Marci dropped her tote bag on the middle picnic table and removed the Coleman lanterns from it and placed them on the table. Then she primed them and got the box of wooden matches from her bag, struck one, and lit the lanterns’ mantles, which began to glow white hot.

Phil clicked off his flashlight now that the lanterns had been lit and placed it on the picnic table.

Then Marci and Phil sat down on the picnic table bench, and Phil pulled their skates out of his hockey duffel.

Phil took off his Red Wings and slid his old black CCM hockey skates on and laced them up.

And Marci kicked off her new black waterproof slip-on faux-suede winter shoes that Phil’s mom had gotten her from L.L.Bean for Christmas, and she slid her old white figure skates on and laced them up. When she was ready to skate, she hopped up and said, “Come on!” And she grabbed one of the Coleman lanterns and skated to the center of the rink that had been created by Jason and his hockey buddies earlier in the day, and set the lantern down so the makeshift ice rink was illuminated.

“I’m comin’,” said Phil. He finished tying his skates and watched his wife of twenty-three years hit the ice. He had forgotten what a good skater she was. She had grown up in Presque Isle, where they have an indoor ice rink called the Forum, and she had taken figure skating lessons there when she was younger.

As Phil watched Marci, he felt like he still loved her.

“What are you doin’?” called Marci. She could make out his silhouette against the light from the lantern on the picnic table—and it wasn’t moving. “Come on!”

Phil got up and joined Marci on the ice.

And they skated for a while. And Marci started singing an old rock song about being on the edge of seventeen that they always used to hear at the Forum in Presque Isle when she’d take Phil to Public Skate when they were in high school. The song reminded Phil of better times. Or of times when he felt like he was better. Or something. So he started singing along.

And he and Marci almost had fun. But not quite. Maybe because Phil felt like Marci was trying to force the fun. Which was what she always seemed to be doing lately.

And that irritated him.

And then Marci tried to get Phil to dance with her. And that irritated him some more, and he abruptly shrugged his wife off and skated off by himself.

And Marci watched Phil skate off. And sighed defeatedly. Because Phil was irritated with her. And had been for a while. Which seemed fair, actually, because she had been irritated with him for a while, too.

But on the night when all the extraordinary things did or didn’t happen, she wanted to see if maybe they could become a little less irritated with each other.