Second Hand Skates

“You can do this, “ my daddy told me as he laced up my second hand skates,  wound the muffler around my neck and pulled up my mittens,  “I’m going to show you how.”

It had snowed fiercely the day before and he and my uncles had been up with the sun to clear the frozen pond so we could ice skate.   Nana had tramped through the snowdrifts a half dozen times to bring hot coffee and sweet rolls but still it was bitterly cold and the wind made the trees tremble and shake  their snow-laden limbs.   By the time my daddy had half dragged and half carried me out onto the skittery ice, I was convinced I would never be warm again.

“I can’t!” I wailed miserably.

 “You haven’t tried yet!” he laughed, “How do you know?”

I knew because, despite the double thermal socks, my ankles had suddenly turned to mush, my balance was gone and  I had a new and profound understanding of gravity.  I knew because for the first time I could remember, I was doubting him.   Skate! I thought dismally, why, I couldn’t even stand!

My uncles circled around me - a wayward flock of useless, chattering crows - and my daddy propped me up with his hands tucked under my arms.  Uncle Bill took one mittened hand, Uncle Ernie took the other, and they slowly began to pull me.   Uncle Dave, surprisingly graceful for such a clunky, clumsy and nearsighted old farmer, spun like a dancer.

“Jist try her with one foot!” he called encouragingly, “One foot then the other!  Ya gotta slide!”

“Don’t let go!” I hollered, panicked at the thought of trying to navigate even a single step on those narrow blades, terrified that one or both of my uncles would desert me.  But they did let go.  I stood for a second, alone on the ice, pinwheeling my arms madly and then as I lost my footing and began falling backwards, a pair of arms caught me and I heard my daddy’s voice.

“Whoa!” I heard him say, “I’ve got you!”

He patiently set me on my feet again, allowing me to clutch at his shoulders while he re-wound my muffler and hitched up my mittens.   The uncles, except for Dave - still pirouetting and showing off in the center of the pond -  gathered around us.  

“Well, I dunno,” Uncle Ernie said doubtfully, “Maybe she ain’t old enough.”

“Maybe you’d just rather watch?” Uncle Bill said kindly, “You could stay with the aunts.”

“Reckon we could try again next year,” Uncle Byron - by far my favorite and best known - shrugged, “She tried and that’s good enough.”

My daddy rocked back on the heels of his skates,  his blue eyes meeting mine steadily but with a gentle smile.  The wind kicked up a little, stirring the surrounding drifts and sending small flurries through the frigid air.  I could see his breath and the snowflakes on his eye lashes.

“It’s up to you, darlin’,” he winked at me. “Either way is fine with me.”

 Maybe it was my stubborn streak - no doubt inherited from my mother’s side of the family - or maybe it was that I’d have rather taken a beating than disappoint my daddy but something made push my fear and shame aside and struggle back up.  

“It’s all about balance,” my daddy told me reassuringly, “Just get used to the way it feels.”

“Don’t let go!”  I cried as I wavered and swayed on the blades.

“Never!” he promised and gave me the gentlest of pushes.

The first time I almost didn’t fall. 

The second time I stayed on my skates for several  precious seconds before I almost didn’t fall.

The third time I managed almost a minute before my ankles gave out and I went down in a heap.

The fourth time I stayed up halfway round the frozen pond.

The fifth time I was skating  and crash landing into a snowdrift.

“Time to teach you how to stop!”  my Uncle Dave shouted and everyone laughed.   Uncle Byron brought me a mug of hot chocolate and a hug, Uncle Ernie and Uncle Bill cheered from the sidelines, and my daddy gave me that prideful, pleased  Told you so  look that I’d been trying so hard for.  It was a look that chased away the cold and the chilblains and made me forget about not being able to feel my fingers or toes.

 When it started to snow again, big, fluffy flakes that obscured the sky and swirled around us like Nana’s see-through curtains, we took off our skates and trudged back to the old farmhouse.  I walked in the footsteps my uncles made, my scuffed, white skates hanging over one shoulder.   In the mud room, we shed our winter coats and boots  and scarves and carefully hung everything up on the wooden pegs.  My daddy took particular care with my skates, drying the blades with an old towel and gently wiping off the white leather before hanging them on a peg away from all the others even though there were empty hooks all around.

 

“Your Aunt Ivy could skate like the wind,” he told me with a familiar sad smile, “As light on her feet as a leaf in the wind….graceful like….oh, I don’t know, a swan maybe…..or something in flight. Something very free.”   The sad smile turned very serious and I knew he was remembering his sister, the last born girl and the first of the ten children to die.  I had a clear memory  of a late night phone call and his dropping everything to pack and jump on a plane the following morning  -  there had been an accident and the other driver had been drunk  -  and my Aunt Ivy, at just 44, had been killed.  It had been one of the only times I could remember seeing  my gentle natured,  peace loving daddy angry.

Among the winter wear and baskets of new potatoes and corn, hanging in the midst of farm tools and seed sacks and the scarred old machine Uncle Byron still used to separate the milk and cream, high above the rows of muddy work boots, the milking pails and the empty old wooden crate where so many barn cats had raised so many kittens,  here hung my second hand skates.  The blades glinted and the white leather shone in the shadowy light and I found myself hoping that my Aunt Ivy approved.