“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.
