by Amy Field
She gazed at herself in the mirror in the locker room before heading out for the first race. She looked as good in her red, white, and blue uniform as she ever had, and she had reached the pinnacle of success in her chosen field. Why, then, did she feel so empty? Anyone in the world would have given anything to stand in her stakes in that moment—anyone except the one person in the world she most wanted in her life. She put thoughts of him out of her mind. He would not be a distraction today of all days.
“It’s time.” Pete’s voice broke her concentration and she smiled at his head poking through the door.
“Be right there,” she replied, adjusting her headgear and prepping for the race.
Katie made the walk towards the starting blocks. AS she exited the tunnel, she could feel the chill of the air against her face. It was a familiar feeling, and it made her feel at home. As she skated up to her blocks she found herself doing something that she didn’t normally do, and had never done when racing, as far as she could remember. She prayed, even as she had back during those weeks in the Alps, thanking God, the Universe, or whomever was responsible for all of this.
The crowd was cheering wildly, and Katie could feel the vibrations of the other skaters on the surface of the ice. Her balance was perfect and her blades slice cleanly through the surface. She was, absolutely, at the top of her game. The finish line looked like it was right in front of her. All she’d have to do as make a strong start and catch a solid enough lead, and this should be an easy win. Her heart swelled as she heard, first in person and then over the loudspeaker,
“On our marks!”
She steadied herself.
“Get set!” She shook her head, trying to get the image of Jacob and his piercing blue eyes out of her mind.
“Go!”
And she was off like a bullet. It was the most perfect skate of her life. This was the kind of zone you set a world record in. She found herself preparing the remarks she’d give to the press. Digging her skates in hard she tried to get as much traction as she could before entering the gliding stage of the race. She pulled in front of the pack quickly, then left behind her three main contenders, first one body length, then two, then three. She felt better, stronger, keener than ever. Destiny had etched in stone that she should win this race. It was one of the few perfect moments in her life. Like that night on the mountaintop that Jacob had proposed.
Dammit, no! She was losing her head again, and she could feel the girls behind gaining on her. She wouldn’t let distraction blind her during these precious moments. She doubled down and started again to gain.
The crowd went wild. This was unlike anything anyone had ever seen. She was setting multiple records simultaneously here. As she made the final bend she looked up at the crowd. They were on their feet going wild. She caught sight of her parents, her brother and his family, and even Lance, who while standing was, visibly doing something on his phone, totally disinterested in the race.
And in that moment she saw how fake it all was. The crowd was excited because she was winning the race, but no one there, apart from her parents and brother, really cared about her as a person. Even for Lance she was little more than an amusing and convenient lay. And she remembered Jacob’s words, about what was really important, about pursuing your true love. And she could see his face again, and as the finish line came again into sight and she knew she would win the race she saw him again, standing on the other side of the finish line arms open ready to catch her.
She didn’t see the crash so much as hear it, and feel the ice-cold pain shoot through her lower limbs. The rest was a blur. She saw the medics run out onto the ice, heard the cries of the skater she’d taken with her, the distant voices of the commentators announcing her win but concerned over the severity of her injuries. She saw her parents faces, eventually, her dad assuring her it would all be okay, and her mom telling her again and again and again how much she loved her and how good a job she’d done.
She was in and out of consciousness for the next few hours. She heard snippets of things which echoed in her head like, “multiple fractures” and “definite nerve damage”. She wasn’t surprised when, in her stupor, a doctor came in to join her tear-stained parents to tell her that she would never skate again. In fact, he warned her, she might never even walk again.
Pete stopped by to see her that first night, but was clearly more concerned about what this meant for the team than what it meant to her. He tried to be comforting and told her she’d had a good run, but she knew that she’d blown it at the crucial moment. This was her great shame.
What surprised her least of all was that, after the few visitors she’d had from the team and from the games committee, she asked her parents about Lance. Her mother had simply burst into tears and her father had shook his head, tears in his eyes and not saying a word. He didn’t even bother to say goodbye, because really, their relationship had never been about talking, had it?
In those early days in the hospital in South Korea Katie wanted desperately to die. If she’d had the ability she may well have committed suicide, but she was watched so closely, and so weak from the drugs that she couldn’t have managed much. But she learned despair from the inside out. It wasn’t until her first bath, perhaps four days after the accident that she started to recover her will to live. And it was entirely bound up in this: she simply wanted to be able to take care of herself again, whatever that meant, and whatever it took.
Chapter 7
Katie watched the rest of the Olympics from traction in her hospital bed at Pyongyang. After a month she was medivaced back to the States. There were, of course, lots of embarrassing news stories about her and her tragic fall from grace at the height of her career. The U.S. wound up taking both silver and bronze in women’s speed skating, but everyone said it would have been different, if only Katie Cory hadn’t…
Because her injury had taken place during the Olympics, ostensibly in service to her country, one of the senators from Kansas had gotten her a bed at Walter Reed, the hospital in Bethesda that does all of the rehab with war veterans. The program was gruelling but effective. Despite the multiple fractures, nerve damage, and herniated disks in her back, within a month back at the States she was able to bear weight on one foot and was able to operate her own wheelchair. Long-term prospects looked good for walking, at least at short distances. The damage to her legs was bad but repairable; they’d but about a dozen pins in between both legs, and she’d never be able to walk through a metal detector again without setting it off, but her legs were healing up nicely. It was the nerve damage caused by the fall and the herniated discs in her back that were the real trouble. That’s what the long-term physical therapy was meant to improve.
