Page 49 of Blade
“I think she believed she could come and try it out, then convince her mother to let her go home. But there was some reason Patrice wouldn’t allow it—even after Indy fell at the ice show. That night we went to the field. The night I was assaulted.”
“I remember,” I tell her. I reach for her hand across the table and grab hold. She doesn’t stop me but pulls away after giving my fingers a quick squeeze.
“That night—I always see it as two separate stories. The show, the fall, the bruise—that belongs to Indy. The field, the man in the woods—that belongs to me.”
Kayla looks into her coffee.
“Oh God—Kay. I’m sorry.” I don’t know what else to say.
A moment passes, both of us reflecting on that night, how it started. Where it ended. Even though that night was not the start. Not the ending.
“Indy used to call home every day,” Kayla says. “At first with tears and pleading. But when that didn’t work, she started making threats to her mother. Calls and text messages. Like a little kid. How she was going to run away and they’d never find her. Or how she would single all her jumps that season, blow her chances to even make it to Nationals. And still, she got the same reply. Patrice didn’t believe her. Called her bluff.”
Kayla gets up from the table, pours more coffee, even though her cup is only half empty. And I can see that she, too, is strangled by these memories.
“We told her it wasn’t that bad—she would land the triple Axel soon enough, and then she could go home. No big deal. On and on. None of it helped.”
Indy was stubborn. I felt it the first time I saw her sitting on that bed, crying but somehow still determined. Defiant.
“It was never about Bobby,” I offer now. “I’ve thought about her over the years, of course, and I think he became a test in a way. For her mother.”
Kayla nods. “Yeah—she just kept pushing it and pushing it to see if Patrice lovedher—or just her skating. Living out the dream she never came to realize for herself.”
And then she adds, “Those mothers. They were all the same, weren’t they?”
“The bleacher bees.”
“Indy wouldn’t let it go, and Patrice wouldn’t budge,” Kayla continues. “So she came up with a different plan. One that involved us. Me and Jo.”
My hands are on my thighs again, digging in as Kayla describes their lives before I drove 289 miles with my sick mother, a silver trunk, and two duffel bags.
“It involved a letter to the skating association.” She pauses, takes a beat. “A letter about Dawn.”
Electricity runs down my arms. Somehow I can feel where this is going, this story she starts to tell, my eyes glued to her face. Lips as they move to form words, and cheeks as they rise and fall with the cadence. My entire history shifting with this new information.
The letter was anonymous, she explains. Disclosing dangerous training schedules, cruelty, and neglect at Avery Hall—Dawn Sumner had promised a safe, supervised environment, but what existed was anything but.
“We wrote how we walked or biked to the rink at five in the morning, in the dark, because there was no car service—as she’d promised—and because the roads got too icy for a bike. And how Edie was never there, always hiding in her apartment watching soap operas and reality shows, unless she was cooking food—and how that food was sometimes recycled for days. How we had no access to doctors when we got sick. And then the jumps and the falls—Dr. Westin and his Fear Training—and that was before Indy got that bruise.”
I think about this, all of it true—but how ill-conceived this plan was. In my mind, Kayla and Jolene were wise. But this was anything but. Mio had warned me from the start. How they were just kids themselves.
She smiles. “We thought it was so official, you know? We organized it into paragraphs with headers all in bold, underlined. Like a legal document. We referred to ourselves as ‘the Skaters.’”
Now she recites the letter as though it’s sitting right there on the table.
“The Skaters are not provided adequate transportation. The Skaters are not provided adequate nutrition. The Skaters are required to meet with a psychiatrist against their will. The Skaters are trained in a dangerous manner. My God—we thought we were so smart.”
“Did you send it?”
Kayla laughs like she still can’t believe what they did. “Oh yeah. Straight to US Figure Skating. The USFS.”
“And Dawn got ahold of it.”
“Of course. Because that’s how the world works. We just didn’t know it yet.”
My heart races as if Dawn is standing right behind me, her blue puffer coat unzipped, ready to fold me into it. To swallow me whole for even listening to this story.
“Indy thought if they investigated the program, her mother wouldn’t be able to keep her there.” Her tone turns to sarcasm. “Becauseof coursethe association would look out for us, and not Dawn and The Palace—the most important training facility in the world. Andof coursePatrice would then let Indy come home. Andof courseDawn wouldn’t figure out who wrote the letter.”