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Yellow wildflowers are in bloom. Daisy’s favorite flowers cascade like a winding river.
I briefly make eye contact with Lo, seated on a quilt next to Lily. Close by, Moffy and Janie snoop through a wicker basket for food. Rose, Connor, their twin boys, Daisy and our daughter are all here to watch me climb.
I haven’t been able to process into words what it fucking means to me yet, but I know when I stand up, I’ll figure it out.
My brother starts, “If they’re going to bother you—”
“Don’t fucking worry about them, Lo. They’re not going to stop me.” In the next quiet moment, I notice everyone glancing at the media with these faraway gazes. Despite Lo’s words, he’s relaxed, his daggered eyes looking past the cameras and at something deeper.
There are more journalists here than when I free-soloed cliffs at Yosemite. More than my historic speed climbs. More than any achievements I’ve ever fucking made on rock.
And today, I’m wearing a harness. I have rope. There’s nothing special about Desert Shield. Hundreds of people have climbed it the way I plan to climb it. I’m not free-soloing. I’m not banking on beating anyone’s records.
I’m just climbing a challenging route.
For the first time in ten months.
Even the world has taken a bigger interest in this story, and whether or not they tell it correctly—I don’t fucking care.
I stand and tighten my harness, my tattoo on my forearm visible. Daisy has an identical one in the same place. Dates written in small font, vertically lined.
9-27-14
8-12-16
7-15-17
2-4-18
The day that I kissed Daisy for the very first time. The day that I asked her to marry me. The day we became husband and wife. The day our daughter was born.
Beneath Sullivan’s birthdate on my forearm, Daisy scribbled in black pen: 5-19-18
Today.
The day I climb again.
Just as I finish with my gear, I hesitate to say goodbye to my friends and family. I’ve done this plenty of fucking times with them. We’ve had these sendoffs before I climbed at Yosemite and for Ziff events. Anytime they watched me, anxiety flickered in their fucking eyes.
They were scared for me. Scared I’d fall. Scared I’d die.
Everyone except Daisy. She understood, even way back then.
I’m just preparing to meet those wary eyes again. Ones that say are you sure you want to do this? Or be careful, don’t die. Or you’re doing the wrong thing here, my friend.
I rake a hand through my thick hair, cameras recording us from a distance, my helmet in my left hand. I finally turn towards all of them, seated on the quilt.
I search for fear, for worry, for hesitation. None of them—not even my brother—wear those sentiments. Their eyes are smiling.
Every set of them.
Lo nods to me, his gaze glassy. “Do your thing.”
I wipe my burning eyes with my arm. Fuck. I have to fucking ask because this—between all of them—is so different than anything I’ve met before an ascent. “You’re not fucking nervous?” I ask them.
Rose actually smiles. Connor’s lips pull high too, and Lily is beaming like I’m a fucking superhero. Daisy isn’t staring at me, but she’s glowing more than ever, busy twisting wildflowers into a crown, Sulli on her lap.
“I guess we’ve all realized something,” Lo tells me, his son plopping down on Lily with a handful of grapes. Lo is distracted for a second, love in his eyes.
“What’s that?” I ask.
Lo meets my gaze again. “You’re not living when you’re not climbing, big brother. None of us are going to keep you on this shitty fucking ground.”
Connor adds, “Unless you want to. We’ll put up with whichever Ryke Meadows you want to give us, but just so you know, I like the one in front of me the best.”
I think about the last ten months. “Thanks,” I say to all of them. “It’s been a long fucking road.” And I needed all of you.
I can’t imagine going through what I did alone. I’d probably be dark and cold. I’d be fucking despondent and barely able to stand. I needed them, and they never gave up on me.
“Ant,” Lily whisper-hisses to her husband. She hugs Moffy close to her chest, the boy unconcerned as he eats grapes, while Lo stomps on the nearby fucking ant. Moffy is still allergic to them.
I’m kind of fucking glad she’s taken the heat off the moment. I notice Rose talking to Charlie who babbles incoherently, the baby cradled in her arms.
“You realize that you have my eyes, little gremlin,” she says in her normal, icy voice, but the affection for her child is written all over her face. “They’re the best eyes in the world. They can defeat your adversaries and claim victories better than your father’s.”