Camaraderie was a big part of treatment at Walter Reed, but since Katie wasn’t really military it was hard for her to connect with the other patients. And while her injuries were severe, it wasn’t like she’d stepped on a landmine in Iraq—she felt fake being there. To make matters worse, Maryland was about as far away from Kansas as anything could be, so while her mom came in for a few days every couple of weeks, she felt very, very alone.
There had been cards and such at first, but that all dried up pretty quickly as well. She realized very, very quickly, that while lots of people knew who she was, very, very few people, even among those in her life really knew her. People didn’t know what kind of flowers to send or books to buy. Even the attempts other people made to make her feel loved and cared for often fell flat.
Then one day, about two months after returning, just after having put weight on her second foot for the first time since the accident, Katie received a package. It was anonymous, sent without a card or even a label from the vendor. It consisted of a vase with Peonies, which were her favorite flowers, and a box of Swiss chocolates.
It couldn’t be. Katie couldn’t afford to let herself believe that this had really come from him, because if she was wrong the devastation would be worse than having never received anything at all
. Maybe it was some sort of twisted joke from Lance. Yes, that was far easier to believe and more likely than that the man who’s heart she broke would come to her in her hour of need and make everything right again. So she chose to believe they came from Lance, but she made herself a promise; a deep, secret promise she would only admit to herself in her most needy time. If she could only see him once more, if should could only get a chance to say….
Katie awoke the next morning from a deep, deep sleep. They’d had to give her tranquilizers she was so agitated from receiving the package. Her eyes were blurry, but after fumbling with her glasses she could make out the figure at the foot of her bed. And she sat straight up.
It was Lance.
“Get the package, Stilts?” His eyes flitted to her legs, still in ugly metal braces. And he smiled a smile that didn’t demand one in return.
“What are you doing here?”
“It’s been three months. Plus, I just argued a case before the Supreme Court. I…” He started using his “drone-on” voice. Katie couldn’t handle it. She let him have it.
“Shut the hell up.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said, shut the hell up. And get out of my room. Now.”
“Katie, c’mon now, I know it’s been a while but…”
“But nothing. You wanted me for a cheap lay, and I gave you that, again and again and again, because I hated myself for losing out on the best opportunity of my life. You just validated my poor sense of self-worth. You’re nothing more than the gum on the sidewalk that sticks to an old shoe and convinces you to get rid of a shoe you should have thrown out long ago. So now I’m throwing out the gum along with the shoe. Get. The Hell. Out. Of. My Room.”
Lance looked more shocked than he had that day on the mountain. He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, then shrugged and walked out, carrying his flowers with him.
Catherine sat in silence for a few moments, weeping and raging. The quiet was broken by a deep baritone.
“Well, done, Catherine. I knew you had it in you.”
Katie knew that voice, but she couldn’t let herself believe it was true.
He stepped out of shadows near the room’s private bath. It was only then that she noticed the sound of the toilet running.
“How long have you been here?”
“I’ve been here since last night. My plane didn’t get into Washington till after eleven, and I came straight here. The nurse said it would be alright if I cleaned up in there, and I heard Lance come in while I was shaving. But I waited. I knew you could handle him.”
Katie’s face flushed. He must know about she and Lance. “Jacob, I’m so sorry. But after you and I broke up, I just felt so badly about myself, and nobody had ever made me feel worse than Lance, so….”
He smiled sadly. Sitting down on the bed he took her hand gently in his. “Remember, before, when we talked about things that we “needed to work out?”
She nodded through the tears which were running hot and fast down her face.
“Well this would fall into that category. Obviously you were working some things out, and no doubt still are…” He gestured towards her legs. “But now, at least, you don’t have to work through them alone.”
They sat in silence for a long while. It was like their comfortable silences of old, not the uncomfortable, “What is he thinking” silences that marked the end of their relationship. After a while, Katie spoke.
“Jacob, why are you here?”
His brow furrowed and his face scrunched up. “Catherine, you know why I’m here. I love you. I told you…”
“It’s been more than a year, and it’s been months since the Olympics.”
“I was at the Olympics.”
“No you weren’t.”
“Yes, I was.”
“I looked for you.”
“I’m not sure if you noticed, but there were a lot of people.”
She couldn’t help but smile at that one. So did he.
“Really, you were there?”
“I was, in the cheap seats. Your parents and family were up front. I couldn’t afford anything up there. But we met in the Olympic Village the day of…” His voice trailed off and he smiled sadly.
