Chapter Two

Why Margaret thought she would be able to recognize her daughter she didn’t know. She just knew that she would.

As she proceeded on the path to the City Park Lake, she passed the sundial, and the two side-by-side bronzed Civil War cannons. The lake was a short distance beyond a flank of pine trees.

The iced-over surface of the lake held a kaleidoscope of hundreds of skaters, their chatter and laughter filling the air. Most ice skaters were school children still out on holiday, but the path surrounding the lake was just as busy with promenading adults. Elderly observers occupied most of the benches bordering the lake and path.

Margaret found a vacant bench with a view of the boathouse and sat down to change into her skates.

After lacing up her skates, she took a few more minutes to pencil sketch: one of an overly rouged old woman, one of the boathouse admission sign, and one of a child-sized angel figure impressed in the snow. She was now ready to skate and set her sketchbook aside.

She cupped her hands to her mouth, blowing into them to warm them, then hurried out onto the ice.

Within seconds Margaret smoothly blended into the counter-clockwise flow of the other skaters and was gliding along effortlessly. She noted that despite the many skaters, and except for two or three slushy spots, the ice was holding up well. Just one “Danger” sign was posted.

In the less crowded center of the lake, was a snow-suited child whose reluctant footwork and flailing arms reminded Margaret of her own beginner’s efforts. Margaret could not tell whether the child was a boy or a girl. She just hoped that the teenage boys zigzagging wildly around a flock of teenage girls didn’t scare the child.

They certainly didn’t seem to bother the couple waltzing by arm in arm, at least not to any extent that Margaret could see. How wonderful it must feel to be in love.

She skated around the lake twice looking into every face, but not one was her daughter’s. She had to counsel herself to remain optimistic.

The third time around she saw a young woman with waistlength brunette hair. A closer look though revealed the girl was a honey-skinned Negro.

A half-hour later her hopes were raised again, only this time by a young woman whose hair was as red as her own. She sped up for a chance to look in the girl’s face, but heard the girl make a grossly uncharitable comment to a boy who had accidentally collided with the girl’s sister-like companion.

More dashed hopes. Margaret O’Shea Browne was confident that no child of hers would ever be so cruel.

She skated around the lake several more times, all the while paying attention to any newcomers to the ice or path.

Still, no luck. She had to fight hard not to feel discouraged.

Soon it was three o’clock and Margaret needed to get home. Gwen, who had promised to meet Margaret here an hour ago to give her a ride home, was late as usual. She decided to wait for Gwen fifteen more minutes. If Gwen didn’t arrive by then, she would just have to take the trolley again. She’d think of something to tell Devin.

She noticed that the condition of the ice was deteriorating. In some places, the water under the ice was even visible. Fortunately, this created no real problem as most of the other skaters had already gone.

Margaret was delighted. The day had been a failure in the most important way, but suddenly she had the rare chance to put aside her natural shyness and practice her figure eights and pirouettes. The few who witnessed Margaret ice skating always spoke of her grace and skill.

Nevertheless, by Margaret’s own measure any talent that she demonstrated was futile, for the one person she had worked so hard to impress, her mother, was not around to see her. Margaret’s mother had taught Margaret to skate when she was just a small child, but never returned to Colorado, and thus, never witnessed Margaret’s proficiency on the ice … nor any other part of her life, for that matter.

“Look, Mama, look,” Margaret would frequently say to an imaginary figure standing on the lakeshore, “Look what I can do.” On the night of her sixteenth birthday, Margaret finally accepted that her mother was never coming back, and decided that the endless practice was mere foolishness.

Ever since, she’d found it just short of painful to perform on the ice. Oddly, this opportunity to do so delighted her.

She thought herself unnoticed, but the few skaters who hadn’t yet gone home, gathered around to admire her artistry. A man strolling along the lake’s path stopped to applaud and doffed his hat to her.

The audience joined in with cheers of “Beautiful.” “Lovely.” “Enchanting.”

Her cheeks burned with embarrassment at such adulation. She decided to stop and jabbed the toe of a blade into the ice, bringing her twirl to an abrupt end.

A moment later, a small girl with a head of curly blonde hair broke through the gathering in a panic. She ran directly to Margaret and hid in the folds of Margaret’s skirt. The spectators politely dispersed.

“Some mean ole boys are chasing me,” the little girl said, looking woefully up at Margaret. “They called me a kike and said they were going to rub snow in my face.”

The child pointed into the park at a quartet of ruffians running in the direction of a large snowman. Beside the snowman stood an actual man who was lifting a small boy high enough

for the boy to put the fedora he was holding on the snowman’s head.

Margaret and the little blonde girl watched the little boy, then clap with glee. They continued to watch as the four older boys ran headlong into the snowman, busting it to smithereens.

“No!” both Margaret and the little girl cried, but their protests were useless. All that remained of the snowman was a ragged mound of snow at the man’s feet. The four boys had already run laughing and shouting to the top of Museum Hill. They hadn’t even paused to look back at their victims: a ruined snowman, a stunned father, and a broken-hearted little boy.

