Like selling the business. Or Josh.
She scooted some of the binders out of the way and looked at the same pictures that had always been there: a wedding picture of her mom, a studio portrait from when April was a baby, a first-grade April sitting on her dad’s lap in the Mooney Rocket, and the relatively recent addition of one of April’s high school senior photos.
The Mooney Rocket was out in the hangar. She left the office and climbed inside the plane, shutting the door. Here, her father’s presence was more alive than ever. It felt like he was right next to her and they were getting ready to fly. The plane was in perfect condition. Perhaps when Hal got back she’d ask to take it up before she went back to Yosemite.
She wanted to fly. This was a huge development. She’d spent time in her father’s office at home without having a panic attack, and now she’d come to the hangar and it actually felt good. Yes, she was truly improving.
The two wallet-size pictures on the dashboard were the same ones in all of her dad’s planes: a miniature of her mom’s catalog cover and a picture of April as a toddler, holding a toy biplane.
“I miss you, Dad,” she whispered.
She wished that somehow she could tell him about switching her major to film. She wanted to know that he would be happy that she had found her passion, even though it meant she was not following in his footsteps.
Letting his planes go was not going to be easy, but this visit to the hangar made it feel less sacrosanct. Hal kept the flight school side of the business going surprising well, especially considering he didn’t have any control to make improvements or take it in his own direction now that the Mitch Stephens Aerial Performances side of the business was defunct. Her mom had told her Hal was still interested in buying the flight school and planes and had even researched some business loans to make sure he would qualify if they decided to sell.
Yes, if the business was not to be run by her, then this is what her dad would have wanted, especially now that both of Hal’s boys were showing interest in careers in aviation.
She’d talk to her mom later tonight, and perhaps they could get the paperwork started before she returned to Yosemite.
…
April biked back to the house in time to shower before Mom picked her up for a happy hour dinner at Schmidt’s.
They sat at their usual table and placed their usual food and drink orders. April chewed a long, thin breadstick while her mother responded to a page from the hospital. Being back at this familiar place that had nothing but good memories reinvigorated some of April’s confidence that had once been so easy and abundant.
“How did you stand what he did for a living?” she asked when her mom was off the phone.
“Dad? You mean the flying?”
“The tricks. The danger. I mean, you’re afraid of heights. You don’t even like flying on commercial air.”
The waiter delivered their half-price mojitos. She and her mom clinked glasses.
“I suppose it was because I was young,” Mom said. “I don’t think I understood the risks. My friends and I thought it was fabulous that he was a stunt pilot.”
“Did you ever see him in a show before you got married?”
“No, but we went to air shows, and he had me out for practices. He was just getting started then. He didn’t have as much work as…”
Her mother’s voice trailed into a sip of mojito. As he did at the end, April filled in silently.
“When did you figure out how dangerous it was?” she asked.
“Your dad had a good friend who lived near here and also flew the circuit. George. He crashed into Coyote Mountain and died. It was during a practice flight. That’s when it sank in for me.”
“And then there was Sam Stark, and then Bill’s break apart in Georgia, and then that kid who trained with Dad—”
“Listen, April, I know what you’re getting at. Does this have anything to do with your climber?”
“No.”
“You want to know if I would trade what I had with your dad for someone who would still be around when I was ninety.”
“No.” April bit the top off a breadstick. “Okay, would you?”
“That’s the question every reporter used to ask me. How could Mitch take such risks when he had a wife and daughter at home? And I’m not just talking about the tail slide. They were asking that twenty years before Saguaro Butte.”
And with good reason. April folded her arms across her chest.
“The answer to your question is no. Even with the wisdom of hindsight, I wouldn’t trade the time I had with Mitch for having longer with someone else.”
“But you hated it. You used to keep your eyes closed for his whole performance sometimes!”
“Your dad and your climber are not parallel situations, April. I want you to remember that. I grew up with parents who ran a clothing store. I wanted the excitement. You grew up with a father who you were terrified would die.”
April was surprised her mother knew that. She had always been so careful not to speak her fears aloud. Acknowledging them would be like a jinx.
“Then why did you let him do it?” she asked. Her voice was sharp with accusation.
Her mom looked out the window, then back to April. “Sometimes, when I feel bad for myself being alone, I think of my patients. The ones who are widows of police officers and soldiers. There’s no reason to come see me if everything is going well. They find me after their worst fears have come true.”
“Dad made your worst fears come true.”
“Honey, listen to where I’m going.”
April dabbed at the condensation on her half-empty mojito glass.
“There are police officers and firefighters in every city and county,” her mom said. “There are millions of soldiers. Construction and manufacturing can be dangerous, too. Men leave behind young kids, wives, parents, best friends. We’re not alone in this—always remember that. Fear of losing your loved ones is something everyone faces. And no one is exempt from that fear coming true.”
“Dad wasn’t protecting anybody or saving lives,” she said. “Dad was an entertainer. Like a magician or actor. There’s nothing noble about that.”
