Stepdog (32 page)

“Cody, come!” cried Sara nervously. I unclipped her lead, to prevent it catching on anything. She scrambled up the slope as I put my hands under her backside and pushed her. I felt as if my ribs were going to implode into my heart.

Delighted by the apparent ease she'd started with, Cody scampered up, but as soon as she was above my reach, she began to backslide and scrambled desperately. This sent a rubble of dirt straight into my face. I blinked painfully and turned away, listening to her yelping, and to Sara's calls for her to come.

After a moment I could see again. I looked up to find dog and owner a few feet away from being reunited. A soft sob escaped me, I admit it. They were gorgeous together.

And then I realized that Jay had climbed, not back up to the trail after Cody, but down here onto the ledge with me.

“So it's over, Jay,” I said.

“It is for you,” he said. And shoved me.

I
grabbed his shirt at the shoulders and pulled my weight straight down. On reflex, to keep from toppling over with me, he squatted back and down very fast, to get his arse as far back from the edge as possible. I was still attached to his shirt, so now I hovered over him, and as he fell into a squatting position, I shoved him onto his back. His one good eye widened, startled, now that I suddenly had the upper hand.

Before he could collect himself, I straddled him and sat heavily on his stomach—took the air right out of him. He grasped upward at my shirt, so I let go his shoulders and grabbed his wrists, lifted each of my knees in turn, and pulled his arms under them so the point of my knee rested just above his elbow. He grunted with pain at the pressure on his biceps. Now my hands were free and I wanted to smash the other side of his face, but I stopped myself.

For a moment we glared at each other in the morning sunlight. The cracked rib made me feel about to vomit. He had a fantastic shiner and his nose looked all wrong. I was so exhausted, and so angry, and so victorious, all at once.

“Right,” I said. “Listen to me. This ends here. I am going to get
up off you, and climb back up to the trail, and leave here with Sara and Cody.
You
will get up, and climb back up to the trail, and get in your car, and drive back to Boston. We will never hear from you again. Right?”

“No,” he said in a strained voice, trying to get his breath back. “You'll regret this.”

“Jay!” I said, grabbing for his face in frustration, but stopping myself. “We're on a fucking
cliff
. I've got you
immobilized
here. I knock your gobshite head around a bit, you're so fucked up, you go right off the edge. It's thousands of feet down. Whoever goes over the edge here
dies
.”

“I'm glad you're aware of that,” he said. He bent his right leg and, with a convulsive move, bucked me up off his right hip enough to pull his right arm out from under my knee. Immediately he swung his freed arm up and used the impetus of his movement—taking me completely by surprise, I wouldn't have thought he knew even a half-arsed grappling move—to drive himself over on top of me, straddling me, his weight right on my fuckinghellarseholegobshite ribs. Almost fainting from the pain, I reached up to claw at his face, but his arms were longer than mine, and I couldn't get near him. He grabbed my hands and pushed them up over my head—another near blackout from pain—then pinned them to the dirt with one of his.

His free hand he placed around my neck and tightened it a bit.

“Are you fucking
mad
?” I shouted, my voice strained.

“Make amends,” he ordered. “You saw my hurt, and you chose not to help me, even though you gained nothing by depriving me. That's a senseless, selfish cruelty.
Make amends
.”

“I don't need to make amends for trying to save my wife's dog.
Take your fucking hand off my throat! We're not killing each other over a dog.” That seemed insufficient. “We're not killing each other at
all,
” I clarified furiously.

“If that's your answer, you've only yourself to blame for this.” He began to squeeze and I felt panic because—like
that
—he cut off my breath completely. “I can do this,” he said steadily, softly—more to himself than to me. “I can do this.” I saw that old melancholic gaze on his face as the edges of my vision started blurring out.

With the intensity of a jackhammer I desperately jerked one knee up and against his lower back, which shoved him forward over me, and he had to release my throat so he could put a hand down to steady himself. I took a huge painful inhale.

In that moment between his releasing me and his reaching ground, I twisted all my weight and energy to my left—toward the edge—and pulled him over with me so that we were side by side, my face at his chest—but only for a beat.

Because then the lip of the ledge began to crumble under his weight.

He clutched wildly at me while I clutched wildly at him. I caught his wrists and planted my body totally flat on the dirt. He swung like a clumsy pendulum down along the vertical cliff face—his only attachment to the ledge was my hands on his wrists. Within seconds, either his weight would pull me down with him or I'd somehow yank him back up to safety—where he'd go at me again.

“Oh
Jesus,
” I said, horrified.

There was a third option: I could just let go of him. He would fall, and I would not. We both realized it at the same moment, and looked right at each other, directly face-to-face now. It wasn't even
a choice, really. We both looked down at our hands as his, slippery with sweat, began to slip slowly through mine. We looked back up at each other.

