When Rose was a child, Nonna had bundled up in a heavy coat every Saturday morning and come to the freezing cold rink to sit in the bleachers and watch her skate. Her grandmother had been mystified by Rose's obsession with school figures.

“The other children, they fly, cara” she would say through her chattering teeth when Rose had skated over the barricade for a break. Nonna would give her a cup of the hot chocolate she always packed in a thermos, and she would point to one of the other kids on the ice. “That girl over there in the yellow dress, she's not so good as you, but see how she spins around and jumps? It looks like she has fun.” Then she would reach out her cold hand to stroke Rose under the chin. “I want my Rose to have fun,” she would say wistfully. And Rose would assure her, quite truthfully, that she was having fun. Because she enjoyed trying to get things right. And she didn't want to fly, because if you flew, you could make a mistake and fall. Rose couldn't fall and laugh it off the way other kids did. Falling down was embarrassing and it made you look foolish, and Rose couldn't stand that. So she stuck to her safe school figures and threw big happy smiles at her nonna, who loved watching her skate so much.

But then the terrible winter had come when Nonna was too sick to come to the rink with her thermos of hot chocolate. Rose had gone by herself because she and Nonna were trying to pretend that Nonna was fine and everything was okay. Rose had learned about loneliness during those Saturday mornings she'd spent tracing her perfect figure eights and trying not to look up to the spot in the bleachers where her nonna used to sit. She had learned then that losing someone you loved opened up a big black hole inside you and you could never fill it up. She had promised herself that no one she loved would ever leave her again.

ROSE STRUCK OFF on her left foot on the outside edge, her right leg held behind her in a slightly turned-out position, her left arm curved in front of her body, the right held gracefully to the side. As she made her way around the circle, her right leg and arm would come forward slowly to help her rotate. She frowned slightly; her takeoff hadn't been strong enough, and she was going to have trouble when she reached the halfway point in the loop. She fought an urge to stop and start over. The problem was, she was out of shape.