Light the Lamp by Catherine Gayle Page B

I’d brought with Katie, just like Maddie had done with her during the last game.
    Part of me wanted to do exactly what Maddie was doing tonight—curl up with a book—but I didn’t want to be rude, and these women seemed hell-bent on including me after I’d spent a little time with them two nights before.
    In the end, I was glad I sat and talked with them. Just like so many people tend to make snap judgments about me, basing their opinions on my choice of clothes and other superficial things, it seemed I had done the same when I first saw them, judging them because they wore designer brands and had their hair and make-up perfectly done.
    It didn’t take me long to discover just how wrong I’d been about them. For about ten minutes, we’d been talking about Sara’s most recent date with a guy Katie’s mom, Laura Weber, wasn’t sold on. We all laughed and commiserated as she gave us far more detail than I felt comfortable with since I barely knew her, when all of a sudden the mood in the owner’s box changed.
    The excitement in the arena, which had been ramped up with the Storm leading the Ottawa Senators three to one in the second period, dropped off to nothingness out of nowhere. It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
    Well, there was one sound. An agonized scream.
    It was full of pain, pain I hoped I would never experience. The scream was so intense that it ripped into me and burned until I could almost feel his pain, too. I leaped to my feet, the blanket falling to the floor as I clutched my hand over my heart, as though that could stop the stabbing torment that had settled within me at the first sound of distress.
    Instantly, the rest of the women stopped laughing and looked down to the ice to see what was going on. My eyes followed theirs. One of the Storm’s players was down on the ice and not moving, but his arm was in a position that no human arm should ever be in. A few of the players on the ice were helping some men in shoes instead of skates rush across to where the injured man had fallen. At the opposite end of the rink, the officials opened the doors that housed the Zambonis and brought out a stretcher.
    “ It’s Monty,” Sara whispered.
    As soon as those words left her lips, the women around me whipped into action. Rachel pulled out her cell phone and headed for the hallway. “Jim?” she said before the door closed behind her. Laura Weber and Dana Campbell got up and found one of the women in the other group, pulling her aside and helping to calm her down.
    “ That’s Monty’s wife,” Katie explained to me.
    Sara and Maddie went back to the corner where the other kids were playing. The two of them picked up some dolls and plopped down on the floor, cross-legged, with a couple of younger girls. Distracting them, I was certain. They must be Monty’s children.
    As I watched all of the women coming together around me, the sharp ache in my chest slowly started to ebb and fade. Katie reached out a hand as though to comfort me. I took it and sat down again, picking up the blanket and situating it over her.
    She didn’t let go of my hand, even though I was shaking. “It’s always scary when we see one of the guys get hurt. It doesn’t get any easier, but we help take care of each other.”
    I nodded, mute. I couldn’t form words. I couldn’t explain that it wasn’t just fear that had clawed at my chest like a wild animal, but that it was actual pain. Anytime I tried to explain it to people, they looked at me like I was crazy, because, for me, it went so far beyond sympathy or even empathy. It was as though I could feel exactly what other people were feeling. I couldn’t control it. It just seeped into me and took over, and I was powerless to do anything but take on some small part of their hurts. Sometimes I was able to take all of the pain into myself and leave them lighter and freer. I couldn’t take as much pain as Monty was experiencing, though. I could only share in it because I