Sam’s mom has a new linen dress, but it wrinkles if you look at it. She steams it in the morning with a portable steamer, but it still creases on the way to graduation. Courtney wanted Sam to dress up too, but what’s the point if she is wearing a cap and gown? It’s hot, so Sam wears shorts and a T-shirt underneath, and Noah is angry because he has to wear a button-down shirt.
“You know what?” says Courtney, but she is too jittery to finish her thought. They drive to the high school and there are people directing traffic. The big field is full of cars, and it takes a while to find Jen and Steve and the girls. There are so many families swarming.
Jen tries to take pictures during the ceremony where Sam is a speck in a sea of graduation hats.
She takes the real pictures after, when Sam and Noah stand on either side of Courtney.
“Smile,” Courtney orders Noah, and when he doesn’t, she squeezes his hand and threatens him, which makes him laugh and come out blurry. But they are good pictures, and everybody is relieved, especially Sam, because she is done with school and all the people there. They celebrate with Chinese takeout at Jen’s house and there are fortune cookies. Sam gets What Is Not Started Will Never Get Finish.
“There you go,” says Courtney.
Steve still thinks Sam could enlist. She would do great. Jen thinks Sam could go into construction. She’s good with heights! But Courtney made up her mind when Sam was born that she would go to college and that will never change. “Well, sweetie, your mom is stubborn,” Jen says.
And it’s true. Courtney won’t rest until Sam registers for classes. She was happy about graduation but that was temporary. Even in the car, on the way home from Jen’s house, Sam can see her mom’s good mood evaporating. Courtney parks and as soon as Sam and Noah get out, she snaps, “How many times do I have to tell you don’t slam the door?”
Then as soon as they get inside, she says, “Why are there dishes on the table?” And she walks into the bedroom.
Noah takes the couch and starts playing his game, while Sam sits at the table and scrolls through Jen’s pictures on her phone. She knows what her mom wants, but why? If Sam gets a job she could actually help with rent, or at least groceries, since Noah is an eating machine, and he is still growing.
She looks at him and thinks, If I were a better sister, I would show him an example. She could do it even now. She could just take out her computer and register for accounting. That would cure Courtney’s headache. It would cure a lot of things. What’s holding Sam back? Only herself. Only her craving to earn money now, not later.
She works at the Atomic Bean and at the UPS store. Then on Fridays and sometimes Sundays she drives to Gloucester.
She buys a new phone and shoes and a better mat to fall on, so she doesn’t have to borrow.
Amber says independence is the best. She left home the second she turned eighteen because she hated her stepmother. She fell in love with auto repair and the rest is history.
Kyle says the day he bought his truck was the best day of his life.
Sam says that’s kind of how she feels about her car.
Only Justin says, “Come on. The best day of your life can’t be about a vehicle.”
“Why not?” Amber is down-to-earth. It’s in her climbing too. Amber is practical. She doesn’t try routes that she can’t handle. Justin is the opposite. He is out there. He will try something, and everybody will say no. Then he will keep working and falling until people say, Okay, Justin, this is boring now.
One day in July they are climbing a route called Old Bones. There is a long fissure in the rock that looks easy, but it’s not. You can just barely squeeze your fingers in, and there are no good places for your feet. Kyle and Sean give up first because their hands are too big. Amber gets farther, but she says it hurts. The rock scrapes her knuckles and she can’t get her feet under her. So, then it’s Sam and Justin.
He is up first, and he tries a thousand times, leveraging his weight with feet and fingertips.
“Let me!” Sam says. “Let me!”
“Hold on,” Justin tells her, and she remembers how her dad always said Be patient, monkey—as if she knew nothing about waiting.
She’s glad when Justin falls the thousandth time. He falls so many times that he has to let Sam try, so he can catch his breath.
At first, she does better than he did. She is lighter, and she has practiced in her mind how to leverage her feet on either side of the fissure. Then she understands what’s tricky. The crack narrows as you go. At first there is space around your hand and thumb, but after that you hold on with your fingertips. Each time she tries, she falls six feet to the mat.
“Try reversing?” Kyle says. “Left hand first?”
Everybody has an opinion, but she doesn’t listen. She stands there staring down that boulder, and her shirt is soaked with sweat, her face streaked with dirt.
“You got farther than I did,” Justin says, thinking she is done.
She glances at him for just a second, because does he think she’s weak? Or stupid? Does he think she’ll wait for him again?
“Hey, have a beer,” says Amber in a voice that sounds like You need to calm down. That’s the last thing Sam hears before she jumps up again.
Her feet know where to go. Her fingers find their holds, but just before the fissure narrows, she starts to lose her grip. Her left hand slips and snags the sharp edge of the crevice. She can hear a gasp. Is that her? And is that blood? She’s cut herself but she holds on anyway with feet and knees. Her bloody hand now free, she holds on with her right again.
Her hand is throbbing, her body straining, but there is no way she will let go. She is too strong, too stubborn, too angry. She feels it happening, that change coming over her, because she cannot, and she will not stop. This climb is life or death. It’s truth or dare, and she chooses the dare.
She’s got her balance now, as she climbs upward. Pain is like a shadow. It is hard to see. Her hand and arm are slick with blood. The shadow blackens for a second and then clears. And she has done it. She is standing high above.
A second later, she hears Bolt barking, and she is looking up at him. She is sprawled on the ground, and she is not sure how she got there. Did she jump, or fall?
Everyone is talking at once, like What the hell? What did you just do?
“Shut up shut up.” Amber is wrapping Sam in gauze, applying pressure.
“I’m fine,” says Sam.
“Hold your hand up,” Justin tells her.
“Hold it high.” Amber’s voice is scolding, but also awestruck. “What were you doing climbing like that?”
Sam can’t even answer.