INTO HIS HANDS

Ground Level

He is already there when I arrive at two.

The big top has been transformed since the morning session. The performance rigging is still up but he has set up the low practice rig in the centre of the apron. Eight feet instead of thirty five. Safety mats on every side. The specific setup of someone who has thought about exactly what this needs to be and has made it that.

He is checking the mat configuration with his clipboard.

He looks up when I come in.

He says: good. You ate.

I say: how do you know I ate.

He says: you're not holding yourself like someone running on coffee and stubbornness. He makes a final note on the clipboard. You were this morning.

I say: you can tell that from how I'm standing.

He says: I can tell a lot of things from how you're standing. He puts the clipboard down. Stand here.

He points to a spot on the mat.

I stand there.

He says: fall backward.

I say: I'm sorry?

He says: fall backward. I'll catch you.

I turn and look at him over my shoulder.

I say: we are not doing trust falls.

He says: we are doing trust falls.

I say: I'm a professional trapeze artist. I perform at full height in front of eight hundred people. I do not need to fall backward on a mat.

He says: you haven't released a bar at full height in four months.

I say: that's different.

He says: how.

I say: on the bar I know what's coming. The arc. The beat. The rotation. I've done it thousands of times. This is. I gesture at the mat. This is just falling.

He says: yes.

I say: backward.

He says: yes.

I say: into nothing.

He says: into my hands.

I look at him.

He looks back.

Dark eyes. Completely still. The specific patience of someone who has decided to be here for however long here requires and means it.

I say: this seems like a step backwards for someone at my level.

He says: you're releasing through a locked shoulder four months after an accident that killed your father and you haven't told anyone how bad it actually is. He says it without cruelty. Just the fact of it. Delivered directly. He says: there is no backwards from where you are. There is only the next right thing.

The big top is very quiet.

I say: the next right thing is a trust fall.

He says: the next right thing is a trust fall.

I turn my back to him.

I stand on the mat.

My heart is doing something completely disproportionate to the situation which is just falling backward on a mat with safety equipment on all sides and a man behind me who has been checking the rigging since before four this morning.

I say: if you drop me.

He says: not going to happen.

I say: you say that with a lot of confidence.

He says: I say it because it's true.

I say: those aren't always the same thing.

He says: they are with me.

He says it with the flat quiet certainty of the Nox. Not arrogance. The specific certainty of someone who has been doing the hardest version of this work since they were fourteen years old and has not dropped anyone yet and has decided they are not going to start now.

I fall.

His hands find me before I finish falling.

Both of them. Under my shoulder blades. Warm and certain and already positioned. Already there. Like he calculated the exact coordinates of where I was going to be and has been standing in that position waiting for me to arrive.

He holds me for one second.

The specific second of a catch confirmed.

Then he rights me back to standing.

I face forward.

My heart is still doing the thing.

I say: your hands were already there.

He says: yes.

I say: before I finished falling.

He says: yes.

I say: how.

He says: I've been watching you move for two days. He says it simply. Like information. Like watching someone move for two days in order to know exactly where they will be when they fall is simply standard procedure. He says: your shoulders drop a specific way before you commit to a movement. I know the drop. I know where you're going to be.

I stand on the mat facing forward and I think about someone watching me closely enough for two days to learn the specific way my shoulders drop before I commit to anything and I think about what that means and I think about Marcus who caught me four hundred and twelve times and never once anticipated where I was going to be. Only reacted after I arrived.

Zane was already there.

He says: again.

I say: you know that's not a full sentence.

He says: subject and verb. Fall.

I fall.

He catches me.

Again.

We do it seven times and each time his hands are already there and each time I face forward and breathe and by the fifth time the breathing after is less necessary and by the seventh it is barely anything at all.

After the seventh he holds me a breath longer than the others.

Not long.

Just different.

I face forward.

I say: you held that one longer.

He says: the catch needs to land before you can feel it landing. He says it simply. Sometimes that takes a breath longer.

I turn around.

He is closer than the standard post-catch distance.

