Whispers on the Ice (20 page)

“How is she?” he whispered in Dee’s ear, kissing her softly on her cheek.

“She wants out,” The simple reply said it all.

Whittaker managed a sad smile, his lips trembling as he voiced. “The sentiment sounds familiar. If I had a dime for every time Aleksei muttered those words I’d be a millionaire.”

“Whittaker, I’m so sorry…” Dee started.

“Don’t be sorry. He was the best part of my life and I have to be thankful I had him as long as I did. I’ll never forget him or what he added to my life but right now we’ve got to see Jordan through this and things are about to get a whole lot tougher,” Whittaker responded, his voice cracking emotionally.

“I don’t understand,” Dee answered bewildered.

Whittaker held out his hand; a small velvet box lay in his palm. “This was in Aleksei’s coat pocket.”

Dee shook her head, denying what she already knew in her heart lay resting in the small box. Her hand shaking, she touched the velvet covering, her skin tingling at the contact. The box felt alive, full of hope, happiness and promises yet to be made. “Please tell me this isn’t what I think it is,” Dee whispered pleadingly.

“I wish I could. In all honesty, I don’t know what it is. Maybe just a friendship ring,” Whittaker answered hopefully.

Dee silently open the box, her breath escaping on a sigh as she beheld the wide gold band set with diamonds and pearls. “They were best friends,” Dee muttered, turning the small box so the diamonds caught the light and sparkled brightly, tiny pin-points of light fluttering over the subdued, gentle hues of the pearls mounted between each sparkling stone.

“I know. I’m glad they found each other.”

“Do you think she knows about this?” Dee asked, casting a quick glance toward Jordan.

Whittaker shook his head. “I doubt it. Trouble is, I don’t know if this ring will help her or add to her pain. I don’t want Aleksei’s last gift to be a daily reminder of what she lost.”

“That’s one decision we can’t make for her; it’s got to be her decision,” Dee stated firmly, closing the lid and wrapping his fingers around the box. “She needs to know about this, Whittaker, and it has to come from you.”

Whittaker looked into Dee’s eyes, recognized the pain and sorrow of his own reflected in hers and nodded in agreement. Silently he walked the short distance to Jordan’s bed and ran a comforting hand over her shoulder. Pressing a gentle kiss against her temple, he placed the small box on her pillow, whispered something into her ear and left her side. Silently he walked to Dee, took her hand and the two coaches left Jordan’s room.

“Should we leave her alone?” Dee questioned Whittaker as he closed the door behind them, dreading Jordan’s response to Aleksei’s last gift.

“Aleksei…. NOOOOO…” Jordan’s painful wail of sorrow penetrated the thick door and echoed off the sterile walls, raising goose bumps on all who heard the heart-wrenching plea.

The nurse assigned to Jordan hurried from the Nurse’s Desk toward her patient’s door, stopping when Whittaker blocked the door. “What does she need?”

“Time alone,” Whittaker answered huskily. “I just gave her the last gift Aleksei bought for her. If I’m not mistaken, it was a lifelong promise to be with her,” his voice grew shaky and broke on the last word.

At the nurse’s confused expression, Whittaker’s frustration exploded. “It was a damn wedding ring!”

“Dear, God,” The nurse whispered, swallowing back her emotions. She couldn’t help Jordan if she was falling apart herself. Steeling herself against the sobs of sorrow that filled the air, she set aside her emotions and felt the blessed security of numbness surround her. “The doctor’s on his way. If necessary, she’ll be sedated.”

Dee and Whittaker nodded, casting worried glances toward the closed door that did little to block the devastating sounds of loss and pain. “Do what’s necessary,” Whittaker finally agreed, leading Dee to a waiting area near the nurse’s station.

Whittaker forced Dee to sit, then poured her a cup of muddy-brown coffee that had obviously been there too long from the coffee maker on a small table. Returning to the couch, he sat beside her, handing the offending brew to her and almost smiling at Dee’s grimace of distaste as she took a sip.

