Tom swings his head to me, maybe expecting me to combat with Connor. I don’t. “Timeout in the rocking chair.”
“No!”
“I hate that word,” I snap and put him in a tiny rocking chair that faces the wall. “If you move, you’ll just be here for another five minutes.”
Tom huffs, but we let Eliot sit near and keep his brother company. His own punishment will come soon enough.
Connor didn’t call me to calm them. I’m not that type of force. He soothed Ben; our boy’s cheek is pressed to Connor’s shoulder, tears dried.
I have other uses. I’m an extra set of hands and another voice our children respect. I’ve contained Eliot and Tom—though they’re talkative and rowdy in the corner. At least they’re not flying across the playroom like little winged devils.
Connor’s hand slides up my arm, and I face my husband. Without heels, I feel naked. I clear a lump in my throat, today’s stressful events catching up with me.
Connor almost imperceptibly studies my body, my features—my pierced gaze. My collar is tight, spine erect and rigid. I even tuck a piece of hair behind my ear, wishing I had a tie to pull the strands into a tight pony.
“What did you need from me? Is there something more?” I whisper to Connor.
His hand skims my stiff neck, and his lips drift to my ear, “We can talk later, darling.”
“I’m here to help you,” I rebut. “You’re not here to help me.”
“Stop laughing!” Jane yells at Tom and Eliot, the boys giggling merrily. “You don’t deserve to laugh, you toad!”
I have to snap, “Jane, don’t call your brother a toad.”
Tears well, her mouth agape as though I betrayed her in favor of Tom once again. Not happening.
“And Tom,” I quickly add, “silence in that corner now.” Eliot and Tom immediately grow quiet.
Jane rubs her tears with her cheetah-print sweater. “There are too many boys.”
Connor is so off his game because he tells her, “Women make up twenty-five percent of this family, Jane.”
I scoff. “That’s not even half, Richard.”
He stays quiet, even recognizing that the statistic could be better. He blinks a few times, as though trying to clear his mind and bring his intellect into utmost focus.
“Boys aren’t so bad,” I tell Jane, my voice stilted. I do believe this, even if it’s a chore to say. “Tom can be a little demon, but he also helped you paint your kitten mural yesterday, didn’t he?”
Jane sighs heavily. “I suppose.”
Connor rests his hand on the base of my neck, my pulse thumping in my veins. He searches my gaze once more, the room dissolving into subdued chatter. The storm hasn’t settled, but the roar isn’t blistering.
“What happened?” I ask beneath my breath, and I reach up to his eye.
Connor clasps my hand before I can touch, authority always in his stance. “After Beckett shoved Eliot, Eliot threw toy blocks at him. I was a casualty of war.”
My lip quirks. “Obviously.”
He absorbs my smile, and his grin truly appears, maybe for the first time since I’ve arrived. “You take pleasure in my wound?”
“Yes,” I say without a beat. “A three-year-old chinked your armor.”
His grin only grows. “But I’ve won the war.”
I roll my eyes, about to pick up the blocks, but Connor seizes my arm just as I shift slightly. My chest collapses at his soulful expression, clear and decipherable, one that says, talk a little longer.
I need you, Rose.
I swallow, and his breath heavies like he can’t imagine me spinning around. Like he can’t imagine me leaving for work. Like he’d rather go through this day with me and only me.
He peruses my unoiled posture, Ben falling asleep on his chest. “And you?”
“And me, nothing.” I could easily leave his grasp, but I don’t want to. I like the strength of his firm hand on my arm. I like knowing I have the power to say no, and he’d listen in an instant.
His brow arches, eyeing my demeanor more outwardly so I see that he sees my anxiety. “Your body says otherwise.” He’s aware the news will fall today, and maybe that also prodded him to call me, to ask me to return home, so I wouldn’t battle these sentiments alone.
“Then stop staring at my body. I can pluck out your eyeballs if you can’t restrain yourself.”
“Rose—”
“I’m here to help you,” I remind him. “This isn’t about me.”