Her voice was too shrill. She was saying things she knew she would regret later. This wasn’t the direction she had wanted this conversation to go.
“I know Dad loved what he did, and he was the best at it,” April said quietly, “but I’d rather he still be here with us.”
Her mom laid her hand across April’s. “It’s okay that it still hurts, honey. It does for me, too. Every day.”
…
That night, after Mom was in bed, April returned to her father’s office. She sat on the floor in the beam of moonlight pouring through the open curtain and pulled the turquoise album out again. Her parents’ happily-ever-after had been short, but it had been powerful.
She thought about Josh, and whether he could see the same half-moon from his hospital bed. It would be so easy to pick up the phone and call him. It was late, but she didn’t think he would mind. He’d be furious at her, of course, but she could explain everything about her dad. Wouldn’t he be relieved to know that it wasn’t something he had done? That this ending had been inevitable from the beginning?
But instead of calling Josh, she texted Madigan.
How’s Josh?
He replied five minutes later.
He’s healing really well. Might get released the day after next.
April: Thanks for being there with him. Please don’t tell him I asked.
The news of his release deeply unsettled her. For now, he was captive in the hospital, but as soon as they released him, he would disappear on the road in his truck-house. Surely the doctors wouldn’t allow him to drive with his arm and leg in casts, but that wouldn’t stop him. If she didn’t catch him now, she’d lose him forever.
She decided to listen to Josh’s fifth message. She dialed voicemail, but the message wasn’t from Josh.
Hi
, April. It’s Vera. I hope you don’t mind me calling your cell phone. Listen, I don’t know what happened between you and Josh, but I think you’d want to know that it’s really taken a toll on him. He’s putting on a brave face, but I can tell he’s not doing well.
The guilt stung her hard.
I know you left in a rush and you probably feel like you can’t come back, but you can. Take it from this feisty old lady who was married to the love of her life for forty years. It’s not too late. It’s never too late if you’ve found someone you can’t live without.
April hung up the phone. Vera had nailed it. A person she couldn’t live without. Exactly the crux of problem. Josh would eventually die, and she wouldn’t want to live without him. Even so, Vera’s words kept running through her head. It’s not too late. It’s not too late.
April stared at the planes on the ceiling. “Dad, what should I do?” she whispered.
She went back to her bedroom and turned on her laptop. She opened the picture of her and Josh together at the gala.
Her yearning for him was not getting weaker with time. It was more intense than ever.
Just for the night, she gave in to the yearning, falling asleep with the laptop in her bed, watching some of her clips of him from Yosemite.
…
April’s mom poured two cups of coffee, which they drank with the English muffins April had just pulled out of the toaster.
“Your dad loved entertaining, but it wasn’t why he flew aerobatics,” her mom said.
April frowned. “Can we talk about something else, please?”
“You brought it up, dear.”
“That was last night.”
“Well, I have more to say. Aerobatics was a calling for your dad. It ran deep in his veins. He uniquely could do those tricks, he taught himself all the mechanics to maintain his own planes, and he built a business out of it.”
“Dad was different than other people. I know that. He wasn’t afraid. As in, literally. He physically didn’t feel fear.”
“People experience different manifestations of the flight-or-fight response. Some people are disabled by it. Others are freed by the lack of it. And some people are able to control it.”
Her mom sipped her coffee. “I was in love with your dad, and flying was part of who he was. Now that some time has passed, I can be grateful for the twenty-five years I had with him. I’m lucky to have found that kind of love at all. How I see it, every day was a gift. A treasure. I didn’t think about it like that in everyday life, when I was living it, but it’s something I can hold on to now. Mitch and his flying were one and the same. Take the flying away, and he was no longer Mitch.”
Without climbing, Josh would no longer be Josh.
April picked at her English muffin. She had come home to help herself move on in a place where there were no constant reminders of how badly she had betrayed Josh and how her love for him had not been unconditional.
“What am I supposed to do?” she asked. “I can’t live like that.”
“I read an article online about Josh’s fall,” her mom said. “I saw how massive that tower is. If he fell from the top and you saw him fall, then you had to be at the top, too. I wasn’t aware that’s what you were talking about when you said they were going to let you start filming the athletes. And now, knowing what Josh meant to you…April, my god! No wonder you ran away.”
“I didn’t run away,” she said. “I chose to leave.”
Mom gave her a look.
“Why do I feel like you’re pushing me to go back to him?” April said. “You’ve never even met him.”
“I’m not. I’m just reminding you that you can’t underestimate the long-term impact of what happened at Saguaro Butte. Not what happened to Dad, but what happened to you. As you pointed out last night, I had my eyes closed for most of it. You didn’t, and on top of it, having experience with those stunts, you knew what was happening a full minute before everyone else.”
Mom finished her coffee and looked at her. “The situation you had to face on that cliff put you up against everything you fear, and now it’s become tangled with someone you care a great deal about. Just know that there are underlying brain-chemical survival reactions that are driving your decisions even now.”
