Page 89 of Free Fall

“Yeah, but most weren’t even free soloing. Like Dean Potter died doing a wingsuit BASE jump. And Michael Reardon died while doing an easy climb near an ocean and a huge rogue wave swept him off the rock, a completely unforeseeable event. Charlie Fowler died in an avalanche, not while rock climbing at all. It’s obviously not impossible to die while free soloing—and more and more climbers are trying it, so more deaths have happened in recent years—but it’s also not inevitable. There’s nogetting around that it’s wildly dangerous, but most people agree that successful free soloists are actually very methodical people.”

“And Dan’s successful?”

“So far, yes.”

“So far. Ha. That’s the quandary, right?”

Rye smirked. “He’d tell you that so far you’re a successful motorist…”

“A justification he’s picked up from his hero.” I lift the book.

“Yeah.”

“Part of me wants a list of things more dangerous than free soloing—”

“BASE jumping, wingsuiting—” Rye starts to tick things off.

“Another part of me just wants to find a way to get all Zen inside and not care. Just live for the moment. Enjoy him while it lasts. My mom died a few years ago, and I wish every day I could have another hour with her, with both of us carefree and neither of us knowing she’s sick.”

“I’m sorry. That’s rough.”

I ignore the platitudes. “I try to live like that with Dan, but sometimes I feel like this climb is my mom’s cancer. It’s always looming over us.”

“Does it tarnish the good times for you?”

“I try not to let it.” I flip my hair over my shoulder and lean forward, getting serious with him. “I was doing okay with that until I decided to reassure myself by reading this book. Now I’ve got too many vivid pictures in my head. It’s easier to pretend nothing scary is happening since I don’t climb with him—”

“You don’t? Ever?”

“I’m afraid of heights so he takes me up sometimes at night on smaller walls when I can’t see the exposure, but otherwise no. I don’t see him do it, and I don’t participate, so it’s all”—I wave my hand—“something that’s out there somewhere. You know,like how people feel about their parents’ places of work growing up. They don’t see it often, so it’s easy to forget it even exists.”

I rub a hand over my face. “Until the chemical companies shut down and leave your town in poverty, but that’s another thing entirely.”

“Sejin?”

“Yeah?”

Rye takes hold of my hand and squeezes. “I’m up there with him and let me tell you, he’s the best of the best, or one of them. He’s good. He’smorethan good. He’s inhuman on those walls. But even I can’t promise you anything.”

“No. No one can.” I shove the book across the table. “Maybe I don’t want to read more of this.”

“Maybe you don’t. Or maybe you do. And maybe you should come up on a wall with me and Dan one day.”

“I can’t go up a wall like that. No way.”

“No, not this route he’s training for, anyway. But maybe another, less challenging one, and if you see how good he is, how it’s like breathing for him, then maybe it might ease your mind some.”

“He’ll be roped in, though.”

“Of course. He always is when he’s with me.”

“So, you’ve never seen him free solo?”

“Once. We went to the Grand Tetons, and he free soloed up a chimney. I just sat on the roof of the van and watched. He was amazing. Like watching a monkey climb a tree. Natural. Easy.”

“I don’t know…” I shiver. “I really hate heights. When we climb at night, it’s not so bad, and I do see how good he is. He’s really stable and reassuring. But he’s only taken me to Pothole Dome and some similar climbs like that. He doesn’t want to push me.”

“Maybe you should push yourself then. You don’t have to love it, but if you see how safe it is with ropes—”