“We’re on the same team, Rose,” he says, forcing this truth. “You can try to argue, but you won’t win.”
Translation: I will aid you on the battlefield until death do us part.
I begin to surrender, letting his hand slide to my cheek. He kisses my forehead, and I ask him, “Is there something more with you?”
“My father called.”
I freeze. “What?”
Connor hardly reacts, but Jim Elson has had no relationship with Connor, not after his mother was granted full custody of their son in their divorce. And Connor and Jim were distant before that instant.
I remember that Katarina Cobalt gave their son her last name from the very first moment he was born—breaking common tradition.
Connor says that his father never cared to have any claim over him, and it was fine—he never wanted to be claimed by anyone. “Our lack of feelings are mutual,” he’ll always say.
So now…why now? I glare, ready to unleash fiery hell upon his father. “Should I break out my knives? A match? Lighter fluid?”
“Hypothetical arson this early in the morning,” he says with a rising grin, like he’s not surprised I’m weaving exaggerations already.
My eyes narrow. “I wasn’t trying to surprise you. I’m trying to plan a flaming ball of destruction.”
“Focus your energy on someone worthwhile. Jim Elson is no one. He called to ask me about lawyers. Someone discovered him online, and he wants to protect himself from being publically profiled. It’s a task I never wanted to add to my list.”
Connor can easily shove those responsibilities onto other people, but needing to use his resources to help Jim Elson would be grating for him. He’d only do it to put the situation to bed and avoid exacerbating the issues.
“RETURN THAT, YOU THIEF!” Jane shouts, in a tug-o-war with three-year-old Eliot for her stuffed lion.
They all start yelling over one another, and Beckett solves the issue before we can, yanking the stuffed lion towards Jane.
Eliot falls on his ass, but he rolls over and acts like nothing happened. Tom is supine on the carpet, acting like he’s dead.
He does this.
He’s not dead. He’s grinning.
My tense breath is like daggers in my ribs, and Connor kisses my forehead once more, our children out of hand, but his attention partially on me. “They’re terrible,” I mutter. I love them all. It lifts my carriage—and then my phone rings.
I smooth my lips together, eyeing my purse in the center of the room. I can’t even recall setting it down. I’d rather ignore the call and stand opposite Connor, but without heels, I’m much shorter than his six-foot-four height. I want to be at equal footing in all ways.
Maybe we are. His hair unkempt, his eye bruised. My blouse astray, skirt crooked. His father’s phone call. My impending one.
Our vulnerabilities at the forefront in the same moments.
At the same time.
Connor starts, “I can answer—”
“I have it.” I leave him, and he follows, setting Ben on a bouncer. I dig through my Chanel handbag and find my cellphone.
My throat constricts, and I rise uneasily. “The doctor is calling.”
Connor edges close, until I have to crane my neck to meet his eyes. I don’t feel shrunken. His power and fortitude transfers through my veins, and his hand glides up my arm, resting on my breastbone. My raging heartbeat pounds against his palm.
I’m frightened by the worst, and he can see and feel ju
st how severely.
“‘Nothing will come of nothing,’” Connor whispers a quote from Shakespeare’s King Lear and adds his own words at the end. “You’ve at least tried to do more than nothing.”
I’m on the second to last cellphone ring. “And what if nothing comes from something?”
“What if,” he says like the phrase has stalked him in the past.
I answer the phone, and I’m dazed by the doctor’s words. I listen, trying to ingest every syllable, but the result bludgeons me. “I understand,” I say strictly before ending the call and dropping my phone to my purse.
The embryo did not take.
I’m not pregnant with my sister’s child. I only have one more chance to get this right.
One chance.
I can’t prepare. I can’t do anything but wait.
Connor clutches my cheek, forceful. Commanding. “Rose.” He murmurs French softly in my ear, but I can hardly process. I’m supposed to be here helping him. I think I must express this aggressively, my palms on his chest, fisting his dark blue shirt.
