WITH HIS PHONE next to him on the couch and out of his little girl’s sight, Miles Jenkins scrolled through the three new texts. The first was from the meeting planner organizing a management conference in Denver, where Miles was booked to present a seminar in late January. That fell into the category of important, but not urgent. Exactly like the second and third, both sent by a speakers bureau he regularly worked with. Nothing he needed to interrupt his Sunday afternoon to handle.
Brooke tugged on his sleeve. “Daddy, did you see that girl fall down? She won’t get a medal now.”
“Sure, honey, I saw it.” Sort of. Out of the corner of his eye he’d caught a glimpse of the skater on the TV screen. “So, one spill on the ice means she won’t get a medal?”
Brooke answered with a solemn nod. “Well, that’s not always true, but this time it knocked her right out of the competition.”
Miles smiled to himself. From the moment they’d begun watching, his eight-year-old had taken on the role of a professional commentator. Without skipping a beat Brooke predicted who among this group of young women would emerge as medal winners and who’d likely go home empty-handed.
“You know so much about the sport you could be one of those experts on TV.”
Brooke responded with an exaggerated roll of her brown eyes. When had she learned to do that?
“I mean it,” he said, feigning a defensive tone. “You’ve taught me more about skating in the last couple of hours than I’ve learned in my entire life, all thirty-nine years of it.” Or ever cared to know, but that was beside the point.
Andi had mentioned their daughter’s interest in skating had quickly moved from casual to intense, leaving Brooke completely enamored with these real-life princesses performing impossible feats in their glittery costumes. Andi encouraged the interest, too. These self-disciplined girls trained every day and worked hard to compete, she pointed out. They weren’t like the out-of-control young celebrities who ended up as headlines on too many glossy magazine covers for all the wrong reasons.
His former wife had also advised against making plans to see a movie with Brooke on Sunday afternoon. “It’s the Grand Circuit final,” she’d said. “The last event of this year’s figure-skating competitive season. Brooke’s been looking forward to it all week. It’s a big deal, a step on the way to determining who gets on the International Figure Skating Championship team.” She’d paused and then laughed. “Listen to me. You’d think I know what I’m talking about. But I don’t need to explain the ins and outs. Our skating enthusiast will fill you in. Every last detail.”
Andi was right. Brooke had talked about almost nothing else but her favorite figure skaters from the moment he’d picked her up on Saturday morning. It seemed that Mamie, his little girl’s babysitter, had created a fan.
“You could take skating lessons yourself,” he said. “Would you like that?”
Brooke shook her head. “I already told Mom I want to keep playing soccer. And basketball is fun, too.”
“Okay, honey. You let us know if you change your mind.”
Photographs on the wall on either side of the TV showed Brooke in her soccer uniform, her auburn hair in two pigtails. He agreed with Andi, who reminded him—often—about research showing that little girls who were involved in sports developed healthy self-esteem. They were less likely to fall in with a bad crowd and do all the risky things that left parents so terrified they could barely breathe.
“I will.” Brooke scooped up a handful of popcorn from the bowl on the coffee table. Before putting it in her mouth, she added, “But don’t forget about the horse, Daddy. I’ve already picked out her name.”
“Magic,” he said, nodding. “I remember.”
“Won’t be long now.”
“I know, less than four years.”
“Three years and five months...to be exact.”
He suppressed a laugh, not wanting her to think he’d ever make light of her longing for a horse. Not long ago, Andi had brought up the horse once again, as if warning him to be prepared. Andi also believed girls who loved horses would be less likely to spend time with boys who’d divert them from their goals. When she’d put it like that, was she subtly reminding him that he’d been a boy—or rather, a young man—who’d once been responsible for interrupting a girl’s goals?
As much as he agreed with his ex-wife on almost all their joint parenting issues, Miles thought she was overly concerned about Brooke being a child of divorce. Andi regularly mentioned the emotional risks of divorce and the frightening specter of teenage girls wandering aimlessly through adolescence.
Brooke bounced on the cushion next to him. “Only one more skater to go before Perrie Lynn, Daddy.”
“Perrie who? One of your favorites?” He squeezed Brooke’s hand to show he was only teasing. Whatever Andi feared might happen in the future, their little girl was 100 percent safe and happy in this moment.
“Her whole name is Perrie Lynn Olson.”
He knew that, of course. Brooke had started his education about skating by extolling Perrie Lynn. Still, although he enjoyed these exchanges with his little girl, sometimes he found himself listening with only one ear and much of what she said didn’t settle into his memory bank. “And what makes her a special skater?”
Brooke gestured toward the TV with both hands for emphasis. “She’s sort of new. She got to go to the Grand Circuit final because she won two big competitions. Mamie said she surprised everyone in the skating world.”
Miles grinned at the lingo she’d picked up from Mamie and the commentators. The next skater was a young Canadian woman named Misty, who made a quick trip around the rink in her blue sequined costume. Even her short blond hair sparkled.
No wonder little girls thought these athletes were spinning, jumping princesses. For the next four minutes, the commentators, Katie and Allen, former champions themselves, counted triple jumps and what looked like impossible spins, explaining each move. Allen groaned over two jumps that went awry and caused Misty to, as he put it, lose the landing. Down she went. Misty recovered, though, and flashed a big smile for the audience when she thrust one arm high in the air for her dramatic finish. The smile disappeared almost immediately, replaced with a glum expression as she skated off the ice and into the open arms of her coach.
Miles picked up the remote and muted the sound when the commercials started.
“She was okay,” Brooke said, “but not as good as Perrie Lynn’s going to be.”
Miles hoped Perrie Lynn didn’t take a spill and break the spell Brooke had created around the young skater.
The ads over, he got the sound back on in time to listen to Katie and the other commentators discuss Misty’s scores, which they all agreed left plenty of room for Perrie Lynn to jump ahead.
“Pay attention, Daddy. Here she comes.” Brooke clapped her hands in anticipation.
The dark-haired girl skated onto the ice to rising applause and encouraging cheers. She took her time taking a turn around the periphery of the rink.
“Every detail is attended to,” Katie pointed out, “and wow, doesn’t she look elegant in her deep red costume?”
“Such a big moment for her,” Charlie,