Our shared horror and disbelief made time slow way down. He was falling, we both knew it, and neither of us could stop it happening. We both could feel I wasn't holding tight enough. But even if I squeezed tighter, his weight would drag me over, and unless I released him, we would both plummet.

“If you're the least bit decent this will haunt you every moment for the rest of your life,” he said, trembling.

“No fucking way,” I said. I let go one of his hands. A true mortal fear, like I've never seen before on anybody, tightened his face. He wanted to die with dignity but it wasn't going to happen.

Instantly with my free hand I grabbed under his arm, under his shoulder, around his back, my body spread flat on the ground to hold me stable, only my shoulders, arms, and head over the edge. I released his other wrist and wrapped my other arm around him, too, at the same moment that I torqued my body, jerking hands, shoulders, torso up and over to try to roll him over me. Every muscle in my body clenched against the pain. Utterly disoriented, I heard myself scream, thinking I was falling as everything went white. A great and terrible weight was pulling at me, like a ship being heaved up onto a beach during a storm—

. . . and then suddenly there was no weight. My arm muscles and back muscles spasmed and then released, vision returned, and I saw blue, blue sky—sky everywhere and reddish dust. I was lying flat on my back drenched in sweat, ribs blazing with agony. Lying beside me, snug against the cliff, gasping for breath, was Jay.

He took a huge breath in, released it. I tried to, too, but it hurt
like hell. For a moment we just lay there staring at the enormous, brightening sky, and breathing.

“Now you
can't
haunt me,” I declared. “So for fuck's sake, leave me alone.”

I was so winded and dazed by pain, he could have easily rolled me right off the edge. He didn't. A pause. “All right,” he said. “I guess we're even.”

“Even?”
I echoed, incredulous. “I just saved your fucking
life
. Get some
perspective
.”

“I have,” he said. “Just like they say, your life flashes in front of you. I saw so clearly what's mattered most.”

“About time,” I said.

“It was Cody,” he said. “What she represents, I mean.”

I considered pushing him off the cliff.

“Never seen it clearer,” he said, with his philosophical melancholy, still staring at the sky. “But there's a price to pay for everything. The price of my life is losing her. I get that.”

Thank God! “Look at it this way,” I suggested. “You should have died just now. You didn't. No way I should have been able to haul you back up here. But I did. You just got a new life. A fresh start. So you're not really losing anything, because you're starting from zero.”

He closed his eyes and laughed, but it was a brief, pained laugh. “That's a pathetic attempt at sympathy. I'll manage my own loss, thank you.”

“But you admit it's loss?” I said. “You let go? You accept she's mine?”

He looked startled. Truly startled. He looked at me with his one good eye, and considered me as if he hadn't seen me before.

“Yours?”
He smiled the saddest smile I've ever seen, all the sads of Leonard Cohen and Samuel Beckett rolled up together—with a little smugness just to oil it up. “You've never called her that before. At least my loss has been for something.”

I slapped my hands up to my face and shouted briefly into them. “If this fight wasn't over, I would punch you in the face,” I said.

I
don't know what exactly Sara told the park rangers, but they seemed to believe it was all just a family scuffle. Which in a way, I suppose it was. We were tended to in a ranger station—Jay's face, my ribs. My memory of getting there is fuzzy, due to the excellent quick-acting painkillers they gave me. Sara, with Cody, hovered just at the door, not willing to come close to Jay, not wanting to be far from me.

“You can come in, you know,” I said. “I think he's been deactivated.”

“Hallelujah,” Sara said drily. But she went outside anyhow, to call Alto and Marie and Lena and all them, and let them know about our little rollicking adventure.

Jay was staring into space with his good eye, an ice pack strapped over the damaged mess of his face. He wasn't really in the room. He was completely empty. I felt compassion for him, which I hadn't before. He was no danger now. He'd given it his best shot and failed brilliantly, far better than I would ever fail at anything. Probably not much use in pointing that out to him, though.

For my ribs, the ranger medic gave me the lovely meds, which were starting to work without really working—meaning I felt warm and fuzzy except for my rib cage, which still hurt like hell. He advised me to see a doctor and asked me to sign a bunch of papers, so, for the first time ever, I got to use my green card to prove that I was really me.

“That signature will be worth a lot of money one day,” I told the medic bloke. (His sound track was “Astral Weeks,” but actually that might have been the meds talking.) “If I were you, I'd make a copy and save the original. You can sell it and send your kids to college.”

“Oh yeah?” he said, with a sweetly goofy grin. “That's cool.” Nice kid, he'll probably be the surgeon general in a couple of decades.