“We’re a team, Rose,” he repeats again.
“Then we must both be losing.” My eyes sear as blistering tears build.
He shakes his head. “This is not our worst.”
This is not our worst.
Eliot suddenly bounds over to us and chants, “Kiss, kiss, kiss!”
My nose flares, chest collapsing and rising so heavily. Connor has me pressed close, my arms locked as tight as my unbending body, never loosening my fierce grip on his shirt.
“Kiss! Kiss!”
Connor’s fingers slide assuredly from my cheek towards the back of my head. He leans down and tilts my chin up. His lips nearly brush mine as he murmurs, “I hear your heart.”
Tears slip from the creases of my eyes—and before I turn my head away from him, away from our children, he shields our faces with his cupped hand.
I murmur just as softly, “And what sound is my heart making?”
His words dive deep into me. “It beats—it beats.” He whispers against my lips, “It beats in equal time with mine.” He kisses me, raw and smooth sentiments cutting and flowing through us.
We never leave for our closet, to the darkest, dimmest depths. We kiss in the open, with nothing but his hand as the sole barrier between our children and us.
He breathes assuredness and self-belief, filling me completely.
This is not our worst.
< 32 >
April 2023
Sugar Loaf Bluff
Winona, Minnesota
RYKE MEADOWS
Daisy steps on and off a small boulder at the base of a limestone rock pinnacle called Sugar Loaf Bluff. I tie a figure-8 knot at the end of my rope, wondering what she’s thinking. We’ve been in Minnesota all week because of me.
I had a fucking Ziff commercial shoot for a summer campaign. The new drink tastes better than anything they’ve made in the past eight years. The label just has a Z and the new brand name: Ascend. For the shoot, I trad climbed a tough route. This forty-five foot peak at Sugar Loaf is nothing in fucking comparison to yesterday’s grit and grind.
Daisy spins on the rock, catching me staring, and mock gasps. “You look just like my husband.”
I crack a smile.
She shares it, but they fade together. An undercurrent has been swelling beneath us all week. The first embryo failed, and the test results for the second one should be coming in soon. We go moment-by-moment, and we’ve been reminding each other everything I once said in Sully’s Jeep.
We’re lucky. No matter what fucking happens.
Daisy drops off the boulder, and I near her first, cupping her face with one hand. My thumb brushes her long scar. We’ve never been able to hide what we’ve been through.
We wear it all.
I kiss her cheek, and I feel her smile return.
She whispers, “There’s a peanut butter cupcake behind you.”
I look over my shoulder, just as Sulli finishes buckling her harness. You can see it in her fucking eyes—she cuts no corners, focused and determined to get it right.
“Done!” she tells me proudly. Yesterday, she watched me climb and Daisy said she told a production assistant, that’s my daddy.
I part from Daisy to bend down to our five-year-old. “What’s the next step?” I quiz her and set the rope aside.
“Re-check my work. I make sure all the buckles are double-backed.”
“What happens if they aren’t?”
“I fall.”
I hold her by the waist and tug on her harness, tight enough. “Where are the fucking buckles?”
She points to three places: her waist, the left leg and the right leg.
I check each one and then ensure her leg loops aren’t twisted. “What next?”
Sulli has this keen concentration that pinpoints her eyes. She’s not flighty like Daisy. Even now she remains focused and stationary while Daisy wanders around us. But she lacks a certain fucking darkness like me. She’s innocent and light.
“Leg loops?” she questions.
I nod. “And then?”
Sulli stares at the blue sky for answers. “Um.” She touches her lips. “Ropes?”
“You check your partner’s fucking harness and vice versa. Their life is as much yours.”
Sullivan motions to me. “But you’re only wearing a chalk bag?”
I finish checking her and stand up. “I’m going to wear a fucking harness and belay you.” She’s five. She can’t climb all forty-five feet, but she can try to ascend a small portion of the route. I chose Sugar Loaf today because it’s a good sport climb for Sullivan.
And a great free-solo climb for me.