Margaret was speechless as she watched the father bend to pick up the trampled fedora. The little girl just wept and clutched Margaret tighter as they both listened to the little boy wail. The trouble wasn’t over …

One of the older boys rushed back down the hill, tore the fedora out of the man’s grasp and scrambled back up the hill to his buddies.

Another one of the boys grabbed the hat and gave a victory yell. All four boys scattered. Two disappeared into a stand of cottonwoods and another ran around to the side of the museum, but the boy with the fedora bumped into a strolling couple as he ran past the front of the museum.

He shouted something undecipherable at the couple and ran into the stand of trees.

Only it wasn’t the prankish boy Margaret stared after, it was the couple he had run into. She watched with bewilderment as the couple sat on a bench overlooking the lake.

She might never have looked twice at the man, but his bright red scarf, which was the exact color of the one she had knitted Devin for Christmas, caught her eye.

She suddenly felt lightheaded and disoriented. She didn’t even notice the woman, standing next to a chauffeured car, calling to the little girl.

“Miss Gertrude, come now,” a stocky woman wearing a functional brown coat and a mannish hat said in a thick Germanic accent, “the car is waiting.”

The little girl obeyed and skated away from Margaret’s protection without so much as a goodbye, but Margaret didn’t say goodbye either. Her concentration was fixed on the couple sitting on the museum bench.

There wasn’t any doubt about who the man was. It was her husband. Only, his companion was a colored woman.

A colored woman. Margaret didn’t understand. Devin despised colored people. She felt bewildered and numb, unable to look away from Devin and the woman.

She sensed someone skate around her as if she were a discarded object in the middle of a road, but she was frozen in place. A chill spiraled down her back as she watched Devin give the colored woman a deep passionate kiss.

When he finally drew back from the woman, Devin pulled his scarf from around his neck and draped it tenderly across the woman’s head, tucking the ends of the scarf inside the woman’s coat. Then he leaned in to kiss the woman again.

Margaret felt woozy … and lost … about to vomit. She had to put a hand on her stomach to keep from retching. A colored woman? Margaret’s eyes brimmed with tears.

She stumbled onto the ground, leaned on a tree, and bent over and heaved. By the time she recovered and looked back up at the top of the hill, Devin and the woman were nowhere in sight.

She saw a trio of colored boys about to launch themselves down the slope; two boys in inner tubes, and a boy on a shiny red sled. The two in the inner tubes had hitched themselves together by hooking the legs of the boy in the rear around the waist of the boy in front. Next to them the boy on the sled yelled, “Ready, set, go.”

The three boys shoved off, and bumped their way to the bottom of the hill. The boy on the sled went faster and farther, and almost reached the edge of the lake. “Man, that was fun,” he shouted. “Let’s do it again.”

Despite the dimming light of a late winter afternoon, the three boys eagerly ran back up the hill.

Margaret watched them go and she realized that other than the colored boys, she was nearly alone in the park. She didn’t know what had happened to Gwen, but for safety’s sake, she didn’t dare wait for her any longer. She scolded herself, then skated back across the lake to the bench where she’d left her shoes and sketchbook.

Her mind was clouded with thoughts of Devin and the colored woman. She had to gather herself, or she was going to be crying all the way home, but at least now she knew that her marriage really was hopeless.

She straightened her back and started to step back onto the ice, but the boy on the sled whooshed to a stop within inches of her.

“Sorry, lady,” he said, as he stood up from the sled and turned to go immediately back up the hill.

Margaret didn’t have a chance to answer. Instead, a snowball sailed past her shoulder and exploded against the boy’s forehead.

“Awwwwww!” the boy yelped and fell to his knees. Margaret rushed over to help him.

As she glanced around the otherwise serene landscape in search of the assailant, all she saw were the other two colored boys, who were almost back to the top of the hill. Apparently, they had no idea their friend had been badly injured.

As Margaret tried to hold the boy up until he was steady on his feet, she noticed someone rushing toward them.

“Yoo hoo,” Gwen called with her customary gaiety, and, of course, she had on yet another new fur coat. “Pet, watch out! Behind you!” Gwen said, pointing with alarm to something or someone behind Margaret.

Margaret looked over her shoulder. One of the boys who had taunted the little blonde girl and destroyed the snowman was winding his arm as if readying for a major league pitch. Then he let out a savage yell and threw a snowball the size of a large orange at the other two colored boys just as their inner tubes reached the bottom of the hill. Thank goodness, it missed.

The two colored boys looked at each other with shock, and then saw their injured friend leaning on Margaret’s shoulder. “Man, let’s get outta here,” one of them said, “them peckerwoods are trying to kill us. Come on, we gotta get Billy.” The two friends rushed over for their buddy.

“Thanks, lady. We got him,” one said as they took Billy out from under Margaret’s arm, then arranged themselves under Billy’s shoulders and carried him away.

