Page 21 of The Big Race

Leap of Faith

C ody rejoined us and we followed the marked trail to the viewpoint, a cliff overlooking a spectacular vista of jungle and the distant misty shape of Orinoco Falls. Under normal circumstances, the view would have been breathtaking. But then I saw the setup for a bungee jump, and I was terrified.

“I know you hate heights,” Ray said. “I’ll go first.”

Though his affair had surprised me, I still knew my husband inside and out. He was dying for the chance to do the bungee jump.

I was tempted to agree immediately, but something stopped me.

Throughout our marriage, I’d often let Ray handle the physical challenges while I managed the intellectual ones.

It was a comfortable division of labor, but it had also created a dynamic where he sometimes saw me as less capable, less adventurous.

“No,” I said, surprising myself. “I’ll go first.”

Ray’s eyebrows shot up. “You sure? You don’t have to prove anything to me.”

“Maybe I need to prove something to myself,” I replied.

Ernie and George arrived shortly after us, both breathing heavily from the exertion.

“Bungee jumping?” Ernie read from their clue. “Oh hell no.”

George clapped his friend on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, all that blubber you’ve got, you’ll bounce easy.”

Race officials checked our head-held cameras and then fitted us with wireless microphones – the better to capture my screams of terror for television, I assumed – and led us to the platform. Adrienne and Fletcher were already down on the ground, heading to their next destination.

"I'll go first," George offered. "Show you there's nothing to it."

I nodded gratefully. As George was secured into the bungee harness, Ray pulled me aside.

"You sure you don't want me to go first? Prove that it's safe?"

"I may be scared, but sometimes growth happens at the edge of fear," I said. "You taught me that. On that first hike in Colorado."

Before Ray could respond, George's whoop of excitement cut through the air as he leaped from the platform. His initial shout of fear quickly transformed into laughter as he bounced at the end of the bungee cord.

"That was AWESOME!" he yelled as he was lowered to the safety mat below.

A guide approached me. "Ready?"

I swallowed hard. "As I'll ever be."

I stood at the edge of the bridge, looking down. It was a long way. White water rushed over stones a thousand feet below me. I figured you could drop a five-story building into the gorge, and maybe the spire on the roof would reach the bridge railing I was clutching.

The guy in charge of the bungee jump was a moon-faced Venezuelan. He tapped me on the shoulder and pointed at the harness. "You go?" he asked.

I hate heights. I have since I was a kid. I remember going up on a Ferris wheel and getting stuck at the top when I was about six or seven, and the fear that gripped me so much that I couldn't speak or move. My dad had to lift me out of the carriage when we finally made it to the ground.

"Come on, Jeffrey," Ray said. "Get a move on. Those sorority sisters are breathing down our asses."

Typical Ray. When I get nervous or scared, he gets angry.

But then something changed in him. Ray usually pushes me until we're just at the point of a huge fight—and then steps back.

This time, he reached out and took my hand, and little zings of energy shot through my skin.

Call me a fool, but after so long together, his touch still thrilled me. "You can do it, babe," he said.

"Remember," the guide instructed, "arms out like a swan dive, eyes on the horizon, not down. When I count to three, just step forward. The bungee does the rest."

I nodded, unable to form words.

"One... two..."

"Wait," I gasped.

The guide paused. Ray stepped forward, concern etched on his face.

"I just need a moment," I said, breathing deeply.

"Take all the time you need," Ray said. He moved closer, speaking so only I could hear. "Remember what you told Leo when he was afraid to dive off the high board? Fear is just excitement that forgot how to have fun."

I laughed despite myself. "I stole that from a refrigerator magnet."

"Doesn't make it any less true."

I took another deep breath, focusing on the horizon as instructed. "Okay. I'm ready."

"One... two... three!"

I stepped forward into empty air.

The fall was pure terror transformed into something else entirely.

As I plummeted toward the gorge, a strange thought flashed through my mind: I'm falling toward Ray, not away from him.

All these months, I'd been pulling back, creating distance, protecting myself.

But here I was, literally taking a leap of faith.

The initial terror transformed into pure exhilaration.

The wind rushed past my face, carrying the earthy scent of the jungle below and the distant sound of water cascading over rocks.

