Ice Angel

The solid surface beneath me became a cold, dark mouth of death that swallowed me so fast I only had a chance to take half a breath. In an instant, I was enveloped by a pair of freezing arms which squeezed with such force that my chest felt as if it had an anvil dropped on it. Every muscle in my body felt the shock of the frozen water, but none of them moved in response. I was a lifeless marionette cut from my strings, slowly slipping further and further away from the world of memory and love…

My cousin, Lucy, and I had been practicing our figure skating on the big, frozen pond behind her house. Her mom had told us,

“Don’t go out on the ice yet, girls. Let me check it first. I have to go to the store, but when I come back, I’ll look at the pond.” We had tried to wait, we really did. But the ice glimmered in the cold, January sunshine as if begging us to notice it. The wind whistled outside, and it almost sounded as if the frozen water was crying from neglect and loneliness.

“Come on, Angela!” Lucy said after we had sat staring out the window for an infinity of eternities, but in reality, was only closer to 20 minutes. “The ice is fine, I’m sure. Mama is just paranoid.”

“She didn’t seem annoyed when she left,” I stated, puzzled.

“No, you silly goose, I said ‘paranoid’, not ‘a-nnoyed’.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you’re scared of something for no reason. Derek always says that mama is ‘paranoid’.”

“She didn’t look scared to me. She was smiling. People don’t smile if they are scared.” Lucy’s eyes made a full trip around their circumference and a sharp puff of hot air escaped her lungs.

“You really can be very naïve sometimes, Ang.” Lucy remarked.

“I hate when you call me names I don’t understand,” I muttered just over the volume of a whisper, all the while protruding my bottom lip out more and more. Lucy’s shoulder’s dropped and she gazed at the floor.

“Sorry. I just want to go skating and mama is taking so long.

“It’s okay,” I assured her.

“So do you want to go?” Lucy queried. “We can stay close to the edges where it’s thicker if you want.”

“But what will your mom say if she comes back and catches us without asking?”

“We’ll only skate for ten minutes, then we can just play in the snow until she gets here.” I was divided. My heart prompted me to listen to the beckoning of the ice, to feel once again the closest sensation I knew to flying. The freedom of gliding weightless, putting all other thoughts and worries behind. My head on the other hand scolded me for even entertaining the idea of stepping foot onto the pond without Aunt Justina’s permission.

“I don’t know.” Was all I was able to say.

“Oh come ooooon, Ang!” Lucy suddenly became the lead actress in a drama, exaggerating every syllable and adding an unmistakable amount of disgust in her body language. “You said you wanted to show me your single-foot upright spins!” And with that, I caved like the very ice through which I would inevitably fall, for while I am very uncomfortable at the idea of disobeying an adult, one thing will cause me to disregard all sense and logic in its pursuit. I simply love to show off.

So within minutes, we were bundled up in more layers than a rich person’s wedding cake, sitting at the pond’s edge, lacing on our ice skates. I surveyed the landscape around me. Barren trees shoulder the weight of hundreds of pounds of snow on their shoulders, yet doing so gladly so as to hide the nakedness they must feel. I let out a breath. The tiny cloud of air lingers in front of me until it drifts away in the breeze. A magical peace blankets the scene, as thousands of crystals fall to the earth. Each one somehow unique, as those singularly designed by Jack Frost himself. An unexplainable feeling descends with the flakes, a transcendent contentment, an interior calm. And even though the world is frozen and cold, inside my soul is only happy and warm.

“Are you coming, Angela?” Lucy’s shill voice shattered my thoughts and the moment. I would have been bothered but then I saw her coast by on her skates like an angel hovering above the earth and I forgot all about it. I stood up and took the few awkward steps to the ice, feeling like a renowned figure skater preparing to display her beauty, but likely looking like a fat penguin struggling to waddle in the deep snow. First, one skate found the ice then the second. I pushed off and glided forward. What a feeling! It was one of which I never tire. I twirled about forgetting my initial hesitancy. After a few minutes, I decided to display my new skill to Lucy.

“You ready?” I called to her, my heart increasing in rate as my excitement built.

