Chapter 11

“Do you need help lacing up your skates old man?” sneered Lanh as she did slow lazy pirouettes in front of the bench that Don was sitting on to lace up his skates. He was going to try skating for the first time in years. Lanh beat him out to the ice because he was busy helping the kids lace up their skates and he got them to their shaky feet. Now he was pulling on figure skates because they provide superior ankle support over hockey skates.

“Haven’t you caused enough trouble today doctor?”

Lanh had said “Let’s go ice skating” in front of a room full of kids and suddenly they all wanted to go ice skating. Don hooked up the hay wagon to the John Deere and loaded it up with kidlets and their parents and they headed back to the pond.

“Come on Uncle Don!” called Rosa and Bao’s oldest daughter, Chau, as she and her little sister Sophia skated past. Their Uncle Trung made sure that all of his nieces and nephews learned to skate. Once again, Trung was there, but Angela wasn’t.

Don finally got up on his feet and made his way out onto the ice. The bones are all healed. It was time to get the muscles to remember what to do and the joints to stop aching. He stood and walked through the snow to the ice-covered pond, his ankles wobbling a little, and stepped onto the ice for the first time in years. Lanh stopped and took his mitten covered hands and gently pulled him out to the ice. The surface was a little grainy, but Trung had been bringing water out and spread it smooth with a squeegee until the ice was as smooth as it could get without a Zamboni.

Lanh pulled him around by the hands, like he did for her on their first date, until he stopped concentrating on his feet and let his legs take over, and soon they were skating side by side. On their first date, Trung, Bao, Kim-ly and Huy shepherded other skaters away from them because it was Lanh’s first time on the ice in her life, now they were herding excited nieces and nephews away until Unka Don “gets his legs back.”

Finally, his legs did “come back” to some extent, and Don and Lanh began skating with their legs in time with each other. It felt so good to be skating with each other after such a long time. As they circled the portion of the pond that was cleared of snow by Trung and Huy, they attracted attention. Chau, Sophia, and Chip skated around them in an orbit. “You’re slow Uncle Don,” called Chau as she whizzed past.

“Young whipper-snappers,” growled Don. He felt a tug at his arm and found that Sophia had latched on to his free arm and was letting Uncle Don pull her along.

“You’re a cranky old Norwegian farmer,” laughed Lanh as she tried to get him to step up the pace.

Instead, they slowed to a stop and Don pulled Lanh tight. “I don’t know how to thank you for standing by me through all of this,” he said.

“I’ll think of something,” she smiled as their lips met. It felt like their first genuine kiss since he left for Saudi Arabia over a year ago. Their tongues twined together, lighting fires in both of their nether regions.

“Let’s head back to the house,” Don gasped as their lips parted, “let’s spend some alone time.”

Their lips were still touching when Lanh laughed into Don’s mouth. “Uh uh, we made promises.”

Don groaned. Tonight was the Grant Valley High School Christmas Dance, the dance where they first met. Don didn’t want to go watch the kids “zombie dance,” but Lanh mentioned, “Mr. Mach” and “Retirement” and he wanted to see his old coach before he headed off to Arizona or wherever a Minnesota school teacher goes to retire.

“MUSHY!” cried Sophia. Don and Lanh looked down at Rosa and Bao’s younger girl. She had the vigor and the fire of her mother’s Hispanic heritage, and the beautiful dark brown almond-shaped eyes and features of her father’s Asian roots.

“You want to see mushy?” asked Don. He dug in his toe picks, the jagged saw tooth like features at the toe of the figure skate blade, then dipped Lanh in his arms and gave her a deep, passionate kiss that almost made her change her mind about tonight. He tried to hide it, but it was a struggle to get her back on her feet.

Sophia covered her eyes. “MUSHY!” she cried again.

“Told ya,” said Unka Don.

“Mushy can be good,” said Aunty Lanh.

“Yuk!” cried Sophia, “Boys are yucky!” and she skated away with the ungraceful, inefficient skating of a six-year-old.

Sophia’s older sister Chau just sighed as older sisters around the world do. “Kids!” She shook her head. “They’ll never learn.”

“You tell them Sophie!” called her mother Rosa from the wooden bench on shore where she sat next to Tam. “Boys are yuckie!”

“Yuckie!” echoed Sophia.

As they entered the school that evening, Don felt like a chimpanzee wearing a tuxedo on an old black and white comedy like I Love Lucy or the Jack Benny Show or the equivalent as he wore his Service Dress uniform (dress blues) to the school dance, but Lanh had asked him to wear it for a “special presentation with Mr. Mach.” He couldn’t let down his old coach, and he was surprised to discover that Lanh had sewn master sergeant stripes on his uniform. Tonight, Lanh was dressed surprisingly formal, she wore a knee length black sleeveless sheath dress that hugged her youthful figure and showed her body off more daringly than being half naked would show. Around her neck she wore a pearl choker that he bought her while TDY to Spain. Her hair was arrow straight, like she wore it as a high school sophomore, and her glasses were back to the squared off lenses that frame her beautiful eyes so well.

