Page 22 of Free Fall #1

Peggy Jo’s house is nestled at the back of a dead-end road. Its main feature is a giant window at the rear that shows off a view of snow-capped mountains and evergreens. Otherwise, it’s a fairly normal house—one story with the bedroom, office, kitchen, laundry, and living area laid out nicely.

But my favorite thing about it is her bathroom, which is blessed with extraordinary water pressure.

Waterfalls beat the campground shower block any day, but Peggy Jo’s bathroom is a luxurious indulgence by my standards.

One I’m definitely going to treat myself to before I leave for the campground again.

But, right now, I’m on Peggy Jo’s front porch, sipping lemonade, and listening to country music jangling out over the outdoor speakers she had installed last year.

She can tell I’m worrying over something, but she’s got her own reasons for having asked me to come over, and so she’s getting that out of the way first.

“Bella is pregnant,” she says, kicking her feet up onto a wicker ottoman and leaning back in her favorite cushioned porch chair.

“Oh?” Bella’s not married as far as I know. I mean, I don’t always pay attention when Peggy Jo talks about her daughter, but I think I would have caught it if Bella had gotten married. That’s pretty big news. Like pregnancy. “On purpose?”

Peggy Jo snorts. “I don’t rightly know, to be honest, but the fact of the matter is she’s pregnant and she’s having the baby sometime in October. She wants me to be there with her.”

“And she’s just now telling you about it?”

“No, I’ve known. But I was hoping I could convince her to come stay with me here for the duration of it.

She declined. She’s happy with her doctors there and wants to bring the baby home to her little house in Georgia.

But with the timing…” She touches my hand.

“I hate to be away when you make your ascent.”

Ah. The implications of that statement hit me immediately. I plan to free solo Heart Route in late October or early November and going to Georgia to help with Bella’s new baby means Peggy Jo won’t be around to support me in the lead-up to that. “Don’t worry about it. It’s fine. It’s all good.”

And it is.

The fewer people around caring too much about the outcome of my climb, the better.

If Sejin decides to stick around and do some caring in my direction—and I really hope he does, which is super weird in and of itself—then having Peggy Jo gone for the big event will be a load off.

I can only take so much worry directed at me.

Rye, Lowell, Peggy Jo, and maybe Sejin? That’s a lot.

How can I fly up the rock with all that extra weight?

“I feel mighty torn about it,” she says. “For a lot of reasons.”

“Don’t be. Of course you’ll want to be there when a screaming new life comes into the world.”

“You’re right. I do. I want to meet my grandbaby as soon as they arrive.

But I don’t want to miss your feat either.

You’ve worked so hard for this, for so long.

I feel like I might just be the only person on earth who really knows all the preparation and effort you’ve put in to send this route.

Crazy as I think this particular goal is, Dan, when you step over the lip, triumphant, ready to tell me and everyone else ‘I told you so,’ I want to be there to hold you. ”

I smile into my lemonade. A woodpecker swoops close and then up over the roof of the house. “I don’t need to be held, Peggy Jo.”

“I know you don’t think you need it, but you do.”

A cat meows from within the house, and Peggy Jo sighs, standing up to let it out.

I can’t remember if this one is Romeo or Julio, or maybe it’s Muggs.

Peggy Jo has three cats; they all hate me, and I can’t tell any of them apart.

They’re some mixture of orange and black and white, but damned if I know which one has the white patch by its tail, which one has it by its eye, and which one has no white patches, but just streaks.

The cat steps daintily through the pebbles by the front porch, going around to the side garden, where it disappears into a thicket.

“Don’t worry, he’ll be back,” Peggy Jo says.

“Mm,” I say, rather than announce my complete lack of worry about the cat. Whichever one he is, he’ll be fine. Those cats are terrors, and I have the scars to prove it.

“But, unfortunately, I can’t be two places at once,” Peggy Jo says, continuing with her line of thought regarding Bella’s baby and my free solo of Heart Route. “And as much as I consider you a son—”

“You need to be with Bella,” I say. “Don’t apologize. I don’t want you here for it. You know I wouldn’t have even told you before I went and did it anyway. I’ll go when I’m ready and when no one knows.”

Peggy Jo stares at me, and I don’t dare look at her face.

I don’t want to see if my words have hurt her, made her angry, or worse, made her sad.

A few birds chirp, the cat comes creeping back around the side of the house looking both guilty and defiant as he shifts his way over the pebbles to settle in the sun.

