I bent down and took a few deep breaths.
“You know, it isn’t a race,” Angie said, sitting on an old rotted-out log covered in moss.
“Sure it is.” I winked at her and climbed the first rung, feeling the joints of my bum knee grinding together. The hawk was perched about halfway up the tower.
“You’re an idiot.”
“Well, you married me,” I said, adjusting my hands to get a better grip, “so what does that make you?”
“A charitable soul.” She sounded tired even though I’d let her sleep through the night and well into the morning. “Please don’t kill yourself to impress me.”
“Oh, I know little I do will impress you.” I took another step up. The rungs were far apart and it took a bit of a push to get up to the next one.
“I can tell from here it’s a Harlan’s hawk.” She leaned back on the log and tilted her head to the sky.
“Well,” I said, looking down at her. “That, from a city girl, does impress me.”
“I know some things.” She got up from the log and brushed off her bum. “Okay, Wes. Let’s go. You’ve had your fun. I’m ready for some lunch.”
I ignored her and kept climbing.
“Wes! For real now. I’m not kidding around.”
I’m not sure what sent me up that tower. It was the hawk, at first, and curiosity, but once I started climbing there was an excitement and an anxiousness that kept me going. With each step my limbs felt more capable and my heart felt larger. I had an ear-to-ear grin that usually only struck me after beer number seven. I figured out a system to scale the tower using the diagonal red lattices to boost myself, and climbed to its mid-point quickly, waving down at Angie every few minutes. She didn’t wave back, but stood on the log, hands on hips, looking pissed. I knew what she was thinking: stupid little boy. And I grinned that ear-to-ear smile down at her exactly like a stupid little boy would.
As I got closer to the hawk I slowed down, remaining still for several moments before ascending the next section. The hawk didn’t move. Its brown feathers glinted with flecks of gold as it scanned the valley, head turning slowly from side to side. I’d taken one step closer to the bird, watching it from little more than a foot away, when it launched itself into the sky. I could hear the click of its talons and feel the wind from the beat of its wings as it set in motion. As the hawk glided down the mountain above the treetops, I took in the entire expanse of the valley — like a dark green bowl turning on a table top. Angie was pacing below the tower now, yelling obscenities and waving her arms, but I was conceivably high enough to be out of earshot. Tilting my head back, I hooted like a pimply-pocked teen out a car window, and even from that height I could tell Angie was rolling her eyes. I leaned out from the tower, brandishing one arm and one leg through the air, and called down to her, “I can see our house.”
The bird was almost out of sight when my knee gave out. All the words I was hurling were suddenly trapped in my throat and every cell in my body focused on the one hand that gripped the cold steel. It happened so quickly Angie didn’t even notice. I waited for a shriek or some kind of commotion from below, but all I could hear was my own panicked breathing. The contents of breakfast, scrambled eggs and buttered toast, sloshed around my stomach. I flailed until I found footing and my other hand found a grip. I closed my eyes against the valley and breathed deeply as I steadied myself, the hawk the only image gliding through my brain. My sweaty hand could have lost its grip and I could have ended up a crumpled mess of bloody bones at Angie’s feet, but what I saw was freedom, the hawk vanished into the vast envelope of trees.
I started down slowly. Every few minutes Angie would call up to me:
“It’s starting to rain.”
“Harder coming down than going up, eh, smart ass?”
“Sophie’s waking up.”
“It’s going to pour soon, I think.”
Later that night on the Floor I had my first urge for a taste of that freedom. I was two months into my new job and I’d memorized the dates of every holiday for the rest of the year.
I didn’t realize how close I was to the ground until I felt Angie’s hand.
“Don’t worry, I got you,” she said.
“I’m fine.” I shook her hand off my ankle.
“I got you.”
“I don’t need you to get me.”
OUTSIDE THE WINDOW THERE’S a black sky and evergreens even blacker beyond the perimeter of the backyard fence. The trees surround the valley; the city feels insignificant, almost unwanted. I feel unwanted. None of it holds a thing for me, not a memory or a future, and it’s peaceful in its emptiness. What are your intentions? The question comes from some dark corner of Sophie’s bedroom. Even with the fan whirring in the corner, the air in the room is oppressive. I close my eyes and hold Sophie against my chest, rest my chin on her damp head. In the baby’s room during the blackest hours of the night I can breathe, stare out the window, smell her hair, and let my mind bottom out. It’s like turning down the static on a radio.
“What are you doing?” Angie’s standing in the doorway naked, her head a mess of dark curls.
“Didn’t you hear her?”
“I heard you.” She crosses her arms and leans to take a look at the monitor.
“She was crying,” I whisper overtop the baby’s head.
“I didn’t hear her.” There’s skepticism in her voice. I’m almost always the one to get up with Sophie in the night. It’s my way of making up for those four lost months while I was away at training, but for whatever reason Angie doesn’t trust my effort. She’s told me none of the other dads are so willing. She feels the need to lie to the other parents and feign exhaustion. She gets a solid eight hours every night but still guzzles coffee all day long.
“Sh!” I hold a finger to my lips.
“I must be wiped out.” She tousles her thick dark curls until they nearly stand up on end. “How was work?”
“I’ll tell you later. You’re naked.”
“It’s hot.”
“Go back to sleep.”
Out the bedroom window, the apex of the spire has a blinking red light. What are your intentions? I’ve barely thought about the pilot since sealing the envelope of data for the TSB, but now the question is nagging me. I hear my own voice, cold and flat as the computer teller at an automated checkout. The crews probably won’t have had time to recover the plane tonight. The valley isn’t easily accessible and there are spot fires all over the region, making a recovery dangerous. It could be days or weeks before they find anything, depending on the fire’s temperament. When I was a kid we used to watch the bombers flying low over the Okanagan Lake. They travelled narrow valleys other aircraft never flew, their planes heavy with cherry-red chemical water, flying through thick smoke at treetop level and dropping their payloads right over the tips of the burning evergreens, then suddenly rose — lightened and askew — toward the sky. Some summers the edge of the mountain was like one long flickering orange ember at night. I met a few of those guys going through orientation. The pilots accepted the dangers of their job and some of them lived for it. Some of them would pray for a fire so they could bomb. Otherwise, it was sitting around twiddling thumbs. Rapping their knuckles on particleboard desks, waiting for something to happen. It’s not that they wanted the forest to burn, but there was an itch there they couldn’t ignore.