Braver Than You Think

by Maggie Downs

  For as long as I can remember, my family had a subscription to National Geographic magazine, every issue kept on a bookshelf that took up almost one whole wall. Just row after row of mustard-yellow spines. Every month, when a new issue arrived, my mom and I sat at the kitchen table and let the words and images transport us all over the world, from the pyramids in Egypt to the ruins of Machu Picchu, on safari, atop mountains, inside golden temples, through the pink canyons of Petra. These exotic-to-us places could not have been more unreachable from our modest home in Ohio, but there was a kind of magic when Mom and I hatched plans for the future together. They almost seemed possible.

  Then my mom took this mental list of adventures and carefully tucked it away, setting her own desires aside to care for our family.

  “Someday,” she said. “There’ll be plenty of time later.”

  But she was wrong. My mom crept toward death, not one passport stamp closer to her dreams. The woman she wanted to be was just as irretrievable as the skydivers who whooshed out the door.

  I looked over my shoulder at Jason and shouted to be heard over the rushing wind.

  “I don’t know about this,” I screamed. And even though I wasn’t sure if he could hear me, I continued, “This isn’t me. I kind of like the road that is more traveled, you know? I’m a beaten-path kind of person.”

  “Where you’re going, there is no path!” he replied with a wink.

  The plane was almost empty. Only the pilot and my group remained. Bud crouched in the exit position at the door, just like we rehearsed. He motioned to me.

  “You have to make a choice,” Jason said. “Now.”

  He was right. This was my choice. Maybe I wasn’t born to be the kind of audacious woman who soaks her weekends in adrenaline. But maybe, just for a little while, I could choose to be. There was an urgency that underscored every moment, knowing life—and the disease—might eventually leave me with no choice at all.

  I lined my feet up with the edge of the door, right foot in front of the left, and took my position in a half squat, right hand pressed on the inside of the plane, left hand on the outside. The routine I practiced took over my body.

  “Check in,” I said, and I made eye contact with Bud.

  “Check out,” I said, and I looked to my left, where Jason hung from the outside of the Caravan with one hand.

  “Prop,” I said, and I stared ahead at the spinning propeller with laser-beam focus. The vibration of the airplane thrummed in my stomach. The propeller appeared to slow down.

  On a count of “up, down, arch,” we were out. My spine stiffened and my mind zeroed in on all the wrong things. My shoelace came untied—the plastic tabs on the laces slapped against my ankle—and I wondered if my shoe would get sucked off my foot. Even worse, what if I hit a bird while I was in free fall? My goggles cut into my face. The ground seemed big, a green maw waiting to swallow me whole.

  Then I looked to my left, where Jason held my harness, helping me fall sure and true. He cut a handsome figure, hovering there in the pale blue sky, steady by my side. He thrust his hand in front of my face and shook it.

  “Relax,” he mouthed. And I did. I exhaled. I could do this.

  During free fall I had to demonstrate what’s called “a circle of awareness”—assess my heading, look to the altimeter on my wrist and call out my altitude, make eye contact with each instructor, and fake deploy three times in a row before the final wave-off.

  At 5,000 feet I deployed the parachute for real, and then I drifted gently in the pastel blue expanse. After the speed of free fall, being under canopy felt like drifting through glue. Around me, clouds looked like giant handfuls of puffed dough. The air smelled thin, clean, iridescent. Below my feet, the emerald Indiana farmland was studded with houses that almost looked jeweled. The scene was a painting, a postcard, something grand and insignificant all at once. From the sky, nothing looked weary or ill. From the sky, there was only potential. I gazed at the highway and tiny toy cars and all the people who didn’t know how unlucky they were to be attached to the ground. My face felt bright, lit up like a light bulb. My cheeks hurt from smiling.

  Afterward, I continued to show up at the drop zone every weekend. I practiced my skills until I received my solo license, and I made a few hundred more skydives, many of them with Jason. I also figured if I could trust That Guy with my life, we could at least go out on a date. We’ve been jumping into things together ever since.

