by Rayman Black
I made myself smile believably, and turned my attention to the paperwork. I filled it out mechanically, my mind already going back to wondering what was going on with Chris and his phone call with Jeff. I knew what complicated sibling relationships were all about, and without knowing how, I knew that Chris was upset and confused. I wanted to offer him an ear, or a shoulder if he needed one. I wasn’t sure how to offer it to him, though, and despite my legal status as wife, I didn’t think I had a right to push into his privacy uninvited.
How interesting that we both knew what it was like to have this kind of tension in our families. It was just one more thread we had in common, one more way we could understand each other.
Dana interrupted my thoughts as she came bouncing up to us. “Are you ready to get suited up?” she asked brightly.
I glanced at Chris and rose to my feet. “As ready as I’ll ever be,” I said, and followed her around the counter.
16
Chris
The plane rumbled under our feet as we sat crammed together on the bench. I could feel Katie trembling beside me. I slid an arm around her, pulling her close to my side as the plane taxied down the runway and took off, rising quickly into the sky.
Dana leaned over and yelled over the noise of the engine, “We’re going to travel to a height of about 14,000 feet. Remember, when you jump, make sure you jump with your partner. Katie, you’re with me. Chris, you’ll jump with Hector.” She gestured the small Hispanic man who had boarded the plane with us after our training.
I stroked Katie’s shoulder, hoping to comfort her. I felt her first slowly stop trembling, then relax against my body. My mind was far away, caught on the conversation I had in the car. I could still hear Jeff’s voice in my head.
I found them, Chris. They moved to Brooklyn. I have their address, cell phone numbers, even a report of their daily routines. There’s a lot to read through. The guy was very thorough.
I couldn’t believe that my brother had actually hired a private investigator to track down one particular family in New York City based on scraps of information remembered by a traumatized fourteen year old kid. I hadn’t even been sure the family would still be there, or where to even begin. What was more amazing about it was that I hadn’t even talked to Jeff about it, not once. He had overheard a conversation I had been having with my mother about the family, about my desire to find them and make some kind of restitution. He had barged in and demanded answers in his usual arrogant, entitled way. Our mom had told him about it before I could stop her, but even at the time I didn’t think Jeff knowing would change anything one way or another. We were competitors for everything - best grades in school, best track times in sports, our father’s approval. Jeff was always the winner, and I had learned to deal with that over time.
It still rankled, though. Enough that I had recently taken to avoiding Jeff’s calls, or not going to our parents’ house when I thought he might be there. It was childish, and now I felt even more terrible about my behavior, once I learned what my brother had done. Why had he done it? I couldn’t remember a time that my brother had done anything for me altruistically. There was always a catch. Finally, I shook my head. I wouldn’t be able to unknot this from here, and certainly not from the belly of a small plane that I was just about to jump out of.
I looked down at Katie. “You okay?” I asked her, rubbing her arm briskly.
She looked up at me and smiled. “As I’ll ever be,” she said, but her voice sounded steady. Her face was so pale I was afraid she might faint, and a small tremor had returned.
At Dana’s signal, we rose together, making our way to the wide door that opened in the side of the plane. Katie stopped in the middle of the aisle.
“I can’t do this,” she said, her words clear despite the noise around us.
“You can,” I said, putting my hands on her shoulders. “You can, and you will. Come on, Katie, you can do this.”
She shook her head. “This was such a bad idea. Why would we jump out of a plane, for goodness’ sake?”
I turned her around to look at me. I wouldn’t let her drop her gaze. “Listen to me, Katie. You’re the bravest person I know. I saw you in training down there. You picked everything up so well! You’ll do fine, and you’ll never have another experience like it. Okay? Let’s go jump!”
She nodded, but she still looked uncertain. It hit me then that she was doing this for me, not because it was something she thought would be fun. Like the strip club last night, she thought I wanted this kind of adventure. And I did. Skydiving was something I had thought about for a long time, something I had always planned to try eventually. But not at the expense of someone I loved.