A few minutes later, I'd been discharged from his services. I joined Sara and Cody in the shade of a tree near the parking lot. “Hey,” I said to Sara.

“Hey,” Sara said to me. Then she burst into tears and reached out to grab me.

“Ribs,” I said quickly.

“Sorry, right,” she said, and released me, reluctantly, sniffling.

“You all right?”

“Yeah. You?”

“I'm grand,” I said. “Sorry about arguing.”

“Me, too,” she said. Pause. “Do you think we're clear of him finally?”

“Definitely,” I said. “He's a Tragic Hero now. It's a much better fit for him than Vengeful Victim.”

She nodded. “I think that's probably what he wanted all along.”

“Good thing I came along to show him how to do it, then. How's Cody?”

“The medic checked her out and said she seems fine, although we should take her to a vet in L.A. for a real checkup. But she's not scratched up or limping or acting strange, her breathing and heart rate are normal.” She smiled sheepishly. “She's more resilient than her owner.”

“Bet most pets are.”

“The medic also said you shouldn't try the climbing trails while you're doped up on the painkillers, but we can still do the Rim Trail if you're up for it,” she said. “It's paved and fairly level, not too exciting but great views, I hear.”

“Of course I'm up for it,” I said. “How often do I get to see the Grand Canyon with the most beautiful bird in the world on my arm?”

I just loved her smile. “While they were tending you, I asked around and there's a place I can put Cody for a couple of hours, so we can just have time for the two of us. You're right, we could really use that.”

I widened my eyes at her in mock amazement. “But you don't
trust
kennels.”

She smiled sheepishly. “I'm adaptable. Clearly there are some things worse than kennels. This place has been vetted by the Park Service, it's not cheap but it's safe, and as long as you don't think Jonathan would try to—”

“He won't,” I assured her. “Pretty confident about that. The Tragic Hero thing will keep him busy for a while.”

“So if you want to grab yourself a coffee at the restaurant, I'll drive her over to the kennel—why are you smiling like that?“

What a wonderful woman. “Ah, don't bother,” I said, as offhand as I could manage it. “I suppose she can stay with us.”

She looked pleased, but also cautious. “I'm okay with it, Rory,” she said. “I wouldn't suggest it if I didn't feel
really
comfortable about it, given how our morning's been.”

“I appreciate that,” I said. “But . . . now, don't hold me to this, but . . . she's kinda grown on me. I'd feel like I were missing an elbow or something, without her staring at me.”

“I thought you found that annoying.”

“Well, I do,” I said. “But, you know, if she wants to stare at my handsome face that much, who am I to deprive her?” I winked at Sara. “Just don't tell her mom that, or I'll never hear the end of it.”

“I never met her mom,” said Sara promptly. “I'm just her owner.”

“Yeah, right, we'll see how long that lasts,” I said, rolling my eyes.

Cody, assuming—as always—that we were talking about her, bumped against my leg, tail wagging, and looked up, trying to give me her Little Match Girl kisses.

“You!” I said, reaching down to grab her by the scruff of her neck and shake her. Her tail wagged harder. “I've got you under my skin, Cody. Don't you be taking advantage, now!”

I tousled her head roughly and released her. She looked happily between Sara and me, head bobbing a little as if she were getting ready to jump up on one of us.

“Let's go, Cody,” said Sara, and turned toward the Rim Trail. I took a step to be beside her.

“Hang on,” I said. “You're the newbie here. Cody and I are the pros at adventuring. You better walk behind us and let us blaze the trail for you.”

She gave me the Princess Diana look, which I hadn't seen in weeks, and which I loved. “You're my favorite adventurer,” she said. “I'd follow you anywhere.”

“All right, then,” I said. “A stroll along the Grand Canyon with my girls.” We took hands. Cody pulled ahead on her leash, sniffing excitedly at everything, and then turning round to check in with us in case we'd sniffed it, too. As I said, it's too beautiful to describe that place in words. But Sara's smile was the most beautiful thing there, and her smile was like honey spread over a bit of crunchy, buttered toast, offered with a perfect mug of tea. It was like that every time she smiled. Still is.

In fairness, it wasn't a bad way to end a hectic week, and it's a pretty good way to end a story. Which is good, because I have to end this story now, and finish tuning the fiddle before they call for quiet on the set. Today we wrap principal shooting for the first season. What can I say? It's been amazing. I'm giddy, elated, content all rolled into one. Waiting to hear what happens next.

Sara found us a great little rental off Mulholland. Her temporary gig at the Getty has ended, and she's hanging out with Cody in Coldwater Canyon Park in the gorgeous sunshine, painting her heart out and teaching watercolor classes. It's not the arboretum, but it's pretty sweet all the same.

Cody thinks so, too. Just ask her.