Chapter 7
The confrontation, when it eventually appeared, wasn’t truly a fight. It was just an ordinary Tuesday. Claire was preparing dinner because that was her usual routine.
Over twenty-six years of marriage, the division of labor became an unspoken arrangement that nobody explicitly agreed to, yet everyone adhered to.
Claire cooked.
Greg ate.
Claire cleaned up.
Greg went to the den.
It was their system. Systems generally didn’t need debate; they just operated until someone disconnected them or they failed completely.
She was chopping onions when Greg opened his mouth.
“You’re doing it again this Saturday?”
She continued chopping. The onion made her eyes water, which was helpful because it gave her tears somewhere to hide.
“Doing what?”
“The thing with Harper and Nina. Your new little club.”
Little club.
He spoke of it as if calling it a ‘little hobby’ or ‘little phase,’ to belittle her and dismiss her, as if the most significant thing Claire achieved in the past decade could be reduced to something small enough to fit in a word like ‘little.’
“We’re going rock climbing,” she said, “at a gym in Charleston. It should be fun.”
“Rock climbing? You three?” Greg leaned against the counter and crossed his arms. This was his posture when delivering opinions he thought were reasonable but that nobody asked for. “You’re fifty years old, Claire.”
“Yes, I’m aware of my age. I was there when it happened.”
“I’m just saying you’ve been gone a lot lately. Karaoke, that thing y’all did at the beach, the cooking thing at that lady’s house. Seems like it’s always something new.”
“Well, the ‘cooking whatever’ was a cooking class. I learned to make mole, and it took hours. And I have to say, it was one of the best days I’ve had in many years.” She hadn’t actually meant to say that last part.
It came out before she could catch it, and then it landed on the kitchen counter between them like somebody had dropped it from a very tall height.
One of the best days I’ve had in years.
Not a day that included her husband.
Not a day that included her sitting at home.
But a day with her best friends in a stranger’s kitchen, learning something new.
Greg’s face did a thing she’d seen before but never named.
He didn’t look angry or hurt. It was a bit like confusion, or maybe bewilderment from a man who had been living in the same house as her for twenty-six years and was just now realizing that one of the rooms had a door he’d never opened.
“Well, I didn’t say you couldn’t go,” he said.
“I know you didn’t. And you don’t get to make that decision for me anyway.”
“I’m just saying it feels like a lot.”
Claire set the knife down on the counter.
She looked at her husband. He was wearing the same old College of Charleston T-shirt he’d had since before they were married, which was now very soft and faded.
He wore it a lot, now that she thought about it.
He had a closet full of clothes, yet he always wore that shirt.
His hair was graying at the temples. This was the face that she had fallen in love with. The same face she had thought she couldn’t live without at twenty-three years old. But now it was older and quieter and getting further away.
“It’s just one Saturday a month, Greg.”
“It seems like every Saturday.”
“No, it’s one. One Saturday. Twenty-six years of Saturdays, and I’m asking for twelve of them for myself.”
“You’ve been going other places, too.”
She stared at him like he’d grown a second head. “And? You have a problem with me enjoying myself at Target? Or spending the day talking about books with a few new friends?”
The counter between them felt heavier than it was. Greg looked at her, and she could see him trying to do the math, running through the numbers the way he did at work, trying to figure out when the equation in their marriage had changed and why things no longer seemed to balance.
“I just miss you,” he said.
That should have softened her. A year ago, maybe it would have.
A year ago, maybe she would have put the knife down and walked across the kitchen and touched his arm and said, “I’m right here.” And she would have meant it.
The moment might have faded, like many others, quietly dismissed and hidden. However, she was in a kitchen fragrant with onions, having spent several weekends feeling more vibrant than she had in ten years.
Her husband had just called the thing that was saving her a little club. And the words, I just miss you, sounded less like love and more like a man saying them out of obligation.
“Well, I miss me too, Greg,” she said. “I miss the woman I used to be before I forgot who she was.”
He didn’t understand. She could see it on his face, the blankness, the genuine confusion of someone who was being spoken to in a language they didn’t speak.
