Free Angels of Destruction by Keith Donohue

at least while I throw those wet jeans in the dryer.”
    Sean followed her upstairs, past the sound of Norah singing to herself in the bathtub, and changed into a worn blue flannel shirt that hung to his knees. As he rolled up his sleeves, he replayed the staging of her walk into the icy water and concentrated on the plot they had designed together. Wiggling his toes in the dead man's woolen socks, he could forget his discomfort only by focusing on the questions she had made him rehearse before she jumped through the ice. He left the bedroom and bumped into Norah as she exited the bathroom wrapped in a thick yellow towel. They exchanged a conspiratorial smile.
    “Watch this.” She pinched shut her eyes and twisted her lips into a grimace. A thin strand of mucus ran from her nose, and when she opened her eyelids, her irises glowed as red as cardinals. “Too much?” Afraid, he blanched and nearly cried out. She blew a raspberry and shut her eyelids again and then revealed a bloodshot pink. Holding up her left hand for his patience, she counted down a measure and then sneezed violently and loud. Giving him the thumbs-up, Norah sent him on his way.
    “Do it like I told you,” she said. “Like we practiced.”
    He grinned and slid down the stairs, skated across the linoleum in the foyer, excited to find her grandmother in the kitchen. The sight of him in her husband's clothes brought a flush to her cheeks.
    “Was that Norah sneezing?” Mrs. Quinn asked from the stove. “I hope she doesn't catch her death of cold.”
    “Or double-p pneumonia,” Sean said. “That's what my dad used to call it.”
    The boy rarely mentioned his absent father, and Margaret let the matter linger for a beat. “I phoned your mother, Sean. You'll stay here for the night, and if it isn't still snowing in the morning, she'll come take you home.”
    “We were just testing the ice to see if it could hold our weight, cause she said her mum was a great ice-skater and promised to teach us when she comes.”
    “She did, did she?”
    “And I could hear it, crick, like stepping on a twig, and then crack, like a thunder. Before you know it, she was up to her knees, and I thought I was going to fall in too.” He sat beside her at the counter, crossing his legs to make sure the shirt didn't ride up.
    “With how freezing it's been, that ice should have been three inches thick. I walked that way for the past five years, and this time of year, it should be safe. But you did a good deed, Sean, thank you.” She handed him a mug of hot cocoa, and watching carefully the level at the brim, he sipped at the steam.
    “Is it true, Mrs. Quinn? About your daughter?”
    “Erica?” Images from her history sped giddily across her mind. She did not understand the boy's question at first, thought he dug deeper than she allowed, then realized his meaning. “She could skate like the wind. As soon as it was cold, say, come December, Erica would be out on the ice every chance she could. And even on that bumpy pond, she could pirouette and, whaddyacallit when you fly on one leg with the other bowed behind your back? Grace itself.”
    He licked the chocolate mustache from his lip.
    “And then one day, she just quit. Never laced a pair again. I don't know, maybe she just outgrew skating. A lot of things changed once she was a teenager.”
    “Boys, I bet.”
    Startled, she tried to focus on him, but his features were hidden behind the mug. “Boys, indeed. And don't you be getting any ideas when you're older, Mr. Fallon. A girl is vulnerable at that age, not knowing her own mind and body, willing to give her heart away to the first one of you hoodlums that pays the least attention, but oh you boys, you know your tricks, and it's not right, I tell you.”
    “Is that what happened with Erica, Mrs. Quinn?”
    No, she thought, not just the boys, but Paul. His dark past. His desire to freeze time and keep her young and his own. They fought bitterly about the boys, not just