Page 94 of Free Fall

“Right, and mistakes happen.” I twist my hands in my lap. “I remember when I was just a kid riding my bike down the same street I always rode down…” I laugh. “I don’t know what happened, but I took a corner too fast and wiped out. Cut my knee. I still have a scar. If Dan’s up on the wall and he ‘takes a corner too fast,’ he’sdead, and there’s just exploded body bits to scrape off the…the…what do you call the ground? The deck?”

“The floor.”

“Right. Well, it’s not like I can stop him from doing it.” I try to smile, but it feels shaky. “I don’t even think Ishouldtry. If he tried to stop me from…” I pause. “I literally cannot think of a single thing I do that’s half as dangerous as what he does, so that doesn’t work. I just know in my heart that if I forced his hand… Well, he’s been in love with free soloing a lot longer than he’s been in love with me—if he’s even really in love with me—”

“He is.”

“So, what he’s doing might seem unhinged to me, but the choice is to lose him for sure or just lose him maybe.”

Peggy Jo watches me with such empathy in her eyes that tears well up.

“Oh, sweetheart,” she says, reaching out and dragging me close. “You’re very brave. Braver than he is, actually.”

“I don’t think so. I’m terrified of heights.”

“But you’re the one choosing to stay with him knowing that you might have tolivewith the pain of his consequences…and he wouldn’t. He’d get maybe a dozen long seconds to make peace with it, and then it’d be over. You, though…you’d have to live with it for a very long time. And I get the idea you’re familiar with grief.”

“My mom,” I choke out.

She pats my shoulder. “Ah, I see. But you’re willing to risk that to be with him.”

“My dad says it’s worth it?” I say it into her shoulder, and it comes out like a question.

She lets out a small laugh. “It might be. I hope we never find out.”

“Me too.”

We pull apart when the sound of a heavy vehicle coming up the drive, kicking up gravel, breaks the silence. A cat meows and darts out from beneath the chair and into a bedroom.

“Well, well, speak of the devil,” Peggy Jo says with a twinkling smirk as she stands up and starts toward the front door. “Seems like Dan isn’t going to let me go without a final goodbye after all.”

I stand and follow her, my heart ricocheting between exultation at seeing his face and a feeling of guilt that he might somehow know Peggy Jo and I had been talking about him, that we’d shared our mutual love, fear, and pain. As if by discovering Peggy Jo also shares my mix of worry and pride in him, I’ve gone behind his back. It’s silly, I know, but I hope she doesn’t mention it to him.

Peggy Jo throws open the front door and calls out, hands on her hips, “’Bout time you got here, you ruffian.”

Over her shoulder, I see Dan striding from the van. He stops in front of her for a silent moment and then throws his arms around her and gives her a hard hug.

“Now, don’t act like I’m never seeing you again,” she says. “You’ll scare your boyfriend.”

Dan’s eyes lift and meet mine, but he doesn’t let go of Peggy Jo. I swallow and then smile at him. His brows furrow slightly. He squeezes her hard one more time and releases her.

“You flatter yourself,” he says. “I thought you’d already be gone. I was just coming up here to schtup him on your sofa.”

Peggy Jo snorts, and I feel my cheeks heating with embarrassment. “As if I believe that’s the only reason you came.”

None of us do, not after that hug.

“Well, when do you leave?” he asks, glancing at his watch. “If you’re going to make it to Fresno-Yosemite for that 12:10 flight, you need to get going.”

Peggy Jo agrees, and we run through a few final things about the cats, double-checking that I know where the emergency vet is located, and where the number is for her preferred regular clinic.

By the time I convince her I’m absolutely prepared for any event with the cats, she’s out in her truck. She kisses Dan’s cheek through the window, waves at me where I stand in the doorway to the house, and then makes a three-point turn to pull down the drive.

Dan rounds on me, nods once, and says, “Okay, that’s done. Get your clothes off.”

*

Dan