He stood there for a moment, his arms still crossed, and then said, “Well, hope you have fun,” in the same tone he would use when she told him she was going to the grocery store to get eggs and toilet paper.
Then, unsurprisingly, he went back to the den. Claire stood in the kitchen alone.
That was it. That was the moment.
That was his chance, and he walked away from it.
She picked up the knife and finished chopping the onions. She made dinner, as usual, but she let the onions take the blame for all the tears.
Claire thought the climbing gym named Gravity was quite literal and possibly a bit intimidating. Gravity was what was likely to have her hanging upside down by her ankles within the hour.
It was located inside a converted warehouse on Upper King Street in Charleston, likely once a cotton mill, machine shop, or similar industrial building, before someone added colorful handholds to the walls and started charging people to climb on artificial rocks.
The walls were huge, stretching three stories high and covered in a rainbow of grips that looked like they had been designed by somebody who wanted to make physical exertion look more like a children’s preschool classroom. They weren’t fooling anyone. This place was intimidating.
Claire had picked this adventure because she wanted to do something with her body. The karaoke had been about her voice, and the plunge had been about the sensation. The cooking class had been about Nina’s heart, really.
Claire wanted muscles, sweat, and the honest challenge of getting from the bottom to the top.
She wanted to prove she could do something that had nothing to do with taking care of other people, something selfishly for herself.
Of course, she had wanted all of that while she lounged in a bubble bath, not thinking of the repercussions.
Climbing a wall seemed to qualify for all of it. Of course, she had not mentioned to anyone that she was terrified of heights. She had somehow avoided telling that to either of her best friends for almost thirty years.
Harper and Nina were already in the lobby when she arrived. Harper was wearing new climbing shoes, clearly bought for this occasion, as she only owned well-fitting, purpose-built footwear.
Nina was wearing leggings and one of Lucia’s old T-shirts that said Edisto Island Surf Club on it. That was funny because Edisto did not really have surfing, and Lucia had never been to a club in her life.
“Have either of you ever done this before?” Claire asked, staring at one of the walls.
“Nope,” Nina said.
“I did watch a YouTube tutorial,” Harper said, her index finger tapping her chin.
“Yeah, I don’t think you can learn to climb a wall from YouTube,” Claire responded.
“You can learn the principles. That’s what matters. Knowing all the steps,” Harper said, trying to convince herself.
Their instructor was a young man named Kai, who had the build of somebody who had been climbing since before he could walk. He also had the patience of someone who regularly taught terrified beginners like the three of them.
He showed them how to tie in, belay, and read the route. He explained the grading system. He also explained that falling was normal, expected, and that they should not be embarrassed about it.
“Everybody falls,” he said cheerfully. “The wall is designed to make you fall. The question is, what do you do afterward?”
“Um, quit?” Claire offered. “Or cry? Maybe crying is better.”
“No, you climb again,” Kai said with the smiley confidence of a twenty-five-year-old who had never even reorganized a pantry alphabetically or chosen napkin colors for a birthday party. He hadn’t lived yet. What did he know?
They started at the beginner wall. It was the shortest one in the gym, maybe twenty feet tall. It had large holds in primary colors that looked like they were begging to be grabbed. This was probably a wall that toddlers with strong forearms could climb. Surely it wouldn’t be much of a challenge.
Nina went first because she was still riding the momentum of being the first, and it turns out she was pretty good at it. Not flashy, not fast even, just steady and methodical, taking one hold at a time.
She climbed the way she grieved, slowly and carefully, never letting go of one thing until she was sure she had a hold of the next one.
Harper went second and scaled the wall like she was late for a meeting at the top.
Of course, she had the longest legs and arms out of the three of them.
She was competitive and athletic, and this was how she approached everything: with speed and determination, and with absolutely no thought or interest in doing anything wrong.
She reached the top in what felt like thirty seconds and then looked down at them with an expression of satisfaction before rappelling back down as if she had been doing this her entire life.
“Your turn,” Nina said to Claire.
Claire looked at the wall. Twenty feet. A rope attached to her harness. Kai at the bottom, ready to grab her.
Everything was perfectly safe, all perfectly manageable, and all perfectly terrifying.