The Tree of Knowledge
Chapter 18: Getting High

I have a new routine. Forty-five minute bike ride to the Hospital first thing in the morning. I visit Mara.

Mara has made it to twenty-one weeks and four days with just the one more seizure. That one happened at three am two days ago. The phone call woke us all up. She has a new doctor much more willing to follow orders who her and I do not like and Ryan adores.

In other news, it’s a boy. Rebecca has decided to name him Isaac, because for some fucked up self-entitled reason she thinks she can.

I suggest to Rebecca that since the biblical Isaac was willing to be offered as a human sacrifice, perhaps baby Isaac was similarly willing to die so that Mara doesn’t have to.

Rebecca did not like this. The next thing I know, Ryan is storming into the kitchen.

“You said you want Isaac to die?!” he shouts.

“I didn’t use those words exactly.”

BAM! His closed fist connects with the side of my face. I go flying out of the kitchen chair and sprawl on to the tile floor. Ryan kicks me in the gut and punches me again. I taste blood, warm and metallic. Instinctively I curl my body up as tight as I can, trying to shield myself from the continuing blows.

He leaves me there on the floor. Bleeding. Broken. I don’t think I can get up. I resolve not to. I pass out there, on the cold tile.

I wake later to a terrible pain as Ryan is lifting me off the floor. There’s this horrible wrenching and stabbing in my insides. I think he broke a rib or two. I’m sort of dimly aware that I’m screaming. He carries me up the stairs, deposits me in my bed, and tucks me in.

I don’t get out of bed for two days. But I get up on the third day, so I guess there’s nothing wrong with that. Or is that rule just for slaves? I can’t keep them straight sometimes. Probably because my husband hits me in the head a lot. I don’t think the Bible actually has any restrictions on how hard you can beat your wife.

Ryan’s been talking about buying a slave, since Mara’s not around to do the cleaning anymore.

Since Mara won’t be around to do the cleaning anymore.

I visit Mara. I bring her wildflowers I pick off the side of the road. Primrose and bluebells and Indian paint brushes. Sometimes I steal flowers from people’s well-kept front gardens. I raid the Hospital flower beds. I bring her Rebecca’s fresh baked croissants. She doesn’t eat much. When I can manage it, I bring her booze. I pour it in her water cup when the nurses aren’t looking. She gulps it down gratefully. And we talk. At least a little. She sleeps a lot.

I suspect she still doesn’t really like me, but who else is she going to talk to?

She tells me stories about her life. I try not to think about how much it sounds like a eulogy.

I used to think that Mara had probably always been a housewife. That her skill sets included scrubbing toilets and drinking when no one was looking. Turns out, Mara’s kind of a genius. She graduated from MIT top of her class. Mara has a Master’s Degree in computer programing. Ryan’s position as CEO of that that software company? That was Mara’s job. After The Revelation, Ryan made Mara quit and install him as her replacement. Women can’t be leaders anymore, anyway.

After visiting Mara (watching Mara die), it’s a two hour ride to Stone Works.

And I’m so tired of bouldering.

I move some candles into the silos and start thinking about maybe going a little higher.

Just a little.

It won’t be that dangerous, I reason, because I hardly ever fall.

And what is life without a little bit of risk?

I start with the naturals route. Instead of holds, there’s only small holes in the wall you can jam your fingers into. I justify this, as my first attempt at a top rope climb without the benefit of a top rope, because it’s a practically impossible climb. What does it matter if it’s sixty feet up if I can’t make it any higher than six feet?

Only then I master it in five days. And then I’m sixty feet in the air with my fingers jammed into tiny holes in the dark wondering how in the hell I can get down without breaking my neck.

My mastery of the naturals route happens the same day as Mara’s first stroke. She lost all feeling in half her body, one half of her face sagging and slurring her words.

I keep telling myself, I’m doing this for the fun of it. Because bouldering is getting boring.

But I think it’s actually because I just don’t care if I fall.

Five days later, Mara has had four more seizures.

We don’t really talk anymore. She has to wear an oxygen mask all the time now. Her lungs have started filling up with fluid. She says it feels like drowning. The doctors have to stick this long tube down her throat and into her lungs. They then vacuum out the fluid. They do this twice a day. It’s very painful.

It’s also the only time she gets to sit up. The rest of the time she lays on her left side, the numb side. I sit on that side, and I hold her hand. I crouch down to her eye level so that I can position the ill-gotten flowers just so, where she can see them.

I’m too embarrassed to do it when she’s awake, but sometimes when she’s sleeping I sing to her.

She’s at twenty-two weeks and three days now, eleven weeks and four days to go.

She’s not going to make it that long.

At this point, I keep hoping Isaac will die. If that little fetal heartbeat would just stop ticking on its own Mara might still be ok.

I tackle the slab climb next. It’s made to look like a huge round rock jutting out of the side of a cliff face. It’s dome shaped, six feet across and ten feet high. This is another one of those things that’s harder than it sounds.

Leading up to it is a fifteen foot stretch with almost no holds. And least it feels like almost none. It looks like a lot more when you’re standing on the ground. Once you’re on the wall they all seem impossibly far apart.

After the slab, there’s another fifteen foot stretch with basically no holds, then a smaller slab right at the top. If you can make it that far, you can perch on top of the little slab, sitting almost comfortably, admiring the view.

I justify my attempt at this forty-five foot climb because when I make it to the top, I can sit on that little slab and rest. I will therefore be less likely to fall to my death climbing back down.

I’ve almost made it to that stupid little slab. It hangs there, taunting me, frustratingly out of reach. I just need to be a little higher. I have my left leg extended about straight out at my side. Both hands are grasping one single hold by my sternum. My other leg is a little insecure on tip toe balanced on the hold below me. There’s a hold about level with my neck on my right, three feet away from me.

This is where the yoga pays off.

I take a moment to dust some chalk on my hands and resecure the placement of my left foot. Then I reach my right foot all the way up to that hold three feet away, doing the splits. Now I can reach up with my right hand and grab a hold at the bottom of the slab.

Sweet, glorious victory is mine!

I feel a curious tickling sensation on my hand. I look up at it.

There’s a brown recluse spider crawling on my hand.

Panicking, I let go and try to shake it off. The momentum causes my left foot to slip off the hold.

For a few, milliseconds I’m falling through the air, connecting with nothing. And I think, this is it. It’s over now. I thought I’d be scared. It feels like relief.

And then I connect painfully with the large slab, my back smacking into it and knocking the wind out of my lungs. From there, I roll off the edge and fall the remaining fifteen feet on to the ground.

At least I stacked the mats up. They don’t exactly feel squishy when my body slams into them, but they’re a damn slight better than the floor.

I lay there for a long time, dazed. I blink at the ceiling.

Not dead. Good.

I wiggle my fingers and toes. I try moving my arms and legs.

Nothing broken. Also good.

I wonder how long it would have taken them to replace my body. I’d imagine whatever made a nest of the mats would have eaten my face off long before then. Maybe they never would even identify me. I’d just be gone. I wonder if anyone would care.

I wonder if I should give that climb another shot.