Chapter 23: The Long Route

Cal came home on Sunday night and stopped in the doorway of the kitchen.

He looked at the two of us at the table, eating cereal at nine at night.

Sadie was wearing my sweatshirt.

"I'm not going to say anything," he said.

"Thank you."

"I'm going to say it with my face."

"Please don't," Sadie said.

He put his bag down, took the box of cereal out of my hand, and ate a fistful of it standing up.

"The mustard survived," he said. "I counted it. I'm proud of you both."

On Tuesday I took her to the gym.

The old woman with chalk to the elbows was already there, and she looked Sadie over from boots to hair.

"You're the one from the desk," she said.

"I'm the one who left the desk."

"He tells me you can tie a figure eight."

"I learned on YouTube," Sadie said. "Wyatt says it's wrong."

"It's slightly wrong." The old woman handed her a belay device. "Come here. I'll fix it."

It took twenty minutes.

When it was done, Sadie stood at the base of the long wall with the rope in her hands.

Her face had gone pale.

"You've never held a rope for anyone," I said.

"No."

"I'll be fine. If I fall, you let the rope take it."

"I know the physics. It's not the physics." She looked at the wall. "It's you. It's everything I'd be holding."

"You've held me for eleven years."

"That was a wrist."

I put my hand over hers on the brake strand, and she steadied.

"On belay," I said.

"Belay on," she said, in a small, fierce voice.

"Climbing."

"Climb on."

It was the long route, the blue one that ran the full height of the wall, graded harder than anything I'd done.

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