CHAPTER SEVEN #2
“Right. I’ll catch you.” I nod, agreeing to the terms. Ridiculous though they are.
“No, you can’t now. You blew it. I no longer trust you. Catching me wasn’t your first instinct.” I think we both know that’s bullshit. Catching her will always be my first and only instinct. “Now you have to climb the tree with me and hope neither of us falls.”
“Because we can’t trust each other not to drag the other down with them?”
She grins. “It does seem like that’s where we’re at now.”
NESSA
For a minute there I was starting to think recreating this night was a terrible mistake. Now that I’m standing at a set of massive roots leading to a sturdy tree trunk I’m about to climb, I can’t help thinking it was kismet all along.
How else could I possibly have wound up losing jewelry in a tree, not once, but twice?
“Want a leg up?” Matti asks, already leaning into his right knee and making a stirrup with his hands.
Our kids were obsessed with climbing trees for about five or six years there.
They still love a good climbing tree, but the hunt for finding one taller and more precarious than the next has slowed. Thank God.
We never wanted to hold them back from exploring and pushing their boundaries, but we weren’t exactly keen on them disappearing up a sixty-foot oak either, so Matti and I got a lot of practice going up with them.
Not like we could blame them for their interest in trees.
Our love was more or less established in one.
And they are nothing if not grown from that love.
“Nah, I think I’m good without a leg up, but thanks.
” I reach for a knobby part of the trunk just to the right past my head and pull up, my toes finding ridges in the thick bark to cling to.
One has to appreciate the unexpected twist of being better at tree climbing in your forties than you were in your teens.
Matti waits until I reach the first sturdy branch before he follows me. Working in silence, we strategically map out where to place our hands and feet, making our way to where my necklace dangles between leaves and hanging moss.
The branch it’s caught in is a sturdy one, and we both scoot our way down until we’re sitting side by side, just a couple of feet from where my necklace waits to be rescued by us.
“Going on your belly?” Matti asks, pointing down the length of the tree’s long limb.
“That’s my plan.”
“I’d offer to get it for you,” he starts, a half-smile hanging crookedly on his full lips.
“But you know I’d just turn you down?” I finish for him.
“Yep.”
“It’s not because I can’t accept help,” I insist, though some have told me I can’t. My sisters, mostly. Some friends. And maybe I am exceedingly independent with most people. But not him.
“I know that.” He nods, the half-smile stretching out. “It’s because you want to see if you can do it. It’s a competitive thing.”
“Exactly.” Sometimes I miss how much he gets me.
“Go ahead.” He nudges me onward. “I’m here to hold onto your feet to steady you. You know , if you need it.”
I did know that. “Thanks.”
Careful not to abuse the tree, I lower my torso until it’s flush with the wood. Then, a lot like a giant caterpillar, I make my way down the length of the branch until I reach my pendant. “Got it.” I wave it around so Matti can see from where he’s waiting behind me.
“Great.” He puts more weight onto my ankles, anchoring me in place.
That if was forgotten the second I started scooting away from him.
I don’t mind. We’ve always known how to let each other fly while being ready to catch should one of us fall.
Even if I did imply otherwise before we even started this climb.
“Now stop waving it around,” he orders. “I’m pretty sure flinging motions just like that one got us here in the first place. ”
I slide the necklace back over my head and let it drop into place around my neck before I start backing up the same way I came. A minute or two later, I’m sitting upright beside Matti again.
“Admit it,” I tell him. “You don’t mind that we wound up here again.”
“I’ll do you one even better.” He smiles. “I was hoping we would.”
“Really does feel like old times.” I let my feet dangle, peering over my knees down at the ground. Heights have always fascinated me. I swear, in another life, I was a bird. Something that could fly high up above the clouds. Actually, given my fondness for fire as well, I was probably a dragon.
“I think you’re getting tired,” Matti says softly.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because you’re mumbling to yourself about dragons.” He smirks. “And your mind always wanders into odd places when you’re winding down.”
“Oh.” Of course, I had to say that out loud. “You know you’re the only person that ever happens with? That I start rambling on about things I think I’m only thinking?”
“I actually did know that.” He nods, chuckling. “I used to ask around about it.”
“What?” I never knew that. “Who did you ask?”
“Like, every member of your family. And your friends.” He shrugs. “Later, Isobel and Nate. By then I was just checking to see if it was still my exclusive or if they were in by default. You know, being genetically part me.”
“You’re ridiculous.” I shake my head, trying not to laugh. “I can’t believe you went around asking everyone I know if they all noticed that I talk to myself when I’m tired.”
“I mean, it was weird!” He laughs even harder.
“And it’s not like you just talk to yourself.
It’s that you talk about strange shit when you do it.
Like dragons. And whether spiders think we’re the ones hanging from the ceiling.
Oh, and one time, I remember you went on for a good three minutes about the way you thought mice might really be more like Jerry, Speedy, Mickey, and Mighty Mouse than we think. ”
I gasp, appalled. “I did not!”
“You absolutely did. I distinctly remember hearing that those cartoons could have been based on true stories.”
Is it sad that I vaguely remember my brain taking that turn once? “In my defense, Nate was really into those shows for a while. It was probably a solid year before anything non-rodent caught his interest.”
“I remember.” He chuckles, his amusement morphing into subtle delight. “Though I probably didn’t have to suffer through those cartoons as much as you did.”
I arch a brow and smirk. “To the brink of insanity, you mean?”
“Don’t kid yourself. You can’t blame Nate for that.” He playfully pokes at my shoulder. “You were doing that talking to yourself business that first night we went out too.”
“No, I wasn’t.” I couldn’t have. Surely, that level of comfort had to be grown and developed over time.
Right along with peeing in front of someone or letting them see you when you’ve had a head cold for three consecutive days and you no longer give a shit that your hair is greasy, you have on the same pajamas you put on the first day you felt something coming on, you haven’t brushed your teeth since at least the night before, and your nose is red and puffy and starting to scab at the creases from too many tissues rubbing it raw.
“Yes, you were,” he insists. “I remember because I instinctively opened my mouth to answer you before I realized you weren’t talking to me.”
I narrow my eyes, frowning. “What did I say?”
“You said, ‘the world could flip upside down, and everything would still be right side up’.”
My hand flies to cover my mouth. “I remember that.” For a moment, those very thoughts come rushing back and all the clarity I felt in having them returns to me. “What were you going to say?” I ask. “When you first thought I was talking to you?”
For a long moment, he just stares at me. “I was going to say, ‘You’re my center of gravity, too’.”