For those suspended seconds, I wasn't the cautious computer geek who triple-checked his alarm clock every night. I was flying.

The canopy rushed beneath me in a blur of green, and I caught glimpses of colorful birds startled into flight by my passage.

A toucan's distinctive call echoed from somewhere in the depths below, answered by another from across the gorge.

The world had become a three-dimensional painting of emerald and gold, dappled with patches of sunlight that filtered through the leaves.

"WOOOOO!" I heard myself yelling, the sound torn away by the wind. When had I last made a noise like that? When had I last felt so completely, recklessly alive?

Then came the moment of truth—the bungee cord reached its limit and snapped me back upward with tremendous force. My stomach lurched as I bounced skyward, then fell again, then bounced once more, each oscillation smaller than the last until I hung suspended a dozen feet high, gently swaying.

The world swung slowly around me as I dangled there, catching my breath and marveling at the view from this impossible vantage point. Then I heard the noise of the winch lowering me to the sandy island at the bottom of the gorge.

I stood there for a moment, regaining my balance. My heart pounded so hard I could feel it in my fingertips.

A guide helped me out of the harness and I turned to watch Ray come down behind me, whooping and waving his arms like a lunatic.

We hadn't had so much fun together for years.

Fun was something that had slipped by the wayside, pushed aside by overtime, yard maintenance and the stress of raising our son.

Ray landed, catching his foot in the sand and sprawling headfirst on the ground.

I rushed over to help him up, but he was still laughing, even with a face full of sand.

On shaky legs, I made my way to Ray, his face split with a wide grin.

"That was... not terrible," I admitted.

"You looked amazing," Ray said, and the pride in his voice warmed me in a way I hadn't experienced in months. "Like you were born to jump off cliffs."

But there was something else in his voice, something that made me study his face more carefully. His smile was genuine, but his eyes held shadows I was only beginning to recognize.

"Ray?" I prompted. "What's wrong?"

He shook his head quickly. "Nothing's wrong. That was perfect. You were perfect."

But I'd learned to read the subtle signs of his distress over twenty-five years together. The way his jaw tightened almost imperceptibly, the slight stiffness in his shoulders.

"Tell me," I said softly.

Ray glanced around at the crew members who were busy preparing for the next customer, then looked back at me. "When you were falling, for just a second, I thought... what if something goes wrong? What if the equipment fails, or..." He trailed off, running a hand through his salt-dampened hair.

"But it didn't," I pointed out. "I'm fine. I'm right here."

"I know. But watching you fall away from me like that..." He paused, struggling for words. "It made me realize how easily I could lose you. How close I came to losing you already."

The adrenaline from the jump was still coursing through my system, but now it mixed with something else—a sudden, sharp awareness that Ray's fear wasn't about the bungee cord or the height. It was about us.

"Ray," I started, but he continued.

"I saw you up there flying away from me and I realized I didn't know what I'd do if you didn't come back, if you just sailed on away. I love you, babe."

His words hit me with more force than the bungee cord's recoil.

Here I was, still buzzing with the euphoria of conquering my fear, and Ray was confronting his own—the fear of losing me entirely.

The irony wasn't lost on me: I'd had to literally jump off a cliff for him to admit how much I still meant to him.

Something shifted in my chest, a loosening of the tight knot of hurt and anger I'd been carrying.

Not forgiveness—not yet—but recognition.

Ray's terror at watching me fall wasn't just about physical danger.

It was about the deeper fall we'd both been experiencing, the way we'd been drifting apart until his affair had sent us into free fall.

"I came back," I said simply, my voice rough with emotion. "I'm here."

He pulled me into his arms then, and the embrace felt real—not performed for cameras or out of obligation, but born from genuine need. I could feel his heart hammering against my chest, matching the rhythm of my own.

"Let's not get carried away," I laughed, as Ernie and George joined us, though my voice was still shaky.

"That was wild!" George exclaimed. "Did you love it?"

"Love might be too strong a word," I replied, "but it was definitely memorable."

As we prepared for the next challenge, I caught Ray's eye. Something had changed between us in those moments of fall and recovery. We'd both stared into an abyss—literal and metaphorical—and chosen to trust the cord that connected us.