“Parts.”
“Did she steal them?”
Nora shook her head.
“Not like that.”
Grace frowned.
Nora continued:
“Choreography ownership in skating is messy.”
“Moves aren’t copyrighted in the way you’re thinking.”
“Vivian had helped create parts.”
“She rearranged them.”
“Rebecca probably had no idea where they came from.”
Grace thought about Charlotte.
Her mother.
The family legacy.
“What bothered you?”
Nora looked toward her hands.
“That everyone remembered Vivian invented a style I had been punished for refusing to change.”
That was different.
More human.
Perhaps worse.
Grace asked:
“Why didn’t you fight?”
Nora laughed softly.
“With what money?”
Grace said nothing.
“Your grandmother was going through chemotherapy.”
Grace knew.
Her grandmother survived that cancer and lived another eighteen years.
But in 2002 the family had almost no money.
Nora took a job.
Then another.
Medical bills.
Rehabilitation.
A life began before she decided whether the old dream was officially dead.
“Thomas had the tape.”
“Yes.”
“Why did you ask him not to share it?”
Nora swallowed.
“Because for years I could not watch myself skate without feeling stupid.”
Grace’s anger disappeared.
“Mom.”
“I thought everyone else was right.”
Grace stared.
Nora continued:
“That I was difficult.”
“That I ruined my chance.”
“That if I had been tougher, quieter, easier…”
Her voice broke.
Rebecca looked toward the window.
Grace stood and hugged her mother.
Nora laughed through tears.
“This is not how I wanted your final day to start.”
“I asked.”
“Yes.”
“You should’ve told me.”
“Maybe.”
“No.”
Grace pulled back.
“You should have.”
Nora nodded.
“Yes.”
That mattered.
Grace looked toward her skates.
“Why did you keep them?”
Nora smiled.
“Because they were expensive.”
Grace laughed despite herself.
“Seriously?”
“Your grandfather nearly had a stroke buying them.”
Then Nora softened.
“And because they were mine before everything became ugly.”
Grace looked at the old leather.
“Do you want me to change the sequence?”
Nora took time.
“No.”
Grace stared.
“What changed?”
“You know what it is now.”
“That makes it safer?”
“No.”
Nora smiled faintly.
“It makes it yours by choice.”
Grace nodded.
The final began at seven that evening.
Six skaters.
Charlotte was fourth.
Grace sixth.
The scholarship committee included coaches, former skaters, a sports-medicine physician, and two donors.
Vivian Sloan sat in the front row.
So did Rebecca Kingsley.
Charlotte’s mother had arrived unexpectedly that afternoon.
Grace recognized her from old footage.
At forty-four, Rebecca still carried the posture of a skater.
Blond like Charlotte.
Elegant.
Composed.
When she saw Nora across the arena, she stopped walking.
Nora stopped too.
Grace watched from the corridor.
Twenty-two years collapsed between them.
Rebecca approached first.
“Nora.”
“Rebecca.”
Silence.
Then Rebecca looked at Grace.
“She’s yours.”
Nora smiled slightly.
“Yes.”
“She’s good.”
“Yes.”
Another silence.
Rebecca’s eyes moved toward Nora’s old skates hanging from Grace’s shoulder.
“Oh.”
Nora nodded.
Rebecca swallowed.
“I didn’t know.”
“About?”