Page 33 of When the Ice Melts
The thoughts made Darius feel hopeless—like an animal that had been caught in a trap and finally ceased struggling. He winced at the lump in his throat as he crouched beside the gravestone and gently brushed the dead leaves from its surface. “Whoever you are—I remember,” he whispered.
Then he made his way to the two simple granite monuments, near the western fence. Side by side, they waited for him. Unhurriedly he crossed to them and carefully sat down on the grass. Facing the stones.
He knew the inscriptions by heart, but he read them again anyway.CYNTHIA EMILY PAYNE. AUSTIN ZACHARY PAYNE.
He’d kept the memorial text pretty simple, and it matched more or less.DEVOTED HUSBAND AND FATHER. LOVING WIFE AND MOTHER.And underneath, the verse—Well done, thou good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.
A soft breeze stirred the pine needles, rattling them slightly. Darius pulled off his beanie deliberately, almost reverently. He could feel the sun on his hair—too sunny for early June.
He stared at the stones. For a moment, he pictured his mom and dad standing there, instead of the twin monuments. Shame whispered in his ear. After the way he’d failed them, the sorry shell of himself he’d turned out to be, they’d probably be no more excited to see him than the grim stone slabs were.
“I’m sorry, Dad—Mom,” he murmured. Tears prickled his eyes. Mercifully, his parents had died before his final horrible mistake, but they’d lived to see him trade figure skating—his true passion—for short track. They had always supported him, even in short track, but he knew they’d been more than a little disappointed by his choice.
“I wish I could undo it all. Really I do.” Tears were streaming down his face. Darius didn’t mind. He rarely cried anymore—it was unmanly. But on this day, he allowed all the hurt to leak out. Trouble was, no matter how many tears he cried, the pain never seemed to fully drain.
“If I could, I’d have another gold medal for you right now.” A sob caught in his throat. Oh, for one more chance. “But I don’t—and I’m not—” Suddenly the hopelessness crushed his soul, and he dropped his face into his hands.
The pain wracked his ribs, tore at his soul. He swiped one arm across his face and kept weeping. How long would he do it? How many anniversaries would pass before he could come here and celebrate their lives instead of mourning their loss?
In his heart, he knew he wasn’t simply crying for their deaths. He was crying for his own—the death of the man he’d been—the death of his soul and his heart and his dreams. He was crying for the death of his hope and his joy and his love for God. All that had been good and true and pure about Darius Payne had died, and when he mourned for his parents, he felt not only grief, but guilt.
Guilt—that he’d ever quit figure skating at all. Guilt—that he hadn’t medaled in his last Olympics, in Sochi. Guilt—that his parents would be devastated if they could see the choices he’d made. Guilt—that he’d drifted so far from the faith his family had embraced.
After a few more minutes, Darius wiped his eyes. He was done crying. What good did it do anyway? No amount of tears could give him back all that he had lost. He tucked his knees close to his chest and rested his chin on them, exhausted from the grief.
The place was utterly quiet. Utterly peaceful. A few yards away, a bee buzzed fumblingly among the tiny electric-blue forget-me-nots. Darius’s mind wandered slowly back through the portrait gallery of his memory. Things his parents had done—said—felt. Incidents in his childhood—mindless little things that hadn’t seemed important.
Now that his memories were all he had, he wished there were more normal ones, more times of just being a kid and hanging out with his parents. Instead, most of his reminiscences were set against the backdrop of the electric air of a competition or the sweaty sternness of a training rink. Looking back, he couldn’t remember when skating hadn’t been number one—especially to his dad.
Darius had loved his dad like crazy, and he knew his dad had loved him. But now he regretted the tension that had sometimes existed in their relationship—the agitation caused by the stress of clawing their way to the top together, the way his dad had spent more time being a coach than a father. The ice had been so important to his dad. Darius had always wondered—and wished now he had asked—why his dad hadn’t gone to the Olympics after his grandpa’s attempt. It seemed as though it would have been a natural choice. In any case, however, coaching Darius had to have been exhilarating for his dad—a trainer with the assignment of his life. To propel his only son—his only child—to glory.
So yes, his dad had pushed him. Pushed him harder, sometimes, than the boy had wanted to go. Now he could appreciate his dad’s efforts, could sympathize if not totally agree with the reasonings that had produced them.