“They didn’t become tangled,” April said. “The two were one and the same all along. I was wrong to have let it happen. I take responsibility for that.”
“It’s not about taking blame, it’s about making a decision.”
“Not this again! I made a decision. I left. I would have broken up with him anyway, after the climb.”
“Let’s be real, April. You didn’t make a decision by coming here. You evaded a decision.”
Her mom glanced at the microwave clock. “I’m sorry to cut this short, but I have a group session this morning.” She slid her dishes into the sink and gave April a hug. “I hope I’m not being too hard on you, honey. I just want you to remember that when you operate through avoidance, you are letting your fears control you.”
These were her father’s words.
Mom gathered her things at the door then looked back into the kitchen.
“People are more resilient than they think,” she said. “You are more resilient than you think.”
The door clicked closed. April stared at the cabinets on the other side of the kitchen. She hopped off the stool and ran to the front door and peeked out. Her mom was getting into the car.
“How did you know I was so close to Josh?” April asked. “That it was serious?”
“I didn’t. But you just confirmed my hunch.”
Argh. Psychologist mom. Wait until she heard Josh’s family was shunning him like the Amish. She’d have a blast analyzing that.
“You’re not a girl who sticks around guys you’re only lukewarm about,” her mom said. “And you’ve certainly never fled home to Arizona because of one. Besides, even over the phone it was impossible not to tell how you truly felt about him. It’s just one of those things.”
…
April went for a run.
This time, she didn’t feel like she was trying to outrun something. Her strides were long and smooth. She was pushing hard, and she was moving fast. She felt strong and capable. Powerful.
When she got back, she stretched on the front porch. Something was shifting inside her. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she was warmly content, and it wasn’t just the effect of the run.
Later that afternoon, she took a bubble bath in her parents’ bathroom. She rested her head on the edge of the tub and closed her eyes. In front of her was Josh, leading her through the moonlit meadow. The same crystal-pure happiness from that moment floated near her like a ghost, lingering just out of her grasp.
It wasn’t over, not for her.
And it didn’t have to be.
She loved him, and she had a choice.
After she dried off and put pajamas on, she crawled under her sheets, pretending it was Josh’s bed in the back of his truck. Her skin tingled as she remembered their bodies naked together.
She loved Josh, and he was a climber. He did it because it was his calling. It wasn’t about pushing the limits or putting on a big show, it was about solitude and self-reliance. Reaching a place of complete stillness that could not be found by road or trail. Climbing took him to places so sublime she could have never believed they existed had she not gotten a taste of them herself.
There might not have been a modeling shoot and a stunt plane involved when they met, but there had been a twinge of magic just the same, and it had ridden all this way on an undercurrent, even through his abrasiveness in the beginning and her denial at the end.
She was a girl who hated haunted houses, jumping off the diving board, and had never gone on her friends’ annual white-water rafting trip. She had never rock climbed before Yosemite, and now that her dad wasn’t making her, she didn’t fly stunt planes.
These were all physical fears. The one she was facing now was ment
al, but it was just as powerful.
Her test was her fear that Josh would die.
Everyone died eventually, as her mom pointed out. Car accidents, old age, cancer, natural disasters, heart attacks, bee stings, airplane crashes. Perhaps she would die this year. Or next month. Tomorrow, even. She could be sideswiped by a car while running on the highway, and Josh would be left to deal with the aftermath. That was, if he forgave her and let her back into his life.
When you operate through avoidance, you let your fears control you.
Could she do this? Could she love Josh freely, even if he was going to die?
What good is life if you’re not living it?
She felt Josh’s hand tight around hers as they leaped from the log into the lake. Yes. She could do this. She would take this risk. It was worth it, even if it was only one more day with him.
April reached for her phone. She didn’t know what she was going to say to him, but if there was any hope of salvaging what she had done, she couldn’t wait another second. She picked up her phone and dialed his 702 number. The phone rang, but he didn’t pick up. She left a message and prayed he would get it right away and call back immediately.
Chapter Thirty-Four
April awoke with a start. Her phone was still in her hand. It was seven o’clock in the morning and there were no missed calls or texts.
Suddenly, she was in a straitjacket buckled too tight to breathe.
What you’ve done is unforgivable.
Maybe Josh’s phone was charging and he couldn’t reach it from his hospital bed. Or maybe his ringer was off.
She didn’t believe any of her own excuses.
Unforgivable. Yes, in light of his family’s abandonment of him, this was unforgivable.
Her hands shook as she redialed his number. Hearing hostility in his voice would crush her, but she couldn’t not try again.
The call went straight to voicemail, and she collapsed on her bed. A permanent loss, by choice. It was just as bad as death.
She had hurt him in a terrible way and didn’t deserve to feel sorry for herself. She struggled to muster the energy to sit up, then dialed Madigan’s number. He didn’t pick up, either, so she left a voicemail and also sent a text.
Lessons In Gravity Page 26
