CHAPTER ONE
When the rumbling Cessna heaved into the sky, Kate Jansen
completely lost her nerve.
She seized the strap of her seat belt as the whole plane
shuddered. Through the dirty window she glimpsed Jo and
Sarah -- her two best friends in the world -- standing on
the tarmac and shrinking swiftly into the distance.
"Now don’t you mind all the rattling, Miz Jansen," Bubba
shouted, patting the metal sides of the plane. "This old
girl has brought me safely up and down again, a hundred
times or more."
Kate glared at her skydiving instructor. He sat facing her,
dressed in his black and blue jumpsuit, looking like a
giant mutant housefly. He'd just spent two hours teaching
her the proper falling techniques in the airport's single
hangar. He'd promised her that the jump would conquer her
fear of heights, her fear of flying, her fear of everything.
What the hell am I doing?
Breathe. Breathe. It had to be all right. Her friend Rachel
Braun had done this a thousand and thirty-six times. Solo.
But Kate would be diving with Bubba strapped to her back,
hooked to him at six points. Each hook can carry two
hundred pounds, he’d told her, and so if four of them
snapped off while they were tumbling toward earth, well, a
little thing like her shouldn’t worry.
She was going to kill Rachel Braun for this. And she would -
- if Rachel wasn’t dead already.
The plane jerked in sudden ascent. Kate seized the ragged
edge of the plywood she sat upon. A thousand little
splinters pierced her palms. She cast about wildly, seeking
escape. Her gaze fixed upon a silver cross, dangling from
the rosary beads clutched in the other skydiver's hands.
His name was Frank, Bubba had told her, a Franciscan monk
who jumped a few times a year.
She wondered, in a panic, if a monk could take confession.
But what did she have to confess? She loved her freakin'
life. She was a thirty-nine-year-old mother of three with a
comfortable home with flaking plaster walls. Her life
overflowed with PTA meetings and Christmas craft
fundraisers. Every other year or so she’d do a twenty-mile
walk for one of Sarah’s charities.
She loved, most of all, her kids, whose faces she could
summon up like spirits. Tess, sucking on a hank of hair,
her cropped hoodie clinging to her ribcage; Michael moody
and dark and brooding. And Anna, little Anna, who gave
small wet kisses like sparks.
Only a few hours ago, she’d signed fifteen pages of a
contract that absolved the entire universe of any
responsibility for loss of property, limb, life. It
prevented anyone from even asking about her death -- even
her husband, who didn't know that she was currently
hovering a mile above the earth.
Suddenly, the Franciscan stood up, palming the sides of the
open door. He yelled something over his shoulder and then
made the sign of the cross. Papers on the pilot’s clipboard
rattled -- two tore off and reeled into the wind.
Frank was gone.
Holy shit.
"C’mon, Miz Jansen." Bubba grinned as he reached over and
unbuckled her seat belt. "Let’s do this."
"No . . .." The wind sucked the word from her
mouth. "No . . .."
But Bubba didn't hear her. He hauled her up with those ham-
sized fists and then twisted her around like he was going
to take her by the backside. She struggled to speak as she
stood there with her knees buckling, while he pressed his
long hard body against her and hooked her up to him -- six
little hooks.
She forced air past her throat. "I’ve changed . . .my mind."
"Ten minutes." He moved against her. "Ten minutes, and
we'll be on the ground."
Something imploded inside her, shooting sparks to her
extremities, making her cramp into a curled ball of terror,
held up by six little hooks. "You said . . . I could change
my mind."
"You’re not going to chicken out on me, are you, Miz
Jansen?"
"I’m just . . . a housewife!"
"Right now you’re a sassy thirty-nine-year-old woman," he
bellowed, "with a big country boy strapped to your back."
"I’ve got responsibilities." She couldn’t breathe, and all
the yelling hurt her throat. "I’ve got obligations."
Rachel, Rachel, why did you ask me to do this?
"Hey," the pilot barked. "We're over the drop zone! Get
out!"
"Miz Jansen, you've got to make a decision now."
"Rachel . . . Rachel died," Kate stuttered, her whole body
shaking. "That letter should have had instructions for her
funeral. Dirty songs to sing over her grave. Not . . . not
this."
Bubba yelled, "You opting out?"
"Yes!"
"You sure?"
"Yes!!"
Bubba sighed. She rose and fell upon the weight of it.
"Okay," he said. "We’re done."
Kate stilled. She kept her grip on the molding, slippery
now with sweat. She felt the slight banking of the
plane. "Really?"
"Oh, yeah. Really." Bubba worked the hooks. He spoke close
to her ear so he could make himself heard without
yelling. "You think you’re the first to give up, honey?
Hell, no. Happens all the time." He slipped the first hook
free. "’Specially with women staring down the barrel at
their fortieth birthdays. Can't find the guts."
"I’ve got three kids!"
"Think of how they'd look at you, if you'd jumped."
"Better that I’m around to see them," she retorted. "Better
I’m alive on the ground -- "
"Oh, sure," he said. "Then you can go back to your soccer
carpool. Over a fancy coffee, tell those other moms all
about how you almost jumped out of an airplane."
Hell yes.
"And when you’re done, you can go home and dust the
moldings, maybe scrub a toilet. Slip in a load of laundry
before bedtime. After all, you have to get that stain out
of Junior’s soccer pants. I hear Tide with bleach is the
thing."
Stop.
She didn’t need to hear it. She saw it, as clearly as she
saw long wisps of clouds through the window. Oh, yes, the
unfurling of the long years, marked by yet another beach
house vacation and another project involving toothpicks and
toilet paper rolls, another concert with the grammar school
band screeching "Hot Cross Buns." Year upon year passes in
clockwork predictability, and the only things that change
are the height of her kids, the baldness of her husband,
and the width of her ass.
"Listen asshole," she yelled over her shoulder. "Sure I’m a
housewife, but it’s a hell of a lot better way to spend my
time than chilling in a morgue."
"Like Rachel?"
Bubba yanked another hook free. He may as well have jerked
it from her flesh. It left her speechless. Aghast. Grasping
for words.
Suddenly, he pressed his stubbled cheek against her
hair. "What do you think your friend would give, Kate, for
a chance to be up here again?"
Kate knew the answer. Rachel lived for moments like this,
made huge sacrifices for the adrenalin rush. Sacrifices
Kate hadn’t always agreed with. But all that was over. All
possibilities, for better or worse, were gone forever.
The pilot yelled, "Last chance, Bubba."
Last chance.
The plane dipped. Kate Jansen glared out at those blue
skies, at the ground so very far below. She glared up at
the heavens. Didn’t know whether to curse Bubba or Rachel
or her wretched self for the foolishness she was about to
attempt.
Bubba spoke, one last time.
"What’ll it be . . . wifey?"