“But what about our rides?” Margaret heard one of the boys ask.

“What about ‘em? They ain’t worth dyin’ over,” came the reply. Margaret watched as they struggled to carry Billy across the park.

“Come on,” Gwen said to Margaret, tugging at her arm, “there’s nothing you can do.”

Gwen and Margaret were startled once more as the four white boys who had staged the ambush seemed to come out of nowhere and make a run for the inner tubes.

The boy who had last claimed the fedora let the others scuffle among themselves for the inner tubes, while he made a running dive for the sled, landed perfectly on it, and held on as the sled shot out across the lake.

“Wow!” This is fun,” Gwen and Margaret heard him say after the sled had skewed to a stop against a sign that read:

BEWARE!
THIN ICE

His friends scampered over the hill with the inner tubes, leaving their friend in real danger. Gwen and Margaret could hear the ice breaking under him as he stood to walk back to land.

Without even thinking, Margaret ran onto the ice and skated toward the boy as fast as possible, but the crackle of another fissure compelled her to edge the blades of her skates to a sharp stop.

If she went any farther, she would be in just as much trouble as the boy.

“Hey,” she called to the boy as she watched him crawl back for the sled, “you’d better stop right there.”

The boy ignored Margaret.

“Hey!” she said again, “are you crazy? That part of the ice is going to give way any minute.”

“Back off, lady, and mind your own business,” the boy answered. With one more reach, the fire red sled would be his for good.

There was only the barest hint of daylight remaining, but Margaret could still see the determination on the boy’s face. She pleaded with him again. “Didn’t you hear me? Do you want to drown?”

The boy didn’t act concerned. He had gotten hold of the sled’s pull rope and was trying to stand again, but his feet slipped out from under him. His well-worn street shoes were no match for the slippery ice. His backside hit the ice with a thump. He tried once more. A harder thump.

Finally, he caught his breath and rolled onto his hands and knees, inching toward Margaret, though he still held the sled by its rope.

Margaret was holding her breath in disbelief. She heard another crack in the ice. The boy panicked and retreated, but one of his knees punched the weakened ice and his leg went into the frigid water.

The fissures surrounding him lengthened, then gave away. “Help! Somebody! Anybody! Help!” the boy begged as he struggled to escape. He was crying and gulping for breath, and his body seemed to be going into shock. Time was running out.

She heard him pleading again, this time through chattering teeth. “Lady, ya gotta help me. I, I, I can’t swim. I’m freezing to death,” he sobbed.

His extended arms atop the ice were the only reason he stayed aloft. His strength and courage had clearly faded.

Margaret yanked off her coat, then stretched out on her side. Holding onto the coat by one sleeve, she threw it toward the boy and ordered, “Grab hold.”

“I can’t. I’m scared,” he said.

“You can,” Margaret scolded him. “Now do it.”

“Are you crazy, lady?”

“Well, you’d sure better try,” Margaret answered.

At first, he hesitated, but then he extended his hand toward Margaret’s coat. He withdrew his reach a second later as another crack in the ice snaked toward him.

Ignoring the continuing whine and crackle of the ice, Margaret eased closer. “Try again,” she demanded. He did, and this time his fingertips grazed the end of the coat’s sleeve.

“You’re not trying hard enough,” Margaret insisted. “Now really try.” All the while she was inching closer to him. Again, he reached, and just barely grabbed hold.

Slowly, Margaret wriggled backward, stretching the coat sleeve into the likes of a taut rope. With great care the boy brought his other arm over and clutched hold of the sleeve with that hand.

“Good. Now, whatever you do, don’t let go,” Margaret instructed.

She dug the tip of her skates into the ice and did her best to anchor herself. Hand over hand, she pulled the coat and the boy toward her. Gradually, the boy’s body emerged from the water, but her toehold began to slip. Holding her body as rigid as possible, Margaret pressed her toes down harder into the ice and continued to reel in the boy.

At last, like a hooked fish, the boy’s entire body flopped out onto the ice. She could hear him sniveling.

She pulled him the rest of the way to her, grabbed the neck of his jacket and scooted both of them to safety.

Once they were both on land and able to stand, Margaret quickly pulled off the boy’s sopping wet jacket and put her own coat around his shoulders.

With both of them shivering, she guided the boy toward Gwen’s car. Even from a distance, Margaret could see the disapproval in Gwen’s eyes.

Chagrined, but not heartless, Gwen handed her fur coat to Margaret and gave a cashmere blanket to the boy. As they all got into the car, Margaret looked up at the top of the hill.

No, it couldn’t have possibly been Devin that she had seen. Especially, not with some colored woman. She decided against mentioning anything to Gwen about it.

As they drove away, Margaret looked back at the boy. His mass of blonde curls lent him the appearance of a cherub, but his blue eyes had the gleam of the devil. He was staring out the window at the sled.

Within seconds, more bits of ice surrounding the sled broke away and the sled disappeared into the lake.

“Damn niggers,” the boy muttered.