Chapter 2

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Tom Alan first laid eyes on Nobuo and Kyoko Tsuchino in 2002, back when he was twelve, back when he was Tommy. The pair had relocated to America right after the ‘88 Olympics for a couple of reasons: one professional, one very personal. They’d made a home in Salt Lake City, Utah, but traveled back to Japan quite often. Ice skating was huge back in the late eighties, and Maki and Tsuchino, fresh off their silver medal in Calgary, prospered as Tsuchino and Tsuchino with shows such as Stars on Ice and Champions on Ice. They worked beside such legends as Boitano, Witt, Yamaguchi, and eventually Kwan and Cohen. Their only child, Erika, born in 1994, traveled the globe alongside them. She was a US citizen, but the Japanese people, because of their love for Nobuo and Kyoko, thought of Erika as their own. Now they thought of Tom Alan the same way.

When the Winter Games came to Salt Lake City, the Tsuchinos celebrated by setting up a free skating day at the rink they owned and operated. Tommy Baranowski—disheveled, shy, and gangly—was among the throng of kids who wandered in. It was his first time on ice. He wore loaner skates a few sizes too big—not too different from bowling alley rental shoes—which didn’t help his coordination one bit. There was nothing athletic or artistic about him that day, but there was a joy in his movement, and a determination—every time he fell, he got right back up—that could not be denied.

Mr. Tsuchino spent the next hour instructing Tommy in basic skills and was pleasantly surprised at how well the ragamuffin boy picked them up. He even had the boy skate beside his then eight-year-old daughter, who had literally learned to skate as she’d learned to walk. Tsuchino was pleased—shocked, actually—at how Tommy, with no previous experience, managed to almost keep up.

Not-so-little Tommy was the last skater on the ice that day. Truthfully, he would have liked to stay all day. “Just a little while longer,” he asked, his eyes sad.

“I’m sorry, Tommy. It’s time to go,” Kyoko-san said with a warm, friendly smile.

But Mr. Tsuchino passed on his business card as he gently shooed him out the door. “Keep skating, young man,” he said. “And keep in touch.”

A month after that, Tommy was living with the Tsuchinos. He became Tom Alan and started skating every day. When Nobuo and Kyoko returned to Japan permanently in 2008—out of familial duty because Kyoko’s father had died, and her mother supposedly needed to be cared for—Tom Alan went along as a part of their family. The Tsuchinos became more than coaches to him; they were just like parents—with a twist. They saw themselves more like in-laws. Tom Alan would eventually call Nobuo Tsuchino Papa, but Erika was never expected to be like his sister. They were raised under one roof, yes, first in Utah, then in Japan. But they were raised separately, not as siblings at all, but as something else.

In no time at all, Erika and Tom Alan became magic on the ice. They took pre-juvenile, juvenile, and novice medals over several years, peaking with World Junior Figure Skating Championships gold in 2011—a bittersweet victory, because of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan just days later. That fall, when they moved up into the senior ranks, it was a bit like starting over, but they were right on target to make the 2014 Sochi team.

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As they listened to their coaches’ critique, Tom Alan dropped to one knee in front of Erika to tighten the laces on his boot. Nobuo Tsuchino stopped what he was saying. Tom Alan caught him staring. His papa had a look, and Tom Alan immediately knew he’d taken Nobuo back to 1988, to the day he proposed to Kyoko-san.

Nobuo Tsuchino had high hopes for Erika and Tom Alan, on the ice and off. They would follow in his and Kyoko’s footsteps and skate under the Olympic rings, and then, just as with him and his young bride, the pair would marry and become a family. He would officially have the son he had always wanted, and his daughter would have a stellar, caring, and wonderful spouse. Nobuo had spoken of this with Tom Alan many times in recent years. “She is a special girl, Tom Alan. I see how she looks at you. You would do well to fall in love with her, as she obviously has with you. Especially since,” Tsuchino often added, “no other woman would have you.”

The last part was always said with a smile, though the first part, Tom Alan knew, was as much a wish for his father, his sensei, as seeing his team wear gold at the Games. If Nobuo had his way, shortly after the Olympic torch was extinguished at the end of the 2013—2014 figure skating season, Erika Tsuchino, at the age of twenty, would become Mrs. Thomas Alan Baranowski.