Connor hears this and begins to grin. “Have you looked into Jane’s eyes recently, darling?” He has Beckett asleep on his lap.
Janie, who gazes at the clouds, rolls onto her stomach and stares at her mother with big round blue eyes.
“You’re beautiful like water,” Rose tells her daughter and then she raises Charlie. “Fire.” She pats Janie’s head who is full-on grinning like her fucking father. This fucking family is still weird. “Water.”
Beckett also has yellow-green eyes but he’s still fast asleep. We all can tell that the twins are fraternal. Charlie has Connor’s shade of brown hair, whereas Beckett has his mother’s darker color. Not to mention, their face shapes are slightly different.
“Water extinguishes fire,” Connor reminds his wife.
Rose lifts her chin in defiance. “Not our fire.” Though she can’t contain a smile, even when she fucking tries.
Connor’s billion-dollar grin consumes the canyon. And then he nods in agreement.
I check my carabiners and my knots one last time. I force myself not to make eye contact with Daisy and our daughter. Then I turn and head towards the crag, helmet in hand.
About twenty feet there, I can feel her race after me. My body heats, the sun blazing—my heart fucking speeding. I’m lit up.
In another time, another place, she’s not here. I turn around to no one. The sky darkens. I scream without her. I live without her.
So as I turn around this time—I remember everything. I watch how she slows to a stop, her green eyes glittering. Boring straight through me. I touch her soft hair, wildflowers strewn throughout the blonde strands. A crown rests on Sullivan’s head, our happy daughter in Daisy’s arms.
I remember this moment. I remember how her scar pulls with her overpowering grin. I remember how she breathes heavily. Like she’s raced miles to reach me. I remember Sullivan’s giggle and kick of her legs.
I intake Daisy’s soul-bearing smile and whisper, “Senza di te, il cielo non ha sole.” I cup her cheek with my free hand. “Without you, the sky has no sun.”
Her eyes glass and shine, our bodies close, burning together. And then she reaches up and sets a flower crown on my head.
“I love you,” she tells me.
I drop my helmet and clasp her other cheek. I kiss her and pull her against me. She smiles beneath my lips, and I smile beneath hers. Our daughter giggles again. I haven’t even climbed yet, but I’m rising higher and fucking higher.
As our lips part, a couple tears roll down her cheek, wetting my hands. “This is why we’re living,” she whispers. “For these moments, right here.”
I told her something similar. Way back when. In Costa Rica beneath a waterfall. “And where’d you hear that, Calloway?” I brush her tears.
“From someone very, very handsome.”
“Have I fucking met him?”
“Oh yeah,” she breathes. “He’s right in front of me.”
I kiss the top of her head, my body light. Then I take Sullivan in my arm, her orange onesie printed with tigers and giraffes. She runs her tiny hands along my unshaven jaw. Her smile grows like Daisy’s.
“Don’t quit the fucking things you love, sweeti
e,” I tell my daughter. It’ll kill you inside.
When I become older—when I’m fucking gray, she’ll be able to recall all those times her father climbed. She’ll have watched me, seen me, doing what I love. I never want her to give up on the pieces of existence that make her her.
I want Sullivan Minnie Meadows to race one-hundred-and-fifty miles per hour. No brakes in sight. Don’t be afraid of the unknown in tomorrow. Don’t be afraid of death. There is no worse life than a hollow one.
So be alive every second of every fucking day.
That’s what I hope she’ll do.
I hold Sulli around the waist and lift her to the sky, high above my head. She stretches out her arms and legs and laughs, a beautiful sound. She loves when I do this, and I toss her, not too fucking high, and catch her again.
Camera flashes go off, and the journalists start buzzing with chatter. I don’t care about the audience. I just watch Sulli grin from ear-to-ear. She stretches her arms again like she’s flying.
For as long as I fucking live, I’m never letting anyone put out your light. They’ll have to crawl over my dead fucking body.
Daisy hugs me around the waist, and then I hand her our baby girl. Part of me wants to stay right here, beside both of them. The other half is being called towards the rock.
Before I leave, Daisy says, “He’d be proud of you.”
“Yeah.” My eyes immediately well. “I think so too.” Sully never would’ve wanted me to quit, but looking back, there’s no way I could’ve climbed right after his death. Not even if my leg was fine. I needed time.
