His dad turned to look at him. "I probably shouldn't tell you this story because I don't want to scare you on your first time out, but this one time early on, I took your mom roller skating . . ." Reese's mom laughed. "This was one of our first dates, your dad and me." "It was our third date, actually," his dad said. "I took her to a rink in Goldsville. She'd never seen me skate, and I really wanted to impress her, so I was showing off, weaving in and out. And then I turned to skate backward, and I--" "Wait a minute," Reese said. "You can skate backward?" He hadn't even known his dad could skate forward , and here he was talking about practically doing stunts. "I can. Or I used to be able to, on a good day. So I turned, so smooth. I mean it was perfect, and I waved at your mom like, 'Check me out!' And then, bam! I hit the low wall around the rink and flipped. I actually flipped head over heels, right out of the rink." Reese's mom laughed again. "He was waving at me like a fool, and then he hit that wall and went over. People screamed. Oh, the look on his face: total shock. I'll never forget it." "Okay, that is funny," Reese said. "I would totally pay to see that." "Right?" said his mom. "I broke my wrist," his dad said. "And we spent the rest of the date at the emergency room," his mom said. "The end." "Not the end," his dad said. "Just the beginning!" "My smooth operator." She leaned over to his dad, put one hand on his chin to turn his face to her, and kissed him. It was honestly a little gross, but his dad, so healthy then, really at his best, had broken through. And just like that, they were a family again, like any other. Reese was not going to be the one who screwed that up, after everything they had gone through, after all the fights and the crying: He would go skating, if it could work this kind of magic. Or he would try. He just hoped-- Please , God--that there was no one he knew inside. Excerpted from Breaking into Sunlight by John Cochran All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