It’ll be the first time I free-solo in six long fucking years.
As I bend for the rope, handing it to Sulli, my right knee throbs but dully. Nearly in the back corners of my mind. It hurts no more than yesterday and the day before that. It reminds me of Adam Sully more than it reminds me of our worst day together. I hang onto him. He’s what I fucking loved, and I didn’t even realize how strongly, how powerfully I identified rock climbing with him—and how much it’d all change once he was gone.
During the trad climb for the commercial, I decided that I’d free-solo at the end of this trip. It’s a feeling. A yearning desire to push myself where I’d been.
It’s back.
I fucking feel it again, and I’m not letting go.
I squat back in front of Sulli. Daisy veers towards us, her phone in her hand, but I tell our daughter, “I’m going to fucking climb first. Alone.”
Sulli nods.
Daisy tears her gaze off the cell to add, “What he can do, only highly-skilled professional rock climbers do. So don’t be scared. He’s this strong.” Daisy playfully squeezes my muscle and then tries to push my arm upwards but acts like it’s a thousand fucking tons.
She pants, pretending to be out of breath.
I push her forehead and she drifts, anticipating my response and playing up my strength for Sulli.
Our daughter tries to puff out her chest. “I’m not scared.”
Daisy wraps her arms around her, and Sulli is the first to brush noses with Daisy.
I fucking love them.
Then a Beyoncé song interrupts the moment. Fucking A. Rose is calling. Daisy hesitates to answer her cell. “I can call her back after you climb.”
If it’s bad news, would I be able to climb today? No. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. I’d be fucking worried about Dais, and I’d want to be on the ground with her.
“Here.” I motion to the cell.
She hands it to me, letting me decide. I answer. I have to fucking answer. “Hey, Rose.”
“I have to make this quick because my arch nemesis wanted the results by noon.” She obviously means Connor. “Is Daisy there?”
“Right here.” Daisy speaks into the receiver.
“You’ll want to buy a cake.”
Daisy eats cake for sad a
nd fucking happy occasions, so this isn’t helping. “What kind of cake?” Daisy draws out the inevitable.
“Fuck that. Just fucking tell us.”
“It worked.” I can hear Rose’s smile in her voice before I feel mine spread. She’s pregnant. “…why is there silence? I need something.”
I put the speaker closer to my mouth. “Dais is crying. Thanks, Rose.” Fuck. I’m crying. I wipe my eyes, kiss Daisy’s cheek, and she crouches to Sulli’s height and hugs her. Sullivan doesn’t know all the details yet, but she knows we’re happy.
So she smiles with us.
“Talk later.” Rose hangs up.
I mess Daisy’s hair and whisper, “I’m going, sweetheart.”
She nods and looks up at me. “We’ll be here. In Winona, Minnesota.” She wags her brows. I push her face affectionately, and she bites my finger.
Winona, Minnesota.
And here, I stand. No rope. No harness. I dip my hands into chalk and near the rock pinnacle. I grip the rough surface with two fingers. Weightless.
My body and my will keep me fucking alive. I lift myself off the ground, quickly reaching for the next handhold, placing my feet. I rise. I climb.
And I hear the soulful call of the mountains.
Hello again, old friend.
{ 33 }
September 2023
The Hale House
Philadelphia
LOREN HALE
“Are you sure you want to babysit?” I ask Maria.
She casually leans against the door frame of the kitchen pantry. Three-year-old Luna has physically attached herself to her older cousin’s ankle. Luna stares up at Maria with beady amber eyes, half-giggling like she’s invisible to Maria. And Maria, my fifteen-year-old niece, just stands there like this is the most normal thing in the entire world.
“It’s not too late to back out,” I add and shove a tray of fish sticks into the oven. “If you have important shit to do, we can call someone else.”
“Like what?” she asks, arms crossed, more “chill” than even her mother, Poppy. And I really didn’t think that was fucking possible. “Homework? I dropped out of Dalton Academy this year, remember?”
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