  THE DECISION TO LIVE WHILE MY MOTHER DIES HAS brought me to the dirty floor of an airport, muddy hiking boots and suitcase wheels near my face. Once Jason leaves, I will be roaming this world alone.

  I hug my backpack and wonder if I will be safe, if I will make friends, if I will ever find what my dying mother’s restless heart desired. I wonder if this trip will honor my mom or if I am going to rip my family apart. I wonder if I will scurry back to California in just a few weeks or if I will have the resilience to push through when things get tough. My goal is to make it as far as Ha Long Bay, Vietnam—one of the places on my personal bucket list, my measure of success for this journey.

  I don’t have a lot of money, and my family isn’t one of means. I grew up in a small Ohio town, with two significantly older siblings who left home when I was seven. My dad worked his way through the ranks in the air force, and my mom attended job fairs at hotel ballrooms to pick up part-time work whenever things were tight. She took whatever job hired her: she tugged flowers apart at the root and replanted them into plastic flats for nurseries, she ushered people into changing rooms at discount clothing stores, she butchered birds at a turkey farm and came home with spent muscles and rough, cracked fingers.

  When I was young, I didn’t know we were broke; I thought juice came from cans in the freezer and all toilet paper had only one ply. Later, after my family had moved from working class to solidly middle class, my parents were comfortable enough to help put me through Ohio University with assistance from loans, and the juice in our fridge came from cartons. There wasn’t much extra money, though. In college I sold my plasma weekly to afford the luxury of fast food and draft beer, and occasionally I sold chaps and jackets at biker shows for a man named Johnny Marathon, who paid me in cash or leather, my choice. Often I chose wrong.

  I worked hard to get things. And now, for this trip, I have sold most everything, including my car and all that old leather. I have a total of $10,000 in the bank and a handshake agreement to write one paid freelance article per month for the newspaper I just left.

  Jason is no longer a skydiving instructor; he’s a public school teacher, a career change that occurred after we moved to California in 2006. When he returned to college, I said, “At least you’ll always have job security. The world always needs teachers,” words that have haunted me since the recession in 2008, as Jason has struggled to find a foothold in the system.

  A newer teacher, Jason has been laid off every year, then called back as a long-term substitute without benefits and eventually brought back full-time, months into the school year. In 2010, the pink slip came one week before our wedding, when my trip has already been decided. Money is tight enough that we are conscious of every dollar, and there’s nothing else to replenish my checking account when the funds are gone.

  My international travel experience is limited, and I don’t speak any languages beyond English, other than a few sentences from high school French. So if Claude isn’t buying socks or headed to the discotheque, I can’t help you.

  I have no savings, no safety net, and no skills. It’s humbling. It’s daunting.

  I scan the airport and see travelers who look more accomplished, people who wear their courage like a patch across their rugged backpacks. I am not like them. But I close my eyes and remember the words my mother said each day before she sent me off to elementary school: “You are braver than you think.”

  Back then I was just a girl with long pigtails and a small green backpack, nervous about walking two miles to school on my own. But I wonder i
f my mom could already look into my brown eyes and see the woman I would become, determined to set off and see the world.

  Above us, a speaker crackles and the PA system comes to life. Our plane to Cusco is ready to board.

  When You Feel Defeated, Stop to Breathe

  CUSCO FEELS LIKE A PUNCH TO THE CHEST. IT COULD BE that the reality of my jobless, newly homeless, nearly husbandless situation is finally hitting me. Or maybe it’s the altitude.

  The air in this former Incan capital, perched high in the Andes, is thin and miserly. I have barely stepped off the plane before my asthma causes my lungs to tighten. I anticipated altitude issues until I acclimated to the mountains, but I didn’t think they would hit with such force and immediacy. Every inhalation is labored and requires an incredible amount of effort, like trying to blow air into a balloon that has a leak.

