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on the ice who could really skate—around and around all by herself—one leg crossingover the other in the corners. Every so often she would glide to center ice and do a spin. Dave thought, She must be Canadian. He had to meet her.
    He rented a pair of skates. But when he got onto the ice, he couldn’t catch up to her. So he slowed down to see if she would catch up to him. She did. But she just kept going.
    Dave was getting frantic as he watched the clock at the far end of the arena. Then she was standing right in front of him at the blue line. But Dave was going so fast that he was going to shoot right by her. Without thinking, he reached out and grabbed her. She screamed, and then they were suspended in midair, clutching at each other and, for a horrible frozen moment, face-to-face. In that moment of eternity, as they hovered horizontally over the ice, Dave said, “Hi.”
    And Morley said, “Hi?” Like a question.
    They landed in a heap.
    Dave insisted on driving her to the hospital. She had three stitches just below her chin. Afterward, he took her out to dinner. And then he drove her back to the arena, where she had left her car. He invited her to the concert the next night. It was only as she was driving away that Dave remembered which concert it was. But by then it was too late. The next evening she was sitting beside him fidgeting, he noticed glumly, as Bobby Goldsboro stepped onstage.
    They didn’t see each other again for six years, but they kept in touch by mail. Just occasional letters, and Dave’s never said much. But he sent her quirky things. The week after they met, Dave sent her a package of Silly Putty. When she opened it, Morley knew he was the man for her.
    Another time he sent her glow-in-the-dark skate laces, and once, a newspaper from Thunder Bay. Morley, who was back in Toronto by then, read every page of the Thunder Baypaper obsessively, looking for the significant article. Why had he sent it? She finally decided it was her horoscope, which said: “Your love life is on thin ice. Time to make a decision. Don’t let distance cloud your judgment.”
    “No. No,” said Dave years later. “There was nothing special. I just thought you’d like to see it.”
    When they started to see each other, Dave was sick of life on the road. He wanted to come in from the cold, and Morley seemed so normal.
    When he told her these things, Morley was overcome with the irony. She was tired of being polite. She didn’t want to be normal. She wanted to lose control. But she loved him. And she had hope.
    They got married before the summer was over and moved into an apartment near a large park. On their very first night together, when they were getting ready for bed, Dave said, “Do you want a little snack?”
    Morley said, “You go ahead.”
    He came back from the kitchen with four pieces of bread slathered in mayonnaise. There were four slabs of cooking onion. And there was a glass of buttermilk. Morley stared at him, and he said, “It’s okay. I haven’t brushed my teeth yet.”
    A week later, when he had a sore throat, Morley said, “You should gargle with salt.”
    Dave said, “No. No. Just throw me one of those socks.”
    Morley said, “What?”
    Dave said, “One of those white athletic socks—the wool ones.”
    Morley stared in confusion at the heap of unsorted laundry in the basket at the foot of their bed. “What are you going to do with a sock?” she asked.
    Dave was pulling the covers up to around his chin like asmall child. It seemed perfectly obvious to him. “You soak it in water and fasten it around your neck with a safety pin,” he said.
    Morley stared at him.
    Dave said, “You wring it out first.”
    What Morley was thinking was, What am I doing here? But she wasn’t about to quit.
    She was so young. She believed what they were doing was important.
    On Saturday mornings Dave got up first and made them scrambled eggs. Ever since he was a child, Dave had loved scrambled eggs.