Freefall

by Robin Brande

  “You’re getting up?” David asked. “What time is it?”

  “Shh, it’s early. Go back to sleep.”

  He groaned. “Come back here.”

  “I need to write,” Eliza said. “I’ll come back in a while.”

  She wrapped herself in his long, green plaid flannel robe, pulled thick wool socks over her feet, and quietly stole out of the room, shutting the door behind her.

  She made a quick detour into David’s office and pulled a few sheets of blank paper from his printer. She selected a pen and dropped it into her pocket.

  The stairs creaked under her feet. She thought of how carefully she’d descended them a few weeks before, alert for any sound, not wanting to wake David, yet wanting him awake and in her arms again as soon as possible. Now she could make as much noise as she wanted. When she reached the bottom floor she turned into the kitchen and pulled a mug from the shelf. Bear stirred on his dog bed, but didn’t wake. They were all used to each other’s sounds now. She knew he’d continue sleeping for at least the next hour, while she sat in the living room doing what she was about to do.

  She made herself a cup of coffee, then curled up on the soft brown couch. There was a quilt lying over the back of it—one of Hildy’s extras, from home—and Eliza now wrapped that over her legs. She used a book as backing for the paper. Then she pulled out the pen and began writing the words she’d woken up with:

  We all have a natural sense of self-preservation. At least the survivors among us do. Jamey used to see people messing up all the time—daredevils, idiots, drunk show-offs shouting, “Hey, check it out!” as they picked up a rattlesnake with a stick, or did handstands on the rim of cliffs. “Darwinism in action,” Jamey would say. “Clearing out the gene pool.” Because he assumed those people wouldn’t last long. They didn’t respect life.

  I think people think Jamey was like that. That he took unnecessary risks and was just asking for it. I can’t pretend I haven’t thought that at times, too. Cursed him for going out that day, for not just staying home like any normal man and puttering around the house or watching sports on TV.

  But what is a life? Aren’t you supposed to use it? People accumulate clothes in their closets but don’t wear them because they’re saving that one for some special occasion. What if your life, all on its own, is that special occasion? You should wear what you have. You should do what you can. If you’re Jamey Shepherd, you venture out into the world and explore it. You touch it and play with it. You don’t hoard it and wait for some special day when you think, “Yes, I think I’ll go ahead and live an interesting life today. It’s time. Weather looks good. All the right people will be there. Think I’ll just take this life out of the wrapper and put it on.”

  You fall in love with the man or woman someone is. And part of the package is loving them right up until the full expression of their lives. It might be 72 years, like my wonderful father-in-law Ron, or it might be 29, like Jamey. It might be 35—I could lose the man I now love tomorrow.

  And he might lose me. I don’t know what today will bring. I could be walking somewhere and have a tree branch fall on me. Someone might be texting and hit me with their car. I could drink a bad cup of coffee and go into cardiac arrest—I don’t know, and neither do you. And you can sit there afraid of that fact, or shrug, accept it, and go enjoy the day. Right up until the moment when something you didn’t plan on happens, and then you deal with it, because that’s how real life is.

  I’ve been so afraid of my life. Jamey dying was just confirmation for me: Living is dangerous. Don’t do it. Back off. Be safe.

  But the greatest gift my husband ever gave me was taking me out into the world and letting me touch it. Bringing me up tall mountains and showing me the view. Handing me a rope and saying, “Go on, Liz, kick off. I’ve got you. Don’t worry.” I had never felt before that kind of freedom and fear and pride and courage, all wrapped up in one. Jamey meant a lot of things to a lot of people, and I know he wasn’t just here for me, but he changed me—in ways deeper than I still know, or can express to you—and that was a gift I will always treasure and hold up in my heart. He made an adult out of me. He scared me and made me keep moving. And now it’s time I take the next leap.

  This is my last column for a while. Not because I don’t enjoy it, and appreciate the connection you’ve brought to me over the years—I thank every one of you who ever read what I wrote or wrote to me. It matters to me that you wanted to tell me your stories. It matters that you felt touched or inspired by something I wrote, and you saw your own life in some different way. I love that we had that. Thank you.

  But I’m kicking off of the wall. When Jamey first taught me rappelling, I’d stand frozen at the top of a cliff for so long, he thought we’d still be up there past dark. But he never hurried me. Never made me feel foolish for being afraid. He waited until I felt ready—not safe, I could never feel safe hanging from a rope so far off the ground, supported by only a few straps of harness—but ready. Willing. Interested in living my own life.

  I have a new life now. Far away from where I grew up, in a place where the weather is unpredictable in ways I’m not used to. I’ll have to learn to drive on ice. Have to learn not to suffer so much when the summers are so hot and humid I want to live in a bucket of slush. I’m doing that because I’m willing. Ready. Ready to kick off the wall.

  It’s called freefall, and it’s frightening. But it’s also living. It isn’t fair to a life to keep it unused, hanging in a closet in the dark. I have been unfair to my life—maybe you have, too. I’d like you to consider that today as you pull back, resist, tell yourself no when all you yearn for is the yes.

  Take care, all of you. Thank you for this friendship. I might still see you sometimes on the pages somewhere, I might not. I’m kicking out into empty space. It feels wonderful and free.