Looking out at the teens attending the dance, Don never felt so old in his life. They were barely older than Bao and Rosa’s daughter Chau, the oldest Nguyen grandchild. If he and Lanh had a child as soon as they had wanted when they just turned eighteen, he or she would be here among the freshmen.

The school gymnasium was decorated in red and green for Christmas like it was fourteen years ago when he walked across that floor to ask Lanh to dance. Back then, he felt like he was going to his death; had he known then the love and joy he was due to experience with Lanh, he would have sprinted to meet her.

Like many small schools, the gym was designed as a multi-function room. There was a stage at one end of the gym which used to make the gym the primary auditorium in the school until an actual auditorium was added in Don and Lanh’s freshman year. Tonight, the curtains were open, and the stage was decorated like a family room at Christmas with a couch, faux fireplace and Christmas tree.

Many of Don’s old teachers were gone. They have retired or moved on to other schools. Mr. Bonaventura, his computer teacher, had passed away last year, and Lanh was heartbroken when she heard that. It was Mr. B. that comforted her when she and Don were so brutally attacked by Joshua Grimes. Miss Weberman had passed away also, but neither Don nor Lanh was able to generate much sorrow over her passing.

While they were talking to Mr. Mach at the refreshment table, they didn’t notice Craig Lewicki step up to the DJ and make a request, nor did they see him walk over to the lighting booth and talk to the student manning the lighting controls. Their conversation with their old coach was interrupted by the familiar strains.

It’s a little bit funny, this feeling inside. I’m not one of those who can easily hide...

Don turned to Lanh and bowed deeply. “Doctor Campbell, could I have the honor of this dance?”

She took his hand and smiled. “Why Doctor Campbell, you remind me of a young lad who asked me the same thing not too long ago. Let’s do!” and he led her on to the dance floor where they first laid eyes on each other.

Soon they were swept away by the music that opened the pandora’s box of their future for them. John Lennon called Your Song the most romantic song of its generation, but 14 years ago both Don and Lanh would have just called it “noise.” But by the end of that evening and to this day they agree with John Lennon’s assessment. Your Song became their song.

As they danced, they found that stolen kisses at a high school dance are so much fun when you really know how to kiss. Their eyes were trapped by each other’s, and they didn’t notice the people gathering on the stage, just like they didn’t notice the spotlight that highlighted their every step. What they noticed, but ignored, was the disparaging groans from the high schoolers every time they kissed. Old people kissing ... Ewww!

“When was your favorite time that we danced to this song?” Don asked.

Lanh rolled her beautiful eyes upward as she thought. “I think when we went skating for the first time.”

“Really? I would have thought at our wedding.”

“I was in pain at our wedding,” scolded Lanh, “or don’t you remember what we were doing an hour prior. I hurt!”

Don remembered well their journey out to the pond where they gave each other their virginity. He tried to be caring and gentle, but there was no way he could hold back. After that, he spent the rest of his life trying to live by the motto ‘The Lady Always Cums First.’ “We almost fell through the entire song when we were skating.”

“I know, but I felt safe in your arms.”

He suddenly felt very sad. He got banged up pretty good two times in high school trying to protect Lanh. Right after their first dance, he got the crap beaten out of him. A year later, Joshua Grimes put him in the hospital, but he protected Lanh both times. Now his pain and injuries have convinced him that if he couldn’t protect Wendy and Cynthia, how could he protect Lanh? He was so worried about protecting Lanh that he was depressing himself.

Lanh recognized the warning signs of his sudden depression, but she knew a fix. “Hold me tight,” she said. Her request cut through the firestorm of self-doubt and PTSD, and he held her close, amazed as always at how perfectly she fit in his arms. She didn’t know why; she could dig down into the reason later, but when he held her close, it helped. His doubts didn’t go away, but they eased a bit.

“Let’s go home,” he whispered.

But as the song ended, Mrs. Gunderson took the stage and the microphone. Don and Lanh’s old coach, Mr. Mach, lined up next to her. Once she had the crowd’s attention, she raised the microphone and spoke. “In my first year as principal here we had a sophomore couple, a boy and a girl, who teamed up academically and they did quite well. They even wrote a book together and we published it. Then they teamed up in sports and brought the gold to Grant Valley setting the state record in 200-meter free style. Then right after graduation they got married and continued their education...” She looked at Don and Lanh and smiled. “Please come up and join me Doctor Donovan Campbell and Doctor Lanh Nguyen Campbell.”