“It’s a good thing medical help’s nearby. This stuff is awful!” Dee complained, swallowing another mouthful of the foul, thick liquid being passed off for coffee. If nothing else, the liquid was hot.

“Sorry. It’s probably been there awhile,” Whittaker sighed, resting his elbows on his knees and running his hands tiredly through his hair.

Dee watched him silently, the cup warming her chilled hands, her heart breaking yet again as she thought what the days ahead would hold. “Can I help with any of the plans?” she asked quietly.

Whittaker shook his head, one hand again making a path through his hair and stopping to rub the tension in his neck. “Everything’s being done that has to be done. We’d never really discussed this particular subject before—didn’t see a reason to—so I’m kind of making it up as I go along,” he answered quietly, a frown appearing between his eyes as he squinted to see through eyes suddenly tear-filled.

Dee nodded in understanding, biting her lip sharply to stop the overwhelming wave of grief that threatened to drown her. “Okay. If you need anything, though, you know where to find me,” she offered.

Whittaker reached for her hand, squeezing it gently and then laced his fingers through hers. “Knowing you’re here makes it much easier.”

“Thanks,” Dee answered, a sad smile touching her lips before she rested her head against his shoulder, closing her eyes to try to temporarily block out the nightmare they were all locked in.

“You’re welcome,” Whittaker answered back, placing a light kiss to her head before he rested his own against hers.

In companionable silence, the two coaches awaited the arrival of Jordan’s doctor. Less than five minutes later, they watched his white-coated lanky form slip into the now silent room that held Jordan Jamison.

* * * * *

“I want out of here!” Jordan stated, her tone flat; her eyes red-rimmed yet lifeless.

“Do you really think you’re ready to leave just yet?” her doctor asked quietly, reading the most recent notes off her chart.

“I’m not ready to stay any longer so that means my only other option is to leave. My only real question is, are you going to sign me out, or do I walk out of here on my own?”

The doctor slipped her chart back onto the hook at the foot of her bed and walked to her side, his warm fingers sliding over her right wrist as he checked her pulse, then moved on to check her pupils with his small flashlight. “Any pain?”

“Be more specific,” Jordan suggested.

“Any severe pain in your wrist, any headache, any pain today that wasn’t present yesterday?”

“Nothing that isn’t manageable,” Jordan responded numbly, the fingers of her right hand lovingly playing with the pearl and diamond band that now rested on the ring finger of her casted left arm.

“That’s a lovely ring. I don’t remember seeing it last night,” the doctor stated, nodding toward her left hand.

Jordan’s hands flew to her heart, her right hand covering her left hand protectively, shielding the precious ring from his view. For a long moment she was silent, her breathing shallow and labored as she struggled to control the sorrow that once again threatened to overwhelm her. Finally, in a soft, pain filled, voice she answered the doctor who waited patiently at her side.“It was a gift from a friend.I just got it this morning.”

The doctor caught the ‘was’ in her statement and understood. “Aleksei must have been a very good friend.”

Jordan looked up into her doctor’s eyes, saw the understanding and compassion in them and tried to smile. “He was the best—and the worst—friend I ever had. Aleksei made everyday one to remember, not that everyday was wonderful, although, I suppose, there was something special about everyday we spent together. Even the days we spent thinking about ways to torture each other, we were still thinking about each other. Isn’t that strange? And now I wonder why we wasted so much time trying to drive each other crazy, when, if we’d just stopped and acknowledged the attraction, we would have had that much more time together and could have made that many more memories,” Jordan wished wistfully.

“Maybe neither of you were ready to take that step,” the doctor suggested.

Jordan shrugged, “I was always ready,” she answered and cast a shy look toward her doctor who had pulled up a chair next to her bed.“I fell in love with him when I was twelve years old—he bowled me over—literally.” At the doctor’s confused expression, she continued. “There was a competition in Canada we both competed in. It was during Aleksei’s
wild period
when he took great pleasure in making his coach as crazy as possible, and would disappear for hours before a competition. Well, this time he cut it a little close, and was charging through the lower tunnels of the stadium to get to the ice. Unfortunately, I happened to be coming around the same bend that he was cutting the corner close on, and he literally knocked me on my butt.” Jordan smiled at the memory.