  After a few puffs on my inhaler, I can breathe easily enough to focus on other things—the wave of tour guides, taxi drivers, hotel operators, and vendors that pushes close as Jason and I make our way through the airport. Sweaty bodies press against us. People tug at our sleeves. Brochures are thrust in our faces. Each person promises a special deal, just for us.

  Jason, who has never traveled internationally, looks to me for direction. Of course, I am clueless. Prior to this, I’ve only traveled outside the United States on short, easy trips where someone was waiting for me on the other side. But I want to reassure my husband that I am confident and able, a woman who can take care of herself once she is traveling alone.

  “Follow me,” I say.

  Lacking actual experience, I read books instead. I practically memorized the entire “Dangers and Annoyances” section in the Lonely Planet guidebook to Peru. As we navigate the airport, I hiss nuggets of advice to Jason. “Ruthless robberies have been on the rise! Use only official taxis! Hang on to your bag! And remember, do not let anybody share a taxi with us.”

  Long rows of vendors line the airport hallways. In the middle of one row is a small desk with a wooden sign that says, “Official taxi.” The fact that the word “official” is spelled “offecial” barely even registers.

  “Are you the official taxi?” I ask.

  “Sí, we are official taxi,” a man behind the desk replies. He motions to the sign and cocks his head, as if to say, Do you not see this sign? We are clearly offecial.

  “How much?”

  “Peruvian?” he says. “Thirty soles.”

  This is my first time haggling. I don’t know how to counter this, other than to say, “Um, no. My guidebook says fifteen soles.”

  “Ah, but there is an airport tax,” he says.

  That makes sense. I shrug and hand over the money, the equivalent of twelve dollars.

  The man scrawls a handwritten ticket and ushers us outside, directly into another wall of people. He gives our ticket to a different man, who hands it off like a track baton to yet another. It’s confusing, and I don’t know which man to follow.

  “Wait!” I yell.

  “This way!” the original vendor points to a car before he is absorbed by the crowd.

  I walk to a vehicle that barely qualifies as a car, let alone an official taxi. The driver hoists the backpack off my shoulders and tosses it into the trunk, which is secured shut with a piece of dirty rope. He pushes me toward the open car door, the palm of his hand against my forehead as he shoves me inside. On the other side of the car, the same thing happens to Jason, except with some other Peruvian man we haven’t seen before. When Jason sits down, the stranger slides into the seat next to us.

  “No,” I say. “No strangers in the car.”

  “Is fine,” he says. “I am official taxi.”

  I whisper “Stranger danger” under my breath, and Jason nods. The driver has already eased the car out of the parking lot and is merging onto a highway. Frequent clicks and pops sound from beneath the taxi. I eye every door—all locked. The back of my neck begins to sweat.

  The stranger opens a briefcase on his lap, and I fear we are about to be abducted or given a timeshare pitch. Instead, the stranger hands us photographs. The lamination peels from the corners of each yellowed image.

  “How would you like to see Machu Picchu?” he says with all the enthusiasm of a used-car salesman.

  I fumble for excuses. “Um, we already have a trek?”

  “What about market tour? We take you to alpaca farm, then alpaca shop …”

  “No,” Jason says.

  We have reached the hostel—I recognize the building from the online photos when I booked the place—but the driver continues to circle the block as the salesman piles more photographs into our laps and makes one pitch after another.

  “You like party party?” he says.

  “No! No party. Please,” I beg. “Let us go.”

  “Ah, you want ancient temple.”

  Finally, the driver stops the car. In a last-ditch sales effort, the stranger claims he is from the very hostel where we are staying.

  “Oh, you’re staying at El Tuco?” he says. “I work for El Tuco. Special deal just for you.”

  Maybe it is the fact that we had been awake for thirty-six hours straight, or maybe the stranger is finally wearing us down. Whatever the cause, Jason and I agree to let him follow us into the hostel while we check in.

  I recognize Coco, the owner of El Tuco, also from the photos online. Coco uses his substantial body to fill the front door frame and shouts in Spanish. The stranger mumbles something back. Coco erupts. He screams and takes a step forward, close enough for his breath to make steam on the salesman’s face. I anticipate this will come to blows. Instead, the stranger pats his sweaty comb-over and adjusts his shirt, then turns on his heel and marches out the door.