“Why didn’t you come see me?”
“I did.” He paused. “I tried. And I got in there, that first night. You were calling for me, so your parents let me in to see you. I held your hand until they came to take you to surgery. And your parents and I were with you all through recovery. But when the doctor came in and told you that you would never skate again, that you likely wouldn’t walk again…well, you kind of lost it. You started screaming about the ugly on the outside matching the ugly on the inside. Your parents asked me to go. I stayed in South Korea the whole month, but they never let me back in to see you again. They thought it would be too hard on the both of us.”
“So where have you been since?”
“Well, I thought that if they wouldn’t let me see you in South Korea, they definitely wouldn’t let me see you back home, and especially in a military hospital. To be honest, I was crushed, not by your injury, but by the way it seemed to break your spirit. So I went home, discussed it with my dad, and the two of us went to Pakistan and climbed K2.”
“What? You got depressed from getting dumped by your psycho ex-girlfriend and so went and climbed the second-tallest mountain in the world?”
He tried to suppress a smile. It didn’t work very well. “Ya,” he said. “That’s what we Swiss do.”
And together they laughed as they hadn’t in ages. And Katie knew once again that everything would be ok.
They held each other for a long time. The nurses came in twice, but realized what was happening and gave them plenty of space. This was at least as healing for Katie as anything they could do for her. Jacob stretched out his long frame carefully against hers, perched precariously on the edge of the bed, but her head resting on his broad chest.
“Do you know what I missed most, Jacob, through all of it?”
“What’s that, Catherine?”
“It wasn’t the running or the walking, the hiking or the skating, it wasn’t even bathing myself or going to the bathroom alone. What I have missed most, what I missed with you once you left and what I knew I never could have nor ever wanted to have with Lance was…I don’t know how to describe it. Every time I encountered something really good, you know: a sunset or a sunrise, or a good meal, or a great conversation, a healthy workout or a satisfying episode on tv; I just found myself being grateful, and wanting to give that gratitude to someone else.”
Jacob leaned over the kissed the top of her head gently. “That, Miss Catherine, is what we call prayer.”
She nodded. “I know. I think I started to realize that part of the way through. But I’ve never been very religious, and I don’t know the Bible well at all. I wasn’t sure I was even allowed to pray.”
There was that familiar chuckle again. “Of course you are allowed to pray. You must pray, when you experience the good things like you say, or else all the good gets backed up—bad for your system!” They both laughed at that one.
“Jacob,” Catherine said, once the laughter had subsided. “Would you pray with me now?”
Jacob looked down at her with tears in her eyes and drew her hand to his lips. “Darling,” he said. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Jacob shifted his weight again and slipped neatly off of the bed. Then, turning around, he planted both knees firmly on the ground and took both of Catherine’s hands in his own. At the beginning he simply bent his head and said nothing. Catherine followed suit. When he did speak, he said this:
Lord Jesus,
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you for the world which you have made,
And the people you have given us to enjoy it with.
Thank you for the high peaks of the Swiss Alps,
And the golden fields of the Kansas heartland;
The mighty oceans
and roaring seas,
The quiet islands, and the tiny, whispering sounds.
But most of all, thank you for Catherine,
Who has glorified you in the feats of her body,
And who now glorifies you by growth in the Spirit.
Her injury has taught her humility, let your healing now
Teach her of your grace.
In ancient times you spoke but a word and made
The deaf hear and the dumb speak; you opened the eyes of the blind man,
And said to the cripple, “Take up your mat and walk,” and so he did.
Speak now to your servant Catherine, and raise her up to walk again for you,
To run again for you, to dance in your temple and skate in your name.
And give her the grace always, always, always to be grateful,
And so to grow in the Spirit and grace, to give you greater glory,
And to love you and your people more and more.
Amen.
It was one of the most perfect, restful moments of Catherine’s life. Though he was kneeling slightly below her, she could smell the pine and apple blossom on his hair, and she felt as protected as she had resting on his chest. And her heart resonated with every word. She realized she knew more of the stories he was referencing than she was giving herself credit for, and from somewhere deep inside feelings arose: from Sunday school, from the occasional Sunday sermon she’d heard growing up, and she became aware of something—of a presence—a presence that had been following her, or perhaps better, that she had been following herself all of her life long. She realized now that every time she felt gratitude for something, every time things were right and ordered, every time her heart sang out in joy and gratitude or in pain and frustration and despair, it wasn’t to some vague abstraction, it wasn’t to “the Universe” in some generic sense—it was to a Person.
It was only then that she realized there was a crucifix in the room. Her mother had put in up on her first trip, along with lots of other things: family photos, the cereal boxes with Katie’s picture, and of course, her skates. The cross just hung there on the wall, unobtrusively at the foot of her bed in the shadow under the tv mount. But suddenly it seemed like the most real thing in all the room; this cross and her Jacob the two things which connected her to the Presence. And so, squeezing Jacob’s hand even tighter, she shifted herself on her bed and swung her feet out and over to the side.