“Were you hurt?”

“Hardly, I’m made of stronger stuff than that! Granted, being body-checked by someone that outweighs you by over a hundred pounds isn’t my idea of a good time, and I was plenty mad that this moron had jeopardized my skates. I’d spent weeks getting accustomed to new boots and blades and here they were being bounced off a concrete floor. I wasn’t happy! And then I looked up, and saw the great Aleksei Rocmanov. Man, I nearly melted into a puddle just looking into those dark, mischievous eyes of his. You could always tell his mood just by looking into his eyes; they really were windows to his soul. Anyway, he made some snotty comment about size limitations and kids competing and I shifted into my
ice bitch
mode and let him know what I thought of his boorish behavior and non-existent manners.”

“Why do I get the feeling he didn’t respond favorably to your criticism?” the doctor chuckled.

Jordan smiled wistfully. “Aleksei didn’t see it as criticism but more as a personal affront to his ego. Here he was, God’s greatest gift to the weaker sex, knocking over twelve-year-olds. In those days he made it a point to be seen with as many beautiful women as possible. Whether they meant anything to him or not, he felt he needed the media exposure. And you have to admit, male figure skaters seem to automatically be assumed gay, and if Aleksei was out there every night with a different woman, that assumption couldn’t be made.”

“I can’t imagine being a public sports figure and having to constantly prove yourself. How can you be happy under those circumstances?” the doctor asked.

Jordan shrugged again. “You consciously make the decision that this is the life you’ve picked out for yourself and learn to ignore the hurtful, vicious things that people say. For a long time, Aleksei believed that having your name in print, whether the reasons were good or bad, was better than being forgotten. Over the last two and a half years, he changed his mind. He’d say I made him change his mind, because suddenly he was concerned about my name being dragged through the same mud with his,and as they say, ‘shit rubs off ’. I was more concerned with making him believe in himself as a skater. It’s hard to go from being solely responsible for the program you’re skating to suddenly having someone else who can muck things up. There are days when you wonder why you even laced up your skates let alone decided to try to lift someone over your head while you’re sliding across the ice at thirty miles an hour. That abrupt stop on cold, hard ice often makes you wonder about your career choice. Then there are the days when you step on that ice and a warm hand slides into yours, the music starts and magic fills your soul. Suddenly, you’re gliding at thirty miles an hour with the man you love holding you in his arms, and there is heaven on earth,” Jordan whispered. With a soft, sad sigh, Jordan looked at the band where diamonds shimmered beside the warm pink-tinged pearls on her left hand.

“It sounds like you were lucky to have found each other.”

“We were lucky. I know we were. But, was it wrong to take it for granted that we would have more time together? Weren’t we grateful enough? Did we ask too much?”

“If asking to love someone forever is wrong, then I guess it’s a mistake every human being on earth makes. I, personally, can’t believe that you did anything wrong in loving each other that caused this tragedy to happen. I can’t say there’s a greater purpose waiting for you and that this is the only way you would find your true path. I’ll be the first to admit I’m not certain there’s a God. At least in the sense that there’s one being responsible for everything and everyone, that’s one big job where you know you’ll never make everyone happy. I do believe we learn from everything that happens to us—good and bad—and how we handle it determines our future. There are those who lose loved ones and never recover, and there are those who lift their chins and move forward, never forgetting their loss but learning to live again and eventually—maybe—love again.”

“I can’t believe I’ll never see him again,” Jordan whispered as tears traced a shining path down her cheeks.

“Would you like to see him once more?” the doctor asked.

Jordan’s breath caught, her eyes flying to meet her doctor’s steady gaze. “Could I? Would it be all right?” she asked softly, her chin quivering as she struggled for control.