I gripped her hand in mine and nodded back. “You can do this,” I repeated. Dana was standing behind Katie, waiting patiently for us to work this out. She winked at me and took Katie’s hand.
“Are you ready?” she yelled over the engine. Katie looked back at me uncertainly, then swallowed hard and nodded. “Let’s go!” With one final look back, Katie jumped out of the plane, followed immediately by Dana.
“Okay, fella, it’s your turn,” Hector yelled, but there was no need. I remembered the instructions from training, too. Wait ten seconds, then make the next jump. I counted it slowly in my head and launched myself out of the plane.
I was dimly aware of Hector behind me, whooping as he dropped into freefall, but my attention was focused on my own drop. The wind rushed past my ears, deafening me. I couldn’t even hear my own whoops or yells as I hurtled to the earth, the extraordinary panorama or the Grand Canyon laid out all around me. It was incredible. I had never experienced anything so amazing.
I looked down and saw Katie and Dana below Hector and me. I couldn’t tell just from looking at her what she was feeling, but I hoped she was finding as much joy in this drop as I was. I saw her hand move, unerringly locating the pull for her parachute. The canopy deployed, dragging her up before she started floating gracefully down. Was it a trick of my eyes, or did I see her laugh?
Dana deployed her own ‘chute, and so did Hector. Almost too late, I remembered that I, too, was meant to pull my own. I reached for it, pulled with all my might, and felt all the breath in my body leave me with a whoosh as I rocketed backward.
I whooped with joy, laughing as the parachute unfurled and I started drifting almost lazily down to the landing pad I could see as only a speck in the distance. I looked out over the beauty of the scene around me, the most amazing view I had ever seen. And now, because of Katie, I wasn’t just seeing the Grand Canyon. I was damn near part of it.
It didn’t take long to float down to the landing pad. The women touched down before Hector and me, scrambling to get their parachutes out of the way before we got tangled in them. I was laughing as Hector helped me to undo all the straps and buckles that tied me to the equipment. The moment I was clear, Katie rushed over and threw her arms around me.
“That was the craziest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” she said, her voice muffled against my chest. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her in close.
“Crazier than marrying me in Las Vegas?” I teased.
She looked up at me and I could see unshed tears in her eyes. “By far,” she said, giving me a watery smile. “Marrying you doesn’t have the possibility of sudden death.” Her face grew solemn and she leaned up to kiss me softly. “Thank you for talking me down in the plane. I wouldn’t have been able to do this without you.”
I kissed her back and stepped away, keeping her hand in mine. “Yes, you would’ve,” I said confidently. “But you may not have come here to try. I’m glad we did this together.”
Canyon Diving provided a shuttle from the landing pad to the hangar. When we got there, we said our thank yous and goodbyes to Dana and Hector, and headed back to the rental car.
“Let’s get something to eat,” I said, squeezing Katie’s hand as I opened her door for her. “I’m starving.”
Katie pressed a hand to her stom
ach. “I don’t know if I could eat anything,” she admitted. “I feel like I’ve been on a thousand roller coasters today.”
I laughed. “Yeah, me, too, but there isn’t much that puts me off my appetite. Want to keep me company while I eat?”
She smiled. “Sure. Who knows? Maybe seeing food will spark some hunger for me.”
We found a Mexican restaurant not far from the diving place, and settled into a large, cushy booth. My hands felt slick with sweat as I looked over the menu. I was hungry, that much was true, but I also wanted to talk to Katie and I wasn’t sure how she was going to take it. I didn’t want to make her angry, or worse, make her cry. But there were things that needed to be said, and I could no longer avoid them.
The waiter appeared and took our order for chimichangas and tamales, leaving soft drinks behind him. I picked mine up, sipping the lemon-lime drink as the bubbles tickled my nose.