“Oh, yes!” She cried, her eyes glinting with glee, rivaling the brilliance of the pond. I returned her smile and set my feet. I realized I would need more room to complete the move, more than I could get on the edge of the ice. I would have to go closer to the middle of the pond. It’ll only take a minute. I reassured myself, not wanting to miss an opportunity to be the center of attention, then you can come back. So off I went, taking several quick strides and then pulling a sharp turn that carried my momentum into a twist. I spun around and around on my feet and once I felt comfortable, I lifted my left leg to execute the maneuver. I didn’t do it quite right. I found myself wabbling in place and in an instant was lying flat on my back on the ice.

I wanted to be angry at myself for messing up, but I was in too good of a mood, and I am sure that from an outside perspective, my antics must have looked rather comical. So instead of pouting or glowering, I just laughed. Lucy was giggling too, not in a mocking way, but truly just in the mirth of the moment. I heard a loud noise come from my left, the high pitch rumble of an engine. I turned to look and as I did so, I spied my cousin, Derek, Lucy’s older brother, materialize in the falling snow as he came over the crest of a hill on a snowmobile. I stood up from where I had fallen to wave. As soon as I did, I heard a distinctive ‘CRACK’…

… There is a bouncing, a jolting. I am so cold, or am I now warm? Shapes flow in and out of my vision yet I am in complete darkness. No, I am surrounded by a blinding light. Someone is calling my name.

“Angela! Angela!” I look up, it is my mother. She is holding the broken pieces of her favorite vase that I had just knocked off the table. She is very mad. She doesn’t blink, she just stares. “Where are my shoes?!” She finally speaks. Why does she want her shoes? As soon as contemplate this, I realize my mother is now my father. He is on his hands and knees on the living room floor, peering under our leaf-patterned sofa. That’s not where I had hidden them. I had put one in the closet and the other behind the coffee pot on the kitchen counter.

My daddy slumps to the floor and starts crying. Wailing, uncontrollable sobs beyond consolation. I try to comfort him, but my efforts are in vain. His body shivers and nothing I do helps. Then he takes my hand, and we are now standing amidst stones of various shapes and sizes all covered in names and dates and little sentences that are supposed to summarize the impact and depth of a person. The letters are colder and deader than the lost souls beneath them. My daddy squeezes my hand and looks down at me.

“It’s okay now, my little angel. Mama and Peter are very happy.” He says the tears welling up in his eyes threatening another waterfall of saline. “We will see them again someday.”

“But why can’t I see them now?” I plead. My father lowered himself to a squat so that he can gaze me in the eyes at my level. His gentle yet strong hand caresses my cheek, his warmth radiating onto my skin. His blue-green eyes stare deep into mine and I want to be lost in this look of love forever. His square, facial features softened by his brown beard, it is the face that I ran to when I was scared in thunderstorms, that taught me to skate, that was always there.

“Because I need you to stay with me, my little angel.” He whispered. “I can’t lose you too.” Then, all of a sudden, the ground below us became ice and it became splintering in a thousand places. Before I could move, the ice broke apart and I fell through. In an instant, I am in a formless space. There is nothing around me save whiteness. My mother stands in front of me, holding my baby brother in her arms. Her blonde hair flows down to her shoulders and back, rippling in some undetectable breeze. Peter is twirling it between his little fingers, releasing audible coos as he did so. I run to them and wrap my arms around my mama’s legs. She stoops down to me and places her hand on my cheek. Her hand is cold, and I shiver slightly at her touch.

“Hello, my darling.” She calmly says to me. “Never forget how much I love you.” Then just as suddenly as she and my brother had appeared, they were gone.

The white around me began to fade, growing grayer and grayer each moment. I heard a faint beep. It sounded distant, as if from down a lengthy tunnel. Then I heard it again, this time much more distinct. A third beep erupted next to me, and it seemed like the loudest noise I had ever heard. I blinked my eyes several times and a world of color and sound flooded my vision. I continued to flutter my eyes. When my pupils had adjusted, I saw a lone figure sitting in a chair at the end of a bed I was lying in. Tear streaks painted his face, but he was all smiles.

“Hello, my angel.”