The Night I Learned to Ice Skate Backward

I'm thirty-seven, and until last winter I had never been on ice skates. My kids, who are eight and ten, skate like hockey players. Every Saturday at the outdoor rink downtown, I stood on the edge with a hot chocolate, waving.

In January, my daughter took my hand and said, "Today you're coming in." She'd already rented me skates. I couldn't say no to that face.

For thirty minutes I hugged the boards like a life raft. I fell four times. A six-year-old in a pink helmet glided past me and said, very kindly, "Bend your knees." My son skated circles around me, narrating my progress like a sports announcer.

But by February, I could finish a full lap with my hands off the boards. By March, my kids had taught me to skate backward, slowly and badly, while they held both my hands and skated forward, facing me, laughing.

Under the string lights on the last night of the season, with music playing over the speakers and snow just starting to fall, the three of us skated together until they turned the lights off.