Katie folded her arms on the table in front of her and leaned in conspiratorially. She seemed to have recovered her usual self-possession. “So,” she said, her voice hushed. “Are you going to tell me what’s on your mind, or should I guess?”
Her voice was playful and her eyes sparkled with mischief, but still she surprised me. I swallowed hard, provoking a coughing fit that made my eyes water. I stared at her in surprise.
“You’ve been fidgety since I calmed down after our jump,” she explained, taking a delicate sip of her own cola. “Thank you, by the way. I didn’t mean to break down like that. It was just a little - overwhelming.”
I nodded. “That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about,” I said. I took a deep breath and plunged ahead. “I had an amazing time. It was a dream come true, to jump over the Canyon like that. And I’m so glad I was able to do it with you.” I took her hand in mine and gently stroked my thumb over the soft skin of her wrist. “But Katie, you didn’t even want to do it. Skydiving is clearly not a life goal of yours, so why did we do it?”
She looked confused and uncomfortable. “I just thought it was the kind of thing you would like,” she said. She tugged at her hand, but I wouldn’t let it go. “I thought you would like it,” she repeated unnecessarily.
“I did,” I confirmed. “I loved it, every second. But just like the strip club yesterday, I don’t want to do things just because you think I might like it. I want to do things that you’re going to like, too.”
She blinked at me. “Are you saying you didn’t want to go to the club yesterday, or skydiving today?” she asked, and I could see she was a little offended.
“I love that you were thinking about me,” I said, trying to soothe her. “Your creativity and generosity of spirit are amazing. But think about this. What if I took you to your dream place, and planned a day full of activities you love, but I was scared or nervous or uncomfortable the whole time. Would that be very much fun for you?”
I saw understanding start to dawn on her face, and I pressed on before I completely lost my nerve. “Listen, Katie, I want to spend time with you, with the real you, not the party girl face you put on for everyone else. Believe me, I understand a lot about trying to make things easier for other people by pretending to be something that I’m not. I don’t want you to ever feel like you have to do that with me.” I lifted her hand to my lips, kissing the ridiculous plastic ring she still wore. “Whatever we end up having between us, we’re married, Katie. Isn't marriage the one place you can really be yourself?”
Tears had crowded her eyes again, but not a single one spilled over. She sniffed and said, “You know what I really want to do?” She paused, clearly uncertain about sharing this with me. I nodded encouragingly, and after a moment she continued. “I want to travel to India by myself and spend at least aweek in a yoga ashram. I think the quiet and peace would be like heaven on earth.”
My smile widened. I realized what a gift she had just given me, the trust she had shown with her honesty. “That’s a beautiful goal,” I said, and I meant it. Despite the sexy vixen vibe she tried to project, the more time I spent with Katie the more I saw the woman inside her. She was far more grounded and serious than she allowed other people to see, with a strength and a vulnerability that acted like a magnet on me.
She blinked away her tears and took a deep breath, then asked, “So what did your brother call to talk about?”
I froze, my hands tightening reflexively over hers. Instinctively, I wanted to blow it off. I wanted to say something light and funny and change the subject to something - anything - else. But what kind of hypocrite would that make me? So instead I took a deep breath. If I wanted Katie to enter into the spirit of a marriage and be honest with me, how could I do anything less for her?
17
Katie
I wasn’t sure why I asked. It wasn’t what I intended to say. I just needed a minute to collect myself after telling him about India. I never told anyone about India. So I blurted out the first thing that came to mind, and apparently I had been stewing over his phone call with his brother.
I could see Chris was struggling with whether to talk about it or not, and it was on the tip of my tongue to tell him about Samantha when he started talking.
