him. I’m still not good at hugging—my arms are stiff and wooden, like a store mannequin’s—but his trembling gradually subsides. It’s a new feeling, being able to ease someone else’s fear. A powerful feeling. “I won’t let you fall,” I say.
He laughs weakly. “I should be the one saying that to you, shouldn’t I? I mean, it’s your first time.”
I release him and cross my arms. “Well, don’t let me fall, either.”
“I won’t.” He places a hand on my shoulder, pushing himself to his feet. Facing me, he extends a glove. “Ready?”
I take his hand, and he leads me out onto the ice, leaving his cane where it is, propped against the bench. He moves in small, careful shuffles, leaning against my shoulder.
My legs feel wobbly. I stay close to the edge, inching my way along the low wall surrounding the rink. Stanley grips my hand. “Let’s go out a little farther.”
I grit my teeth, every limb rigid with tension, as we shuffle away from the wall. How did I let him talk me into this? “I think I’ve changed my mind.” I squeeze the words through my clenched jaws.
“We won’t fall. I promise.”
I move clumsily, sliding one skate forward, then the other. My body tilts back and forth; my arms are stiff at my sides. And still, he clings to my hand. “I mean it,” I growl. “I don’t think I can do this.”
“Just hold on.”
I glare at him, but he looks utterly sincere. Now that he’s actually on the ice, he seems to have gotten over his anxiety. I, on the other hand, was relatively calm until I actually felt how unstable these skates are. How does anyone stand up on these?
But this is important to Stanley. I take a deep breath and nod.
He starts to move, and I let him guide me. I begin to relax, almost against my will. His foot slips, and I catch him with an arm around his waist. He grips my coat. My heart beats rapidly against his.
“You okay?” he asks.
I nod but don’t move, afraid that if I do, we’ll both spill onto the ice. I feel clumsy and unsteady, like a foal taking its first steps.
“See?” he whispers against my ear. “Nothing to it.”
He rests his chin briefly atop my hair. For a minute or two, we just stand there. It’s strange, touching someone and not feeling the urge to pull away.
He guides me back to the wall. A tiny smile grows from one corner of his mouth. “Hey, watch this.”
I don’t like the sound of that. “Watch what.”
He breaks away and moves in small, shuffling movements toward the center of the rink, leaving me leaning against the edge, helpless. “Just watch!” he calls.
And all at once, he’s gliding across the ice, so suddenly and gracefully it’s surreal. He starts to loop around and manages to do one half of a figure eight before his legs wobble and give out. He doesn’t fall so much as crumple.
I try to run to him. The ice flies out from under me, and I land on my knees with a painful jolt. Panting, I crawl toward him. He’s lying on his back, splayed on the ice. “Stanley!”
To my astonishment, he’s laughing, though the sound is strained and breathless—more like gasping.
“You’re a lunatic.” I help him to his feet, and he curls an arm around my waist. He’s limping a bit more than usual as we make our way toward the edge of the rink. We sit together on the bench, breathless and flushed. He smiles at me, eyes crinkling at the corners.
I look down at his legs. “Are you sure nothing’s broken.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ve got metal rods in my femurs, remember?” He knocks a fist against one leg. “I’m the bionic man. Indestructible.”
“Well, you’ve certainly got an indestructible head. It’s solid rock all the way through.”
He blinks. For a moment, he looks baffled. “Wait—was that a joke?” A broad smile breaks across his face. “I don’t believe it. You made a joke.”
“I can do that, you know.”
He takes his hat off and rubs his head, grinning. The flush in his cheeks is bright, his nose pink from the cold, and his hair is mussed up, flattened in places and sticking up in others. There’s a string of Christmas lights on the nearby tree—though it’s not even December yet—and I can see them reflected in his eyes. I wish I had a camera. Instead, I close one eye and think click, which is something I do when I don’t ever want to forget a particular image. I reach out and stroke his coat sleeve. It’s soft against my fingertips.
Then I notice how labored his breathing has become. “How much pain,” I ask. “One to ten.”
He hesitates, then mumbles, “Four.”
I look at his pulse, hammering in his throat—135 beats per minute—and mentally adjust that to a six. He overexerted himself today, but I know better than to say anything about it. This was something he needed to do.
Stanley fidgets, opens his mouth, and then closes it. Finally he takes a deep breath, reaches into his coat, and pulls something out. It’s a carnation. The bloom is bloodred, with lots of delicate crinkly petals, and half-flattened from being stuck inside his coat for so long.
He holds it out to me. His Adam’s apple moves up and down. “Here.”
I stare.
“I said I wanted to court you. Remember?”
Slowly I take it from him. I feel off-balance. Dizzy. A red carnation means something, in the language of flowers. But when I try to remember, something inside me flinches shut.
Stanley sits, shoulders tense, hands tightly interlaced in his laps. The flush in his cheeks grows brighter, creeping into his ears.
“Stanley . . . I . . .” My fingers tighten on the carnation’s stem. “I—”
“I just wanted to give it to you. That’s all. You don’t have to say anything.”
I clutch the carnation. I’m not sure what to do with it, so I stuff it into my coat pocket.
His hands tighten on his knees. He pulls his hat back over his ears, picks up his cane and pushes himself to his feet. “Want to head back?”
I stand, and we walk toward the car.
Back at my apartment, alone, I take the carnation out of my coat pocket and study it. The petals are flattened, the leaves bent, the stem broken, oozing clear sap like blood. I’ve already crushed the life out of it with my clumsy paws.
Still, I can’t just throw it away. I get a bit of clear tape and wrap it around the broken stem like a bandage. Then I fill a glass with water, put the carnation inside it, and set it on my coffee table.
A flower is a morbid gift, if you think about it—the severed reproductive organ of a plant, preserved and kept alive through the equivalent of a feeding tube. What sense is there in prolonging its inevitable death?
But maybe that’s the point. Everything dies. All that we do in the meantime is just delay the inevitable . . . and yet there’s still beauty and softness. Is it worth it?
With a fingertip, I stroke one bloodred petal. I think about Stanley’s smile.
Then I remember what he said to me after he broke his arm, about how people like him sometimes lose their hearing. If that happens, how will I communicate with him?
I pull on my coat, walk to the library, and check out three books. I sit at one of the long tables and open the largest book, titled simply American Sign Language. I find the sign for “friend” and practice it, interlocking my index fingers once, then twice.
I turn the page—and freeze. There’s an illustration of a hand with the forefinger, thumb, and pinkie finger extended. Love.
A dull rumble emanates from within the Vault, and the massive doors shudder. From the basement of my brain, a voice whispers, Whatever happens, it’s because I love you.
I slam the book shut. It takes me a few minutes to get my breathing under control.