  Eliza looked up from her pages. The first hints of sunlight were leaking through the windows. She was surprised David still wasn’t up, but they’d had a long night. He needed as much sleep as she did. She’d just needed this more.

  She fixed him a cup of coffee and carried it upstairs. She set it on the bedside table and laid her hand against his cheek. Without opening his eyes, he reached for her and pulled her back into bed with him. He kissed her and they lay like that for a while.

  “David?”

  “Hm?”

  “I need to ask you something.”

  “All right. Do I have to be awake for this?”

  “Yes.”

  He grunted and sat up. Eliza sat on the bed in front of him.

  “Sue told me,” she said. “About you reading my work all these years.”

  David didn’t answer. He reached for the now lukewarm cup of coffee and took a short sip.

  “Can I see?” Eliza asked.

  “See what?”

  “Where you keep it. What you have.”

  David leaned back against the pillow. He looked at her for a long time. Then he said, “If you want to.”

  He got up and she followed him to his office. He sat at his desk and pulled open one of the drawers. He removed a file folder, a thick one, and handed it to Eliza.

  “I’m taking a shower,” he said. “See you in a while.”

  41

  Eliza brought the file folder back to bed. She punched the pillow into place behind her, sat with her legs crossed, and covered herself with the blankets. Then she opened it.

  She laughed at the first picture. Jamey and her looking so tan and skinny and young. No, not tan, Eliza thought, at least not her. That layer on top was dirt.

  Someone had taken the photo of them in the parking lot at the trailhead just after their first long trip into the wilderness. They’d climbed, backpacked, camped, and come out with the agreement to get married. The magazine had asked for a photo of the two of them to introduce their first column together. Jamey had picked that one.

  Eliza took her time thumbing through the pages. She paused every now and then to read a fe
w lines. She had to remember these weren’t just her memories: David had collected all these pages over the years, and they meant something to him. She tried to imagine him, in his twenties and early thirties, reading about her and Jamey from afar. What did he get from these articles and essays? Why did he keep them?

  As she worked her way through the folder, Eliza knew she would come to the end. And she knew what that end would look like. What the picture would be. Which words would appear on the page.

  Finally there it was. Carefully ripped along the edges where he’d torn it from the magazine. The pages loose, not stapled like some of the other ones were, the paper still slick and fresh as if he’d only read it that morning.

  Is it better to die doing what you love, or to be more careful so you can stay alive and keep doing it? Eliza didn’t need to read any further. She felt like she knew it by heart.

  But it was the photo. She hardly ever looked at it—why would she? She knew some people might treasure it: the last known image of a loved one, the photo taken by his own hand. She knew exactly how he’d done it. He sat on the edge of the cliff, his hard, muscular legs dangling over, and he’d held the camera high to capture a view of his feet and the drop below. It would have been a perfect shot—something he could have uploaded to various photo sites so people could license it for their own use. It might be for one of those inspirational posters that said something like Daring, or maybe for an outdoor magazine that didn’t want to pay a photographer to spend the day climbing so he or she could get that shot. Who knows: Jamey’s photos sold a lot of places. It was another small stream of income.

  But Eliza never licensed this one. She let the magazine use it this one time, and that was it. The last thing she wanted was to be flipping through a catalog some day, or be browsing through a bookstore, and suddenly see Jamey’s legs hanging over the cliff where he fell. She hadn’t even wanted the magazine to use it, but she knew Jamey would tell her to do it. “Come on, El, people want to see. It’s dramatic. It’s shocking. I died just five minutes after that. Don’t you think people will eat it up?”

  Eliza closed the file folder. She laid it on the bedside table and got up and went to the bathroom. David’s shower had ended long ago, and he stood in the steam shaving.

  Eliza came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. She laid her cheek against his back. David rested his arm against hers. Then he went back to shaving.

  “Want some more coffee?” Eliza asked him. “Hot this time?”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  She started to leave when he asked, “Everything all right?”

  “Completely,” she said. “Thank you for showing me.”

  She crossed the bedroom toward the hall, but then turned back. She retrieved the file. She carried it back to David’s office and laid it on his desk. He could keep it or not. She had seen what she wanted to see, and now she was done with it.

  Bear greeted her downstairs. He stretched his forelegs long and yawned until his tongue curled. Eliza patted him on the head and began brewing another cup.

  When she brought it up to David, he was already dressing. “I have a meeting,” he said.

  “Too bad.”

  “I’ll come back for lunch.”

  “Too good.”

  “Would you take Bear out?” he asked. “I won’t have time.”

  “Sure, if you think he’ll let me.”

  David kissed her. “He’ll let you.”

  After David left, Eliza summoned the dog and set the alarm and stepped out into the cold winter morning. They walked up the trail to David’s side of the hill, then Eliza took off the leash. Bear leapt and rolled in the snow, as if he’d just seen it for the first time. He raced back and forth, tongue lolling, until Eliza laughed at what a puppy he still was. No wonder David felt protective of him. He really was just a little guy.

  Eliza walked on and let the dog play until he finally returned to her side.