  The room is still for a long, awkward beat before I break the silence.

  “May we check in?” I say. “We’re exhausted.”

  “Check-in is not for three hours,” Coco says. “Please sit in the lobby and relax. And welcome to Cusco.”

  THE NEXT THREE NIGHTS OF OUR HONEYMOON ARE SPENT in a sparsely furnished room at El Tuco that costs eight dollars a night. We sleep on separate foam mattresses, wool hats pulled low over our ears to fight the chill.

  “I love you, baby,” Jason says from the across the room.

  My lips chatter too much to reply.

  The windows, lined with iron bars, look out over a highway, a school, and a tightly crammed neighborhood. The room is freezing, but the mold-encrusted shower is excruciatingly hot. I jump in only long enough to boil the germs off my flesh, though I know this will be one of my last hot showers in South America—I should be grateful for water that turns my skin the same color as a ripe tomato.

  I have brought an old iPhone on the trip with me, but it’s not unlocked and doesn’t have a local SIM card, so I can’t make regular phone calls. But whenever I’m within range of Wi-Fi, I can hop on the Skype app and make phone calls, either voice or video.

  When I call my dad to say I’ve settled safely in Cusco, I can reach him only on his cell phone. He’s at the last place my mom will ever live, a special facility for Alzheimer’s patients about thirty miles from the brick house where I grew up. My dad spends hours a day there, every day. Since my mom can no longer walk, he pushes her in a wheelchair around the nursing home, from the parakeet cage in the foyer to the art room where he helps my mom make photo collages and other crafts. He spoons pureed food into her mouth at every meal, because he’s convinced the nurses and aides can’t do it as well as he can. He knows the other patients who live in the same wing, people who confuse him for a son, a husband, or a brother. He waves and plays along with whatever they say.

  When I call, my dad holds the phone up to my mom’s ear. I must speak clearly and loudly—her hearing has gone bad—but she doesn’t recognize my voice.

  “Mom, you would love Cusco. The mountains are so big and green,” I say. “Maybe someday I’ll bring you here.” I know those words are a lie.

  The truth is that I’m
uneasy talking to her. After a lifetime of conversations, midnight confessions, phone calls from college, I no longer know what to say to my own mom. She offers me little in response, so I don’t know if she comprehends anything at all. My words now exist only to fill the blank space. I talk, but for no purpose.

  My sister, who lives nearby and visits our mom often, is much better at navigating this territory than I am. She trots out the same conversation you might have with an employee at the post office. “Great weather we’re having. I love your sweater. That color makes your eyes pop.”

  But me, I’m the emotional one, the overthinker. I recall sitting on my mom’s lap in her yellow rocking chair, her chin resting on my head as we rocked, a gentle seesaw motion over an ocean of shag carpeting. I was an unsettled child, and my mom soothed me, shhhh, shhhh. That is the part I miss most. The comfort. The safe place she built for me. I long for that now: shhh. Pulling me close until my heart is against hers.

  On the phone my mom mumbles. Her words are gibberish. A sloppy soup of letters. My dad grabs the phone from her.

  “Well, kiddo, have a good time. Be safe. You know your mom is very proud of you and loves you.”

  “Yep. I know.” But I don’t. My mom hasn’t known me in years.

  The last time I was in Ohio, several months prior, I sat with my mom in the dining room of her nursing home while she ignored a cup of chocolate pudding. Her once-blonde hair hung limp and gray. Her head lolled against her chest, her eyes downcast. Her face was purple with bruises that she got earlier in the week, a tumble out of her wheelchair when none of the nurses were watching. One doctor suspected my mom had a minor stroke, but it’s hard to tell in an unresponsive patient.

  A nursing aide tuned a radio to a swing music station and pranced around the room, encouraging the residents to dance. Nobody did. The aide clapped to the music, and it was off beat.