The Tree of Knowledge
Chapter 13: The Climb

This is so much better than the roof. I smear my foot on the wall and reach up for the next hold.

After some deliberation, I took off my skirt to climb. There’s no one here to see me anyway. I’m in black lace panties and a pink tasseled camisole with climbing shoes and a harness. I either look sexy or completely ridiculous.

I dust my hands with chalk and reach up for the next hold.

I really am out of shape. All this time on my bicycle has built up the muscles in my legs again, but my arms are regrettably atrophied. My flexibility and tensile strength in my fingers are also shot. I’ll have to start up a workout routine again. Pushups. Pull ups. Sit ups. Deep stretching. Yoga.

I still don’t know what the Hell I’m doing here. I only know that when I’m here, when I completely throw myself into this, I can manage not to think about home. At least for a little while. Because home is really, really, bad just lately.

Rebecca keeps trying to convince Mara that her baby is a miracle. Mara is plagued with morning sickness. She can’t eat.

She does drink. She doesn’t know that I know, but I found her stash of empty Hendricks bottles tucked away in the shed out back. I’m not sure if she’s trying to kill it or just drown her pain. Or both. I can’t say I blame her, but I hardly think fetal alcohol syndrome is going to help matters.

She barely comes out of her room. The house would be a mess if not for Rebecca. With Mara sequestered and me gone all the time, Rebecca has been doing all the cooking, cleaning, and taking care of Little Bird. And she’s showing the strain. Two days ago, she made cake from a box. I’m pretty sure she’s ready to kill us both.

But Ryan is the worst. The way he talks to Mara lately, it’s as if her sole purpose is growing that baby. She means nothing else to him. He demands that she be happy about it, while seeming to take delight in her suffering.

The one highlight of all this is Mara’s obstetrician, Doctor Charlie. Doctor Charlie has kind eyes, tells corny jokes, and has a never ending supply of old fashioned lollipops. He’s the only one that seems to be able to make her smile lately. Next week he’s scheduled her for an amnio. I know she’s terrified even though she put on a brave face for Doctor Charlie.

But I don’t have to think about that, because I’ve really managed to build up my upper arm and finger strength. I think I’m ready to take a shot at the Spider Man climb.

It starts at a damn near 45° angle jutting outward from the wall. Believe me when I tell you this is harder than it sounds. At that angle you’re clinging to the holds while pesky gravity pulls on your back, determined to pry you loose and send you flopping on to the mats below, cursing in frustration and shaking your fist at the celling. The hardest part is convincing your feet to stay stuck to the wall. It makes you wish you had monkey toes so you could cling with your feet the way you do with your hands. Once you make it past there, after falling down at least thirteen times, there’s about a one foot stretch of sweet relief: vertical wall. From here the upward slant continues to the low ceiling, but at a slightly more manageable 30° angle. Once you reach the ceiling, that’s when it really gets interesting. For three feet across the ceiling the climb keeps going. If you thought it was hard to keep your feet stuck to the wall at 45°, try upside-down. It ends with a huge two-hand hold, shaped vaguely like a chin up bar. The idea being once you reach it, you grasp it with both hands, let your feet fall down, and dangle there triumphantly for a moment, before dropping to the floor, landing on your feet.

It has taken me thirty-seven tries to reach that blasted hold again. Holding my body as close to the ceiling as I can manage, feet wedged tight against the holds, I carefully extend one hand out, muscles screaming, and grasp it. Grinning ear-to-ear and whooping in triumph, I reach out with my other hand and let my legs swing down free. I experience one, shining millisecond of the promised triumph before that hold rips loose from the ceiling with an awful wrenching sound. I fall to the ground. In my surprise, I land on my back instead of my feet. That hulking hold follows just a split second behind me, landing smack into my head. My vision explodes in bright red, then gray, fading to black…

I come to a few minutes later, head throbbing. There’s blood matted in my hair. Just a little. Not an oh-no-I’m-going-to-die sort of a quantity. My mind is whirring, already concocting a fictive accident just bad enough to cause the bump, but not so bad that Ryan will take away my bike.

But, much more important than any of that, I did the Spider Man climb!

I can focus on this, and nothing else matters.