12

Endings and Beginnings

THE MORNING was cloudless, the high blue sky dropping temperatures far below zero. The storm had cleared. Overnight, the pond had frozen six inches thick. Jane had been there all morning with her team, George, Mike, and Deb, scraping the ice surface clean of snow. They had shovelled over the jagged crack down the pond’s centre, the ice surface not quite even on either side of the split. Nature had sewn the pond back together with a cold flick of her fingers — but they would have to be careful. Her stitches might trip them up.

The group sat to put on their skates, satisfied with their clearing job, and despite the blinding sun glinting off the snowmobiles, the ice, and the insanely tall snowbanks, Jane made out Ivan and Irina approaching from the road. One by one, the participants finished lacing up and stroked to the end of the pond where Jane had first met the Russians.

“I bring Irina to you, Mrs. Matagov,” Ivan said without a word of hello. “Here she is.”

“Yes,” Deb said.

“You will take care of her, dah?” Ivan’s eyes were hooded. He was having a hard time looking at the team he had helped to create.

A Russian spirit seemed to enter Deb. “She will be like a second daughter to me,” she said fervently. Ivan nodded his thanks.

Mike moved to be close to Irina. “Ivan,” he said. “Mr. Stepanov … I cannot think of her as a sister, but I … I will watch out for her. I will … marry her.”

“No, you will not,” Ivan chuckled despite the solemnity of the moment. “You will go to Oshawa Generals as planned. Bobby is ready to take you down there now. Also, I think is best you not be in same house as my daughter.” He and Deb laughed heartily.

“To be serious, Mrs. Matagov,” Ivan continued. “I … I could not leave Irina if I did not know she would be so welcome in your home. Is only way I can leave.” He turned away to control his emotion.

“Ivan?” Jane said, glancing at Tina and Susan.

“Dah?”

“We … we got you a gift.” She handed him a small token wrapped in tinfoil. As he unwrapped it, he revealed Jane’s Kelowna Packers puck.

He looked up sharply. His eyes were red. “I … I cannot accept this,” he said hoarsely. “This is not right. I will not take it.”

“It’s okay, Ivan,” Jane said, smiling. “I’ll get it back from you in Moscow.”

“You will get it back …?”

“Sure,” Jane said, pressing on, determined to fill him with positivity despite her absolute certainty that she would never see him again. “When you come to watch me figure skate there, with your wife, you will bring it to me, for luck. You see, it is magic that way,” she continued, curling his fingers around the puck and covering them in her palms. “It grants wishes. This puck went to Moscow before, with my father. His team won; it came back. Now, it returns to Moscow to give you luck with … what you need. Then, when you see me figure skate, you will give it to me, so the luck comes back to me. Got it?”

“You have it all figured out, yes, Jane?”

“Well, yes and no,” she said, her tenuous smile bittersweet. “But just like all through this magical winter — this magical winter created by you — I’ll just keep dreaming.”