My Mother Married Into Four Brothers, and Each One Says I Saved Him novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: Ice

Ansel's POV

By the second week of December, the whole marsh was ice.

We flood the beds again after the harvest, to keep the vines under water through the winter, and the cold does the rest.

Every bog from the pump house to the county road lay frozen flat and gray, with a skin of snow on it.

On the Saturday before Christmas, the neighbors came out with skates.

They do it every year.

Kasper lit a fire in a barrel at the edge of the north bed, and Eero set up folding chairs, and somebody's wife brought a kettle of cider.

A dozen men played hockey with a bent stick and a coffee can lid.

I stood on the bank with a pair of old black skates in my hand.

I had not been on the ice since I was ten.

"You don't have to," Signe said beside me.

"I know."

"I can't skate anyway. I'll fall."

"You'll fall," I agreed.

"Is that a promise?"

"Yes."

She laughed, and put on her skates, and stood up on the bank with her arms held out.

I laced mine slowly.

My hands were not quite steady.

The ice was four inches thick, and clear as window glass, and I stepped onto it with both feet and felt it hold.

Nothing moved.

Signe came after me with her arms out, and her ankle turned, and she grabbed my sleeve and went down on one knee, laughing.

"That's one," I said.

"Be nice."

"I'm being very nice."

I took her hands and skated backwards, slowly, drawing her out onto the bed.

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