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The summer I turned nineteen I used to lie in the backyard and watch the planes fly overhead, leaving their clean plumes of jet-stream in a pattern against the sky. It was July, yet the grass had a brown fringe and leaves were already falling, borne on the wind like discarded paper wings. The only thing that flourished that summer was the recession; businesses, lured by lower tax rates, moved south in a steady progression. My father had already left, but in a more subtle and insidious way. After his construction company failed he had withdrawn, into some silent world. Now, when I went with my mother to the hospital, we found him sitting quietly in a chair by the window. His hands were limp against the armrests and his hair was long, a rough gray fringe across his ears. He was never glad to see us, or sorry. He just looked calmly around the room, at my mother’s strained smile and my eyes, which skittered nervously away, and he did not give a single word of greeting or acknowledgment or farewell.

My mother had a job as a secretary and decorated cakes on the side. In the pressing heat she juggled bowls between the refrigerator and the counter, struggling to keep the frosting at the right consistency so she could make the delicate roses, chrysanthemums, and daisies that bloomed against the fields of sugary white. The worst ones were the wedding cakes, intricate and bulky. That summer, brides and their mothers called us on a regular basis, their voices laced with panic. My mother spoke to them as she worked, trailing the extension cord along the tiled floor, her voice soothing and efficient.

Usually my mother is a calm person, level-headed in the face of stress, but one day the bottom layer of a finished cake collapsed and she wept, her face cradled in her hands as she sat at the kitchen table. I hadn’t seen her cry since the day my father left, and I watched her from the kitchen door, a basket of laundry in my arms, uneasiness rising around me like slow, numbing light. But it was all right, she was all right. After a few minutes she dried her eyes and salvaged the cake, removing the broken layer and dispensing with the plastic fountain which spouted champagne, and which was supposed to rest in a precarious arrangement between two cake layers held apart by plastic pillars.

“There.” She stepped back to survey her work. The cake was smaller but still beautiful, delicate and precise.

“It looks better without that tacky fountain, anyway,” she said. “Now let’s get it out of here before something else goes wrong.”

I helped her box it up and carry it to the car, where it rested on the floor, surrounded by bags of ice. My mother backed out of the driveway slowly, then paused and called to me.

“Katie,” she said. “Try to get the dishes done before you go to work, okay? And please, don’t spend all night with those dubious friends of yours. I’m too tired to worry.”

“I won’t,” I said, waving. “I’m working late anyway.”

By “dubious friends” my mother meant Stephen, who was, in fact, my only friend that summer. He had spirals of long red hair and a habit of shoplifting expensive gadgets: tools, jewelry, photographic equipment. My mother thought he was an unhealthy influence, which was generous; the rest of the town just thought he was crazy. He was the older brother of my best friend Emmy Lou who had fled, with her boyfriend and 350 tie-dyed tee shirts, to follow the Grateful Dead on tour. Come with us, she had urged, but I was working evenings in a grocery store, saving my money for school, and it didn’t seem like a good time to leave my mother. So I stayed in town and Emmy Lou sent me postcards I memorized-a clean line of desert, a sky aching blue over the ocean, an airy waterfall in the intermountain west. I was fiercely jealous, caught in that small town while the planes traced their daily paths to places I was losing hope of ever seeing. I lay in the backyard and watched them. The large jets moved in slow silver glints across the sky; the smaller planes droned lower. Sometimes, on the clearest days, I caught a glimpse of skydivers. They started out as small black specks, plummeting, then blossomed against the horizon in a streak of silk and color. I stood up to watch as they grew steadily larger, then passed the tree-line and disappeared.

After my mother left I went inside, where the air was cool and shadowy and heavy with the scent of sugar flowers. I piled the broken cake on a plate and did the dishes, quickly, feeling the silence gather. That summer I couldn’t stay alone in the house; I’d find myself standing in front of mirrors with my heart pounding, searching my eyes for a glimmer of madness, or touching the high arc of my cheekbone as if I didn’t know my own face. I thought I knew about madness, the way it felt, the slow suspended turning as you gave yourself up to it. The doctors said my father was suffering from a stress-related condition, brought on by the failure of his company. They said he would get better. But I had watched him in his slow retreat, distanced by his own expanding silence. On the day he stopped speaking altogether I had brought him a glass of water, stepping through the afternoon light that flickered on the wooden floors he had built himself.

“Hey, Dad,” I had said, softly. His eyes were closed. His face and hands were deeply tanned from the construction work, but where his shirt opened in a V his skin was soft and white and pale. When he opened his eyes they were clear blue, as blank and smooth as the glass in my hand.

“Dad?” I said. “Are you okay?”

He did not speak, then or later, not even when the ambulance came and took him away. He did not sigh or protest. He had slid away from us with apparent ease. I had watched him go, and this was what I knew: madness was a graceless descent, the sudden abyss beneath an ordinary step. Take care I said each time we left my father, stepping from his cool quiet room into the bright heat outside. And I listened to my own words, I took care too. That summer, I was afraid of falling.

*  *  *  *  *

Stephen wasn’t comfortable at my house and he lived at the edge of town, so we met every day at Mickey’s Grill, where it was cool and dark and filled with the chattering life of other people. I always stopped in on my way to or from work, but Stephen sometimes spent whole days there, playing games of pool and making bets with the other people who formