“Yes.”
“What?”
“Not tonight.”
Grace closed her eyes.
“Why?”
“Because you have a final tomorrow and I will not let twenty-two-year-old garbage walk onto the ice with you.”
There was the coach voice.
Grace almost smiled.
“After?”
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
Nora hesitated.
Then:
“Yes.”
Grace believed her.
Mostly.
“Okay.”
Nora added:
“And Grace?”
“Yes?”
“Do not skate the river sequence tomorrow.”
Grace froze.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m asking.”
“That isn’t a reason.”
“Use the newer step sequence.”
“No.”
Rebecca quietly got up and walked into the bathroom.
Smart woman.
Nora’s voice hardened.
“Grace.”
“That sequence scores better.”
“I don’t care.”
“It’s the reason presentation jumped.”
“I know.”
“Then?”
“Do not use it.”
Grace stared out at snow falling beyond the hotel window.
“Vivian recognized it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
No answer.
Grace understood.
The sequence was the problem.
Or the evidence.
“I’m skating it.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You do not know what you’re stepping into.”
“Then tell me.”
Nora went silent.
Grace waited.
Nothing.
“Mom.”
“I’m coming to Minneapolis.”
Grace’s heart jumped.
“What?”
“I’ll drive tonight.”
“It’s six hours.”
“Closer to five.”
“In snow.”
“I grew up in Wisconsin.”
“Mom.”
“I’ll be there.”
The call ended twenty minutes later after an argument neither won.
Rebecca returned from the bathroom.
“Safe?”
“No.”
“Good.”
She sat.
“What did Nora say?”
“She’s coming.”
Rebecca’s eyebrows rose.
“That is not nothing.”
“No.”
“Are you skating the sequence?”
“Yes.”
Rebecca sighed.
“Of course.”
Grace looked at her.
“Shouldn’t I?”
Rebecca considered.
“I think your mother knows something we don’t.”
“Exactly.”
“That is not automatically permission to ignore her.”
Grace looked away.
Rebecca continued:
“But if the sequence is yours now, competitively and artistically, I’m not changing your program twelve hours before a final unless there’s a safety problem.”
“There isn’t.”
“Then sleep.”
Grace did not sleep.
At midnight she searched Nora Miller online.
Very little.
A few archived local results.
1999 Upper Midwest novice champion.
2000 regional junior bronze.
2001 Lake States junior silver.
Then almost nothing.
A scanned newspaper clipping from February 2002:
LOCAL SKATER WITHDRAWS FROM NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM.
No reason.
Another article described “conduct concerns and a coaching dispute.”
Grace’s stomach tightened.
She searched deeper.
Old skating forums.
Archived newsletters.
One post:
Whatever happened to Nora Miller? She had that crazy step sequence at Northstar and then disappeared.
Reply:
Injury I think.
Another:
Heard she got kicked out.
Another:
My coach says she was difficult.
Grace hated that word.