“I didn’t grow up in Boston,” he began. “My family moved here when I was fourteen. Before that we lived in the Bronx in New York City. It was a rough neighborhood.” His eyes grew far away as he remembered. “My brother and I weren’t allowed to out on the streets much. We lived close to the school, close to the church, close to the family and friends we had. We walked there and we walked home and the rest of the time we stayed inside, either in our apartment or at one of our friends’.” He smiled grimly. “Jeff never seemed to have a problem with that. As far as I know, he never did anything our parents told him not to. But I was beginning to feel like I was living in a cage. I wanted some freedom.
“It wasn’t even that I wanted to do anything in particular. I just wanted to walk around by myself, look at the world around me without being constantly hurried past it and into another building. I lied to my family and told them I was staying after school to study, but I was really taking those walks. I did this for weeks, watching the neighborhoods change as the blocks passed.”
Our waiter arrived with the food, and Chris paused while he set the plates in front of us. “Thank you,” he said, giving the man a friendly smile. He waited until he was gone and smiled wryly at me. “I told you all of that so I could tell you this. Everything changed later that year. I was almost fifteen and I could walk for miles without resting. I saw more of the city, more of the variety life could hold during those months than any other time of my life, except maybe my first year at the station. I have some great memories from that time, one of those childhood moments that you look back on and think, I grew up a little then. Then one day I was running late getting home in time for dinner and I cut through an alley I thought would get me there faster. Only I wasn’t the only one in the alley.”
I listened, rapt, imagining him as a boy trying to figure out how to start becoming a man. I obviously wasn’t a man and couldn’t know what it was like, but I remembered my own restlessness around that age, the feeling that I was growing too big for my skin and any day now I would burst out of it and my real life would somehow begin. “Who was there?” I asked. “Not a nice person, I assume.”
“One of them wasn’t,” he said, his voice tight. “The alley ran behind a restaurant. When I first turned down the alley, the restaurant door opened and a man came out, carrying the trash. He threw it in the bin and nodded to me as he started to go back inside.” He paused, then shook his head. “Out of nowhere, this guy was there, waving a gun in the restaurant man’s face and demanding his money. I ducked behind a tree as soon as I saw him, and I didn’t think he could see me, but I peeked around the edge of the tree to watch. I thought about running back down the way I had come and getting help, but then I thought of the gun and how far people could shoot in the movies.
“I just stood there, listening to this drug-crazed l
unatic threaten the man whose only crime was that he was unlucky enough to get in his way. He waved the gun around, and the whole time the man has his hands out like this,” he said, holding his hands out palms down with his fingers splayed. “I think he was trying to tell the guy to calm down, that he was getting his wallet. His voice was pitched low, like when you’re trying to soothe an angry animal. But the guy wasn’t listening, and something about the man’s movement toward his pocket for his wallet just set him off.” Chris swallowed hard and said evenly, “He shot him. Just lifted his gun straight at him and pulled the trigger. The bullet ripped through his throat and lodged in the wall over the sink, inside the building behind him. He was dead before I reached his side.” He looked up at me. “The guy didn’t even take his wallet. He just ran.”
“Oh, Chris,” I said, squeezing his hands as a band of shocked horror squeezed my heart. “That’s a terrible thing for a kid to see. What happened to you?”
“I don’t remember all of it. I just sat there, staring at him, until a woman came out and started screaming. Then there was an ambulance and police everywhere and a lot of crying. It’s all kind of a muddle until my parents showed up at the hospital to take me home. I had to give a statement, and I had nightmares for months that the guy with a gun had found me and had come to shoot me, too.”
“What did your parents say, when you got home? What did they do?” I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to experience that kind of thing. How did you live with it? How did you move on?
“My dad was pissed,” Chris said, and I could see the hurt this still caused. “They wanted to know why I was in the neighborhood when I said I was going to be at school, and my habit of wandering came out. It seemed like he got stuck on that, and wouldn’t talk about anything else. I think he just didn’t know how to handle all the rest of it.” He smiled then, and his eyes warmed. “But my mom was great. She told my dad it was time to leave New York and take the promotion in Boston he was offered at his office. We were gone in less than three months.”