“I have one last problem,” Peggy Jo says, “before we can talk about yours.”

“I don’t have anything to talk about,” I deny.

“Mm-hm, well, whatever you say, but I figure it’ll come out sooner or later. First, though, let’s stick with me.”

“Happy to.”

“The house and the cats,” she says. “I can’t leave the cats with the boarder for two or three whole months, and Grady Houser, my neighbor who usually takes care of them when I travel for long periods, is wintering in Australia this year—lucky bastard—and leaves a few days before I do.”

“Hmm.”

“So, I was wondering if you would stay here with them? It’ll help with your money problems too. I’d pay you for cat sitting, and you could stay here for free. Remember what Henry said about your funds? A year max. This could really help with that.”

I don’t like the idea of living this far out from El Cap, but it’s true that my biggest expense, by far, is the camping slot.

I could get my money reimbursed for the weeks I don’t use.

I feel strangely superstitious, though, about the idea of living in a house like this when I’m training for the biggest climb of my life.

Maybe it’s silly, but it feels too soft.

Like if I were to live here instead of in my camper, I’d lose focus, become a couch potato, and do nothing but watch television all day.

I can already hear her counterarguments—I’ll rest better in a real bed, and that alone will make my training more efficient and help me retain the strength I’ve earned.

But still I resist.

I have an idea, though, of who might want to stay here in exchange for feeding the cats.

Rye’s in a living situation that prevents him from having even partial custody of Jeanie, and so he might be interested in a house-sitting gig, even if it’s only temporary.

Maybe Andrew would be more likely to let Jeanie spend the night with her Mommy from time to time if he was out of the tent.

So long as it benefited Andrew, of course.

I decide not to say anything about that, though, until I’ve felt Rye out on the situation. People too often don’t react the way I expect them to, and then I’m left looking like even more of a jerk.

“I don’t need a commitment right now,” Peggy Jo says, reading my expression in that way only she seems good at. “But I’ll need one soon. I need to make some kind of plan. I’d rather help you out than someone else, but I need to know whoever is watching the cats is reliable.”

“The cats hate me,” I point out.

“They don’t need to love you. But after you feed them for a few weeks, they sure will.”

“Ha.”

That’s the last we talk of it for now. I know I’ll have to give her an answer or counter-solution soon, but I’m relieved she doesn’t try to pressure me. That’s one thing Peggy Jo rarely does, and probably one of the main reasons we’ve stayed friends.

“So, tell me what’s bugging you,” she says.

My nose wrinkles. “I’d rather not.”

She gets up, goes inside, and comes back out with a bowl of chips and another cat on her heels.

This one has the white spot on its nose.

She calls it Julio as the door falls shut behind her, telling him to watch his tail.

He darts out just before the door slams. So that’s one cat identified, two to go.

“I like a guy,” I say.

She sighs in satisfaction, like she’s known the whole time I was going to spill. I’d kind of known it too, but I like to make things hard if I can. I mean, why give anyone the idea that I need them or whatever? Because I don’t. It’s just…

I don’t get people, and I don’t get what’s going on with me and Sejin, and Peggy Jo’s smart. She’s good with people and might have some insight that’ll help me understand.

“I don’t think it’s a wise idea for me to keep seeing him, but now that he thinks maybe it’s not a wise idea to keep seeing me , I’m trying to talk him into staying.” I sip the lemonade, watch Julio collapse next to cat number one in the sunshine, and then say, “Why?”

“You don’t like to lose?”

“No. I don’t normally care that much when a guy or girl moves on.”

“So, it’s this particular guy then.”

“Yeah.”

I let silence fall for a few moments, watching as a moth flaps near the cats. Julio bats at it before it flies off and away from danger. Neither cat chases it.

See? That’s what I should do, not try to get Sejin to fly back to me.

“We’ve hooked up twice. I’ve talked to him two… Yeah, two, maybe three times outside of those encounters. I should be willing to let him walk.”

“Why don’t you then?”

“Here.” I dig my phone out of my back pocket and pull up Sejin’s profile on the hookup app. I enlarge the photo and hold it out for Peggy Jo to see.

She takes the phone, holds it out from her face, and squints a little before her eyes adjust. Then she smiles. “Oh, it’s Sejin.”

“You know him?”

“Of course. Everyone knows Sejin.”

“I didn’t know him.”