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“Tool Guy below me!” Mary called without looking.
“How can I help?”
“I need the bolt cutters.”
“Ideas?”
No good ones. “I’m going to hook into these bars and do a back bend. You’re going to find a way to get the cutters into my hands.”
“Wilco.”
Military. Okay, that made all the sense in the world.
Mary had to scoot over as close to the wall as possible. And honestly, that was the scariest thing she’d done yet. She wiped her hands across her cotton sports bra. There, she threaded her legs through the bars and crossed her ankles. “Hold my legs down,” she told the woman, who then crawled up and sat on her feet, wrapping her arms around her calves to counterbalance Mary with her own weight.
Mary couldn’t make herself lean back. The best she could do was squeeze her eyes shut and walk her hands down her body until she felt her hair fall straight down like it had when she was a child playing on the monkey bars.
I’m here because I was sent here. I’m doing this because this is mine to do.
Mary didn’t flail for the cutters. She merely hung there, arms doing the bidding of gravity. Hopefully, she was in proximity to the supply guy.
“I’m okay. I’m okay.” She breathed the words out with each exhalation and pulled them in on each inhale.
She was surprised when she felt rope tapping the back of her hand.
“Put that between your teeth and curl up.”
That was the most rational thing that had happened since her brain snapped, and she went full mother mode. Her bite clamped down on the roping; Mary put her hands behind her thighs and crunched herself up.
The woman on the balcony reached and dragged Mary until she was sitting on the foot-wide ledge.
The babies. It was too hot to survive near that fire. Their little faces pressed through the metal bars as they screamed and reached for the cool air outside. Mary pulled the rope and up came the lifesaving bolt cutters.
So far, the metal wasn’t scalding her. She couldn’t imagine that would last for much longer.
Between the two women and the ratcheting design, they were able to get two of the posts off, making a space wide enough for the boys to fit through.
“How long is this rope?” Mary called down without looking.
“What are you thinking?” the man shouted back.
“I wind my end through a few of the posts for friction. The first kid gets a hasty.” She used the term for a way to secure a climber with a rope technique that wrapped the legs like a diaper. “You secure your end of the rope to something as a backup. Then I go backward, again to lower him to you. I can release the rope from the bars. You tether him in again. Then, you can lower him to the next guy and so on to the ground.”
“How are you going to get the second kid down? That balcony is at risk. We don’t have time for that.”
“Okay —” Mary had no plan B. “Ideas?”
“One, untie the bolt cutters. Two, tie the rope onto the post for security. Three, lower the rope back to me, and I’ll send up three more lengths. That will be one for each of you.”
“Okay!” Okay. He was rational and solid. Those were important things in this high-stakes crisis. Mary’s shaky fingers didn’t want to comply, but if she pushed her breath out in short bursts through rigid lips, she could get the job done.
As she lowered the end of the first rope to the tool guy, Mary realized this breathing cycle was a Lamaze technique. Who knew that skill would come in handy two decades on?
“Pull it up!” he hollered.
Mary was grateful for the instructions. Clear, concise, no wobble. Actionable. Good.
The promised ropes came up to her as she pulled. And there were carabiners that would make the process of attaching the children’s harnesses that much easier—that much more secure.