And even when his and his dad’s personalities had clashed, when both of them wanted the same thing but couldn’t agree on how to get it, they’d loved each other. He’d wanted so badly to fulfill his parents’ expectations for him. They’d been his larger-than-life heroes. He’d focused his entire career on making them proud. In fact, his life had been so bound in theirs that after the accident, he hadn’t been sure that he wasn’t dead as well.
A car passed, driving unhurriedly down the dusty road. Darius kept his eyes fixed on the dust, rising and rising, spreading ever thinner in the sunshine. He thought back to the dark, dull days after the accident. He couldn’t bring himself to face the truth, couldn’t handle that much pain that fast. Empty and broken, he’d spent his days driving aimlessly through the mountains, crying some, raging some—hurting all the time.
After the glory of figure skating, short track had been dry and boring. No artistry, no beauty, at all. Darius had worked at it, rigidly, mechanically. But he didn’t love it. Couldn’t love it. Fourteen months before Sochi, he’d told his parents he wanted to put the ice behind him. He’d officially retired—hadn’t gone to championships that January.
But the ice didn’t give him up so easily. After four months away, that spring had found him longing for the ice—even dreaming of it. And when his parents were gone, that was the last straw.
He hadn’t had anything left, so he forgot about retirement. Went back to the ice instead—even overcoming his disdain of short track. It was all he had. He’d flung himself into his skating with an obsession that was insane. He’d worked morning, noon, evening at the track. Sometimes he’d leave his parents’ empty house at one or two in the morning, head to the track for a three-hour workout.
If he stopped training, he would start thinking. So he never stopped training.
No one else had worked half as hard. The next year, he’d been in Sochi, a member of the Canadian Olympic team. He’d been nervous—too nervous. And those late-night workouts, the obsession with which he’d pursued his goal, hadn’t helped him after all. Instead, he’d arrived in Sochi grieving, frazzled, and definitely overtrained. Just one mistake in a long list of errors he’d made.
He squeezed his eyes shut, blocking off the flow of memories. The ones from Sochi were among his worst. No need to relive them. He’d left Russia with one pathetic bronze medal, a broken body—and a crucified spirit.
He sighed and gazed at the stones again. “I love you so much,” he whispered, blinking back the tears. “Thank you for always standing by me—always believing in me. I know I’ve disappointed you.”
He continued like that for about ten minutes, talking quietly to his parents. He wasn’t sure if the dead could hear, if they knew what people on his side of eternity did and said and thought. But he hoped his parents still kept an eye on him—although he cringed to picture them watching him make so many disastrous choices.
He glanced up into the sunlight. Although he could see a cloud bank boiling over the far western horizon, the sky above him was completely clear. He scrutinized the crystal blueness. Somewhere on the other side of that was Heaven, where his parents were. That’s what Grampy had taught in church—and what he’d believed, back when he believed anything.
His parents hadn’t been very vocal in their faith, but he knew they were both Christians. No doubt they were with God now, resting in His presence. Darius’s soul was another matter. He shuddered, wondering where he would go when he died.
Tears filled his eyes again. He wished he could pray. Wished there were some magic words to say that would erase the pain and shame of the past decade and leave him a starry-eyed teenager again—with the world before him and nothing but joy and love to remember.
He looked over his shoulder at the little church. That had been a part of his life, too. A grounding force that held him stable and secure. He’d believed the Bible. Trusted in God. An upright Christian kid.
Now he idly picked at the grass and wondered—what did he believe?
It wasn’t a question he often asked himself, but he knew the answer. He’d have to say he still believed the Bible. Still believed in God Almighty, Who judged mankind according to His laws of morality. Still believed in Jesus, hanging on a cross, dying because of man’s sins. Still believed in doing the right thing, in living life by God’s laws and receiving God’s blessings.
He just didn’t believe any longer that it applied to him. No, God—the Holy One—was looking for strong, serious, clean-hearted men. Men who could point to their lives with no apologies, no shame. Men who stood by their actions and wisely stewarded the time they’d been given. Men who lived right and had no skeletons in their closets. Men like his grandfather had been.
Men unlike the horribly broken, tattered man Darius had become. He was left with a dreary quantity of life before him and nothing to live for. As a few clouds drifted across the smooth blueness and began to dim the sunlight, Darius bent his head onto his knees. He was nothing more than a man who’d wrecked his every chance. And a man who was left with the appalling truth—God would want nothing to do with him now.