AT THE TAIL END of February there was an ice storm. That’s what Celia called it. I phoned her not long after it began, when the rapping against our windows got so bad I thought for certain those hundreds of tiny collisions would break the glass. I was home alone—Arturo was still searching for a job, not for our visas now, but because we needed money—and when I heard the light taps followed by great thwacks like horse hooves against the panes, the thought crossed my mind that it was kids in the neighborhood, tossing rocks against the window. But when I looked I saw a glinting silvery spectacle against a white sky. Splinters of rain.
When Celia answered the phone, she said, “It’s an ice storm. They’ll be sending the children home from school soon, I’m sure. Don’t go outside unless you want to fall and break something. The last time this happened, José’s walker slipped. He broke his wrist and had to wear a cast for six weeks.”
“It’s ice?” I asked. “Coming from the sky?”
“I know,” Celia said. “Can you imagine?”
“Is it chips of ice?”
“More like spears, I think. Well, that sounds dangerous. More like toothpicks.”
“Toothpicks of ice,” I repeated.
All winter, we had been anticipating snow—everyone kept saying how strange it was that we hadn’t had any yet—but I’d never heard anything about falling ice.
Celia said, “When it’s over, it’s actually very beautiful. In White Clay Creek Park there’s a marsh that freezes, and the children go skating on it. Maybe Maribel would like it. Should we go? It’s something to see at least.”
“Maribel doesn’t know how to skate on ice.”
“She doesn’t need to. Everyone just slides around in their shoes. Let’s go on Sunday, after church. The roads will be clear by then, but the marsh should still be frozen.”
“Is it far?”
“A few miles. There used to be a bus, but it doesn’t run that route anymore. Maybe we could drive? Oh, it would be fun! You could use a little fun, couldn’t you? Rafa hasn’t even driven that car since we got it. And then Maribel can say she went iceskating.”
The wonders of this country. In México, men sold ice out of carts they attached to bicycles. Here, it was falling from the sky. Imagine, I thought, if Lake Pátzcuaro froze all the way through. I wanted to tell my parents that we had walked in our shoes on islands of ice. They wouldn’t believe it. They would think we had gone to the moon.
“Yes,” I told Celia. “Let’s go.”
THAT SUNDAY, we all stood in the parking lot, next to Rafael’s car, waiting for him to tell us where to sit. He scratched his head and stared at the car.
“You didn’t realize this was going to be a problem?” he asked Celia.
“You could have brought it up, too, you know.”
“I thought you had a plan,” Rafael said.
“I did,” Celia said. “That you would drive us. That was my plan.”
Rafael said, “Okay, just let me think.”
“A once-in-a-lifetime event,” Celia said, and Arturo turned to me and chuckled.
Most of the ice on the ground had melted, although the tree branches were still lined with it, bowing under the weight. In the sunlight, telephone wires looked like glass strings high overhead, bushes glistened like cakes made of diamonds, starbursts of frost etched themselves against our windows. At night, the trees clapped together in the wind and made a delicate tinkling sound. We couldn’t believe our eyes nor our ears nor the fresh sting in our noses. “What world is this?” I had asked Arturo. And he just shook his head.
Rafael said, “Okay, let’s try this.” He opened the back door. “Alma, you get in first. Then Celia, you get in next to Alma.”
“Who’s sitting in the front?” Celia asked.
“I’ll sit in the front,” Mayor volunteered.
“Arturo can ride in the front with me,” Rafael said to Celia. “He’s bigger than you.”
Celia looked Arturo up and down, then motioned for him to come over to where she was.
“Stand there,” she said. She turned so the two of them were back to back. She was a finger width taller than him.
“I think it’s you, Arturo,” Rafael said.
But Celia wagged her finger. “No. I’m taller than him.”
Rafael massaged his temples, as if the whole thing was giving him a headache. “Bueno. You sit in the front. Arturo, please get in next to your wife. Mayor, you go on the other side.”
“What about Maribel?” Mayor asked.
“She can sit on her father’s lap.”
Arturo and I were the only ones in the car so far. “Come here, Mari,” Arturo said, patting his thighs. “Let’s see if you can fit.”
Maribel stuck one of her legs into the car and backed her rear end in through the door, ducking her head to clear the opening. But when she lowered herself onto Arturo’s lap, even with one of her legs still outside of the car, she was too high to uncurl her back and neck.
“?Por favor! She can’t sit like that!” Celia said from outside.
“Come back out,” Rafael said, extending his hand.
“She can sit on my lap,” Mayor offered. “We’re both skinny.” And when no one said anything, he shrugged and climbed into the car on the other side of me.
Rafael stood, looking at the people and the spaces, as if the whole thing were an elaborate puzzle that he could solve if only he could find the right piece.
“This is ridiculous,” Celia finally said. “Maribel, would you mind sitting on Mayor’s lap? It’s only for a few miles. I’ll sit in the front, and Rafa, you drive.”
Silently, Maribel walked around the car and climbed in on top of Mayor, the rhinestone butterflies on the back pockets of her jeans resting on his thighs.
Arturo looked at me.
“It’s okay,” I said, even though I was worried, too, about letting her ride like this. Here the roads seemed clear, but what if farther on they were still icy? I reached over and locked Mayor’s door. I clutched Maribel’s forearm as if somehow that would protect her in the case of an accident.
Rafael had to rev the engine a few times to get it to start in the cold, and just after it did, someone called from the balcony.
Rafael cranked the window down.
“Is everything all right?” I heard a voice yell. Quisqueya. She said, “I heard some commotion, so I came out to check.”
“We’re fine,” Rafael shouted back.
Quisqueya bent down to peer between the balcony bars. “Who’s there?”
“It’s the Riveras and us,” Rafa called. “We’re headed to the park to take the kids skating.” I caught a glimpse of her face, which betrayed disappointment mixed with a flash of envy.
Rafael said, “Celia will call you later,” and I saw Quisqueya give him a doubtful look as he raised the window.
“I don’t need—” she started to say, but the window closed before she finished.
“Why did you tell her I would call her later?” Celia asked.
“Just to get her off our back. What does she care what we’re doing?”
“But now I have to call her later!”
Rafael put the car in reverse. “Vidajena, that woman,” he said.
“What does that mean?” Mayor asked.
“A nosy person,” Rafael said. “Always interfering.” He started to pull out. “Okay, enough of this. If we wait much longer, the ice is going to melt. Vámonos.”
THERE MUST HAVE BEEN a hundred children at the marsh. As we walked toward the frozen pond, we saw them flailing their arms and squealing as they cast their bodies across the surface, half squatting to steady themselves.
“Will it break?” I asked. “With all those children on top of it?”
“I don’t know how it works,” Arturo said.
We walked over the brittle grass and when we came to the pond, Maribel crouched down and laid her hand against the surface.
“You can skate on it,” Celia said. “See all the kids?”
“Go ahead,” Arturo said. “Let’s see if you can stand on ice. That’s not something any of your friends in Pátzcuaro can say.”
We all waited for her to do something, but Maribel simply squatted with her feet rooted to the ground, staring back at us through her sunglasses.
“Come on, Maribel,” I said. I meant to sound encouraging, but it came out shrill.
Arturo glared at me, and I looked away from him, embarrassed by my impatience.
“Don’t you want to try it?” Mayor asked. He jumped onto the ice and slid with his arms out to the sides. “See? It’s fun.”
Maribel stood and took a step toward the ice, and Mayor hurried back to help her down. He walked slowly, pulling her along. I held my breath, watching her every step, worried that she might fall. But she was walking on her own before long, one foot carefully in front of the other, and I looked at Arturo and smiled.
“She’s doing it,” I said.