Free Death of a PTA Goddess by Leslie O'Kane

asked. “I don’t go as fast as Nathan.”
    “I think I’ll stay up here and enjoy the view for a while. Have a nice run, and I’ll see you at the bottom.”
    I watched her go down, till she and her yellow ski helmet were a safe distance away, then shoved off. As is often the case, I wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected to be and managed to get down just fine, but I was glad to get the first run of the day behind me. Both kids were dutifully waiting for me by the ski lift.
    “I’ll go up one more time with you, Mom, then I’m gonna wait up for Robert,” Nathan said, naming one of his closest friends.
    “Gallant of you. Thanks.”
    Kelly was waiting in line immediately in front of our threesome, noticeably, I thought, keeping to herself, as if unable to participate in the excited voices of her peers surrounding us.
    “Would you like to ride up with me, Kelly?” I asked.
    She shrugged. Nathan and Karen were giving each other dirty looks at this idea, which would mean that they’d ride the lift together. They rarely argued these days, but they also avoided each other whenever possible. “How about if I ride up with you, Kelly?” Karen said sweetly.
    “Okay,” she said, and almost smiled. They got onto the lift.
    Nathan and I had only just hopped onto the next seat on the lift when a commotion arose from Karen and Kelly’s chair up ahead. The people waiting in the lift line beside us were all looking up at her.
    Aghast, I saw that Kelly was hysterical, waving her arms and screaming, “Get me down! Get me down! Oh, my God! I’m going to die!”
    “Stop the chair!” I yelled.
    Our cries finally caught the attention of the operator, who stopped the string of chairs. By now, the two girls had to be a good fifteen feet in the air, and Nathan and I were at least six feet up. Kelly let her ski poles drop. They bounced on the hard ice and skittered down the slope, finally stopping just below my chair. I felt a little queasy at how rough the landing had been, unable to block out the thought of how much worse it would be for a person.
    Kelly yanked off her mittens and hurled them down. She seemed to be clawing at her face with her bare fingers and was shrieking.
    “Do something!” I hollered down to the lift operator. “Back us up!”
    “Can’t!” he called back.
    I could tell that Karen was trying to soothe her and had one arm around her shoulder, the other, thankfully, gripping the chair itself.
    Kelly was squirming so badly in her seat that the chair was swinging in a nerve-wracking manner. I was petrified, unable to look away but increasingly frightened by what I was seeing. Karen would live through a fall from such a height, but not without breaking a bone or two.
    “Just stay seated, Karen, Kelly! Everything is going to be fine,” I shouted.
    Downwind from the girls, I doubted they could even hear me. Meanwhile, the two lift operators and a third man dressed in the red jacket for the ski patrol had rushed over underneath the girls. They were trying to talk to Kelly, who kept screaming through her tears, “Get me down!”
    “Sheesh,” Nathan said. “Kelly’s really freaked out. I’m glad
I’m
not sitting with her.”
    I was too engrossed in silent prayer to comment, but I’d have given anything to have been in that chair with her instead of my precious daughter.
    “Do you think Karen’s going to fall?”
    “No, Nathan, I don’t,” I snapped. “And I don’t feel like talking right now, okay? I’m trying to watch!”
    “You can watch and talk at the same time.”
    “No, I can’t. I have to concentrate.”
    “Why?”
    “So that Karen won’t fall!”
    Nathan, fortunately, recognized from the tone of my voice not to push me. He sat quietly, swinging his skis, which, under the circumstances, was agitating my nerves, but I managed to hold my tongue. “Cool,” he said. “They’re bringing a ladder.”
    “How are they going to get her skis off her to get her down?” I asked, not