Not dramatically. The specific proximity of someone who has not stepped back yet and has made a decision about not stepping back.

I say: you're not stepping back.

He says: no.

I say: you stepped back after the others.

He says: yes.

I say: why not this one.

He says: because you're not deciding whether to step back yourself.

I look at him.

He looks back.

The dark eyes. The jaw with the scar. The chalk on his hands that are warm in a way that his everything else is not. The whole specific reality of Zane Wilder not stepping back and being entirely intentional about it.

I say: step back.

He says: yes.

He steps back.

He goes to the equipment rack and picks up his clipboard and begins the post-session inventory with the focused efficiency of someone who has not just held a catch a breath longer and then not stepped back until asked.

I stand on the mat.

I think about already there before I finished falling.

I think about the breath longer.

I think about step back answered with yes and then him actually stepping back because I asked.

Not because he wanted to.

Because I asked.

The door to the big top opens.

Mira comes in.

She is carrying two coffees and has the specific expression of someone who told herself she was just passing by and has decided to commit fully to the fiction.

She hands me a coffee.

She looks at Zane at the equipment rack.

She says: coffee?

Zane looks up.

He looks at Mira.

He looks at the coffee.

He says: yes. Thank you.

Mira hands it over.

Zane takes it with a nod and goes back to his clipboard.

Mira stands beside me.

She says very quietly: he stepped back when you asked.

I say: yes.

She says: not before.

I say: no.

She says: but when you asked.

I say: Mira.

She says: I'm just noting the sequence of events.

She drinks her coffee.

She looks at the rigging above us.

She says: he checked the east side anchor this morning.

I say: at three forty five yes.

She says: Frank told me. She pauses. Frank saw his light on when he came in at four to start breakfast. He went to check. Zane was in the upper rigging with a torch. She looks at me. Frank asked what he was doing.

I say: what did Zane say.

She says: he said he was making sure. She looks at Zane at the equipment rack. Frank said he'd never seen anyone check the east side anchor from the inside of the suspension housing before. Said it requires someone who knows exactly what they're looking for.

I say: and.

She says: and Frank said whatever he was looking for he found it because he was very still for a long time after.

The big top is quiet.

I look at Zane.

His back is to me. Clipboard in hand. The post session inventory running. Thirty two points and not one less.

I think about the rigging logs.

I think about eighteen months of notes.

I think about the east side anchor and the maintenance note and whatever he found at three forty five this morning that made him go very still.

I think about the bolt.

I think about my father.

I say to Mira quietly: he found something.

She says: yes.

I say: why hasn't he said anything.

She says: maybe he's making sure first. She looks at me with the twelve year accuracy. He seems like someone who makes sure before he says anything.

I look at him at the equipment rack.

He does not look up.

But he says: the session tomorrow is at the same time.

He says it to the clipboard.

Like he knew we were talking about him and is not going to acknowledge it but is going to redirect anyway.

I say: yes.

He says: wear the wrap I showed you. Not your own version. The correct one.

I say: I know how to wrap my own wrists.

He says: you know a version of wrapping your wrists. He makes a note. Tomorrow. Correct wrap.

I say: Zane.

He says: Calloway.

I say: what did you find this morning. In the suspension housing.

He is quiet for a moment.

He puts the clipboard down.

He turns around.

He looks at me with the dark eyes and the specific expression of someone who has been sitting with something since three forty five this morning and has decided that now is the moment to put it down somewhere it can do something.

He says: I found a maintenance access log that doesn't match the official record.

The big top is very quiet.

I say: what does that mean.

He says: it means someone accessed the suspension housing outside of scheduled maintenance. He says it carefully. More than once.

I say: how many times.

He says: that's what I'm still working out. He picks up the clipboard. But enough times to matter.

He goes back to the inventory.

I stand on the mat with my coffee going cold in my hand and Mira beside me and the rigging above us and the east side anchor that someone accessed outside of scheduled maintenance more than once and enough times to matter.

I think about the bolt.

I think about the cold thing in my chest.

I think about my father in the wings.

He didn't hesitate.

Neither will I.