Page 44 of Free Fall
At the same time, I’m confused now in a way I wasn’t before. I could use some advice, and it takes me a few hours to decide who to ask for it. I have a lot of friends, but not a ton of them are people who have the kind of life experience I need or who care about me for my own sake. Or should.
After my shift is over, I get in my car and drive to my favorite lookout point and park. With the vision of El Capitan looming ahead of me, I take a deep breath and pull out my phone.
And I call my dad.
*
Dan
Peggy Jo’s houseis 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.