INTO HIS HANDS

Both Kinds

He comes for me at three forty four.

One minute early.

I am already dressed.

I open the trailer door before he knocks and he is standing on the step with his torch and his clipboard and the specific quality of someone who has been awake for a long time and finds this entirely unremarkable.

He looks at me.

He says: you're dressed.

I say: you said three forty five.

He says: it's three forty four.

I say: I anticipated.

Something moves in his expression.

He says: come on.

We cross the lot together in the dark.

His shoulder close to mine.

Not touching.

The specific proximity of someone who has decided that this is the appropriate distance and is maintaining it with the same precision he brings to everything he has decided.

The cold October air around us.

The lot quiet.

The big top light already on from his earlier check.

I say: when did you start.

He says: two.

I say: you've been up since two.

He says: the north anchor needed attention.

I say: and the east anchor yesterday.

He says: yes.

I say: and the west anchor at four fifty.

He says: yes.

I say: Zane.

He says: yes.

I say: at some point you have to sleep.

He says: after opening night.

I say: that's three weeks away.

He says: yes.

I look at him in the dark.

He looks straight ahead at the big top.

I say: you're going to run yourself into the ground for three weeks so that every anchor on this lot is clean every morning before I arrive.

He says: the anchors need to be clean.

I say: they were clean yesterday.

He says: they need to be clean today too.

I say: Zane.

He says: Calloway.

I say: you don't have to do this.

He stops walking.

He turns to look at me.

The dark eyes in the pre-dawn dark of the lot.

He says: yes I do.

He says it simply.

Like it is the most obvious thing available.

Like there was never any other option and he is faintly surprised I am suggesting otherwise.

He says: someone spent six months making this rigging unsafe. He says it with the flat certainty. I'm going to spend however long it takes making it the safest rigging anyone has ever performed on.

I look at him.

He looks back.

I say: because of my father.

He says: yes.

I say: and.

He says: yes.

I say: say the and.

He is quiet for a moment.

He says: and because you are going to be above it.

He says it simply.

Then he turns and walks toward the big top.

I stand on the lot for a moment.

I think about because you are going to be above it said simply like it explains everything.

It explains everything.

I follow him.

We are in the rigging for an hour.

Me holding the torch.

Him moving through the framework with the focused methodical attention of someone for whom this is not work but something more specific than work.

At five thirty we come down.

On the apron he picks up his chalk bag.

He says: session at nine.

I say: yes.

He says: eat something real before.

I say: toast is real food.

He says: we've discussed this.

I say: we reached different conclusions.

He says: wrong conclusions.

I say: your conclusions.

He says: Calloway.

I say: Wilder.

He looks at me.

The corner of his mouth.

There.

Full second.

Almost.

He goes to the catch bar.

I go to the cookhouse.

Theo is already there.

Six in the morning and he is at the counter making something that involves more equipment than coffee requires and the specific focused energy of someone who has been up for a while and has decided that the company deserves a proper breakfast.

He looks up when I come in.

The warm brown eyes finding me immediately.

The smile arriving before anything else.

He says: you're up early.

I say: three forty five rigging check.

He says: with Zane.

I say: terms.

He says: right. He turns back to the counter. He says it with something underneath the easy tone. The specific something that is always underneath when Zane's name comes up. He says: sit down. I'm making eggs.

I sit down.

He moves around the counter with the easy physical grace of someone who is comfortable in their body in a completely different way from Zane. Where Zane's physicality is dense and controlled and functional Theo's is easy and flowing. The specific grace of someone who has spent years reading animal bodies and has developed an instinctive understanding of how bodies move in space.

He puts a plate in front of me.

He sits across from me.

Close.

The table is small and he is close and the warmth of him is immediate and easy and on the surface the way it always is.

He says: eat.

I eat.

He watches me eat with the warm brown eyes and the something underneath.

He says: how is the session going.

I say: the release is improving.

He says: because of the trust sessions.

I say: yes.

He says: because of him.

I say: yes.

He says: Ivy.

I say: yes.

He says: can I ask you something.

I say: you're going to regardless.

He almost smiles.

He says: how do you feel when you're with him.

I look at my eggs.

I say: safe. Challenged. Seen. She pauses. Like the weight I'm carrying has somewhere to go.

Theo is quiet.

He says: and when you're with me.

I look up.

He is looking at me with the warm brown eyes and the something underneath fully visible now. Not performing it. Not hiding it. Just letting it be there because Theo does not know how to be dishonest about things that matter.

I say: Theo.

He says: I'm asking seriously. Not to make things difficult. He says it simply. Because I think you deserve someone who asks the real questions.

I say: when I'm with you I feel. I stop.

He says: what.

I say: warm. Easy. Like I can breathe without managing anything.

He says: but.

I say: there's no but. It's just. Different.

He says: different from him.

I say: yes.

He says: he makes you feel safe. I make you feel warm.

I say: they're not mutually exclusive.

He says: no. He looks at his coffee. But they're not the same thing either.

The cookhouse is quiet around us.

He reaches across the table.

His hand covers mine.

Warm.

The easy specific warmth of him. His thumb moving across the back of my hand slowly. Not the rough deliberate warmth of chalk white callused hands. Something gentler than that. More available than that.

I look at his hand on mine.

I look at him.

He says: I'm not going to pretend I don't have feelings for you.

I say: Theo.

He says: I'm not making it your problem. He says it simply. I'm just not going to pretend. He pauses. Because pretending would be dishonest and you deserve honesty more than you deserve comfort.

I say: that's what you told Augustus.

He says: it applies broadly.

He squeezes my hand once.

He lets go.

He stands up.

He takes his coffee to the counter.

He says with his back to me: eat your eggs. They're getting cold.

I look at my hand.

The warmth of his still present on the back of it.

Different from the warmth of chalk white callused hands on the inside of a wrist.

Different.

Both real.

Both specific.

Both doing something to me that I do not have a clean resolution for.

I eat my eggs.

The morning session is at nine.

I am on the platform.

He is on the catch bar.

Already there.

I look across at him.

He looks back.

The dark eyes. The chalk white hands open and ready. The specific consuming quality of someone who has been awake since two in the morning checking every anchor on this lot and is now on the catch bar at nine and is going to be on it every day until opening night.

Because you are going to be above it.

I force out.

Build the beat.

At the apex I release.

His hands find me.

Rough.

Warm.

Already there.

The catch lands and he holds it and his hands tighten and the specific grip of them is present and real and the roughness of the calluses against my wrists at thirty five feet is the most specific thing in the world right now.

He says from very close: how does it feel.

I say: like arriving.

He says: yes.

He holds the catch longer than he needs to.

Much longer.

His rough warm hands on my wrists and the height below us and the lot sleeping outside and Theo's warmth on the back of my hand still present somewhere underneath the roughness of the catch.

Both things real.

Both things present.

Both things mine to navigate.

He says: again.

I grab the bar.

I jump.