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 and 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?”
I slam the oven door closed harder than I intended. “You didn’t drop out.” I already hear her dad in my head. Samuel Stokes couldn’t shut up about the whole ordeal.
My daughter is choosing acting over a traditional education.
You’d think Captain America would be upset over the choice, but Sammy was over-the-moon. Like actually proud. I forgot that Sam had been into art growing up, kind of like Poppy, but he ditched his dreams for her. And he ultimately ended up working at Fizzle, her father’s company.
He’s happy she chose her passion.
Maria makes a face at Luna and shakes her long brown hair at the toddler.
Luna giggles but never speaks, still acting like she’s invisible. My lips curve up. My kid is cute. Example A: she’s in a dinosaur bathrobe and penguin slippers. Example B: she’s my kid.
“I kind of did drop out,” Maria says to me.
I give her a look. “What, do you want to be a dropout? You switched to homeschool. Last time I checked, the word school still implies an education.”