  She had the pages in her pocket. Folded over and stuffed there so she could transcribe them on her laptop back at Hildy’s.

  She’d made a decision some time during the night, solidified by the column she’d just written. Rather than returning to David’s with the dog, she kept on walking home.

  She put Bear back on the leash before they reached the street. For such a big, powerful dog, he felt weightless compared to Daisy. He didn’t pull, didn’t lunge, just walked placidly at her side. She’d forgotten that was possible.

  She wasn’t sure how Daisy would react, but then she was sure she was. The dog screamed out a bark and rushed down the stairs and sniffed all around the Lab. Bear stood wagging his tail, waiting. And then Daisy let him pass.

  The dog seemed huge in the small house. And out of place. But he sniffed around the upstairs for a while, greeted Hildy, then settled down on the floor.

  “See, Daisy?” Eliza said. “That’s what a good dog looks like.”

  Daisy stayed alert, growling low at the Lab for a few more seconds, then gave up and went back to her window.

  “Hildy,” Eliza said, sitting down across from her at the kitchen table. She knotted her hands on the placemat and prepared to make her pitch.

  “I suppose you’ve bought me some Christmas presents already,” Eliza said.

  “I’d better,” Hildy answered. “It’s the twenty-third.”

  “Would it hurt your feelings if I said I don’t want them?”

  Hildy tilted her head. “No, except the one I can’t take back. But I can keep one more quilt if you don’t want it.”

  “No, I want that,” Eliza said, wondering when her mother-in-law had made it. With her arm out of use since September, it had to have been over the summer. Probably while Eliza was gone.

  “I have some savings,” Eliza went on. “Not all of the advance, but still some of it.”

  Hildy’s eyes softened at the edges. Eliza could see she probably guessed what Eliza was about to say.

  “I was wondering if I could borrow—”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s a lot of money, Hildy.” Eliza named the figure.

  “You can have it,” Hildy said.

  “I don’t want to have it, I just want to borrow it,” Eliza said. “I’d rather owe you than the publisher. I’ll pay you back over the year.”

  “So you’re not going to write it?” Hildy asked.

  “I can’t. It’s too long ago now. I wouldn’t know how to do it.”

  Hildy nodded. “It’s good, Lizzy. I didn’t want that book anyway. You and I remember what we remember. That’s good enough.”

  Eliza got up and gave her mother-in-law a brief hug. Then she picked up her laptop and took it to Hildy’s couch. Bear lifted his head as Eliza passed, then relaxed again. She could imagine him there during the days, keeping all three of them company—even Daisy—then returning with Eliza every night. It was a good life. She wanted it. She wanted it every day.

  She spread out the pages she’d written that morning and began typing them into the computer. When she was finished she sent them to the wireless printer and then went to take a shower.

  She dressed in jeans, a sweater, and a wool coat she’d bought the week before. It was charcoal gray, as long as her knees, and felt like nothing she would have ever bought in Henderson. She was in a foreign country now, and learning to dress the way they did. Pretty soon she’d learn what to shout at lacrosse games.

  She drove to The Careyville Independent and handed her column to the editor. She sank into his couch and waited while he read it.

  Frank looked up when he reached the end. Then he laid the pages on top of a pile of them in his in-box.

  “Diamond,” he said.

  Eliza smiled. “Thanks, Frank. I hoped you say that.”

  She stood up and held out her hand. “You’ve been a great editor. Thanks for taking me on.”

  He held her hand and said, “That’s not goodbye, is it?”

  “Nope, I’ll see you around. You can come for Chr
istmas if you want. Hildy and I will just be sitting around drinking cocoa.”

  “Got my kid and grandson,” Frank said, “but some other time.”

  “Sure,” Eliza said. “Whenever you’re free.”

  As she started to leave he said, “I thought you had David now.”

  “I do.”

  “No Christmas with him?”

  “I’m sure we’ll see each other at some point during the day,” she said, “but no specific plans.”

  “Keep me posted,” Frank said.

  “Still nosy about my love life?”

  Frank flicked the pages on top of his pile. “You said it all here, Liza. Glad it’s working out.”

  “See you around, Frank.”

  “See you.”

  When Eliza returned from her errand, Hildy handed her a check. “You take it to the bank today,” she said.

  “Are you sure? I’m not in that big of a hurry—”

  “Banks are probably closed tomorrow, and Christmas for sure, then it’s the weekend, and before you know it it’s New Year’s...”

  “All right. You’re right.” Eliza blew out a breath, then got up again. She folded the check in her pocket.

  The bank was close to a Walsh’s. It was the same Walsh’s Eliza had driven past countless times, and always resisted going in. But it was almost lunchtime, and she had a date. It might be nice to show up with food.

  She entered the store and looked around. It wasn’t as new and big as Ted’s store in Monarch, and that was definitely a plus. But it also wasn’t as cramped and dark as the little neighborhood store where she shopped, and that was a plus, too. Maybe she could give in. Stop saying no to herself about so many little things when all you yearn for is the yes.

  She saw him before he saw her. Talking to one of the employees, listening, nodding. Looking handsome and sure of himself. She had a crush on him, all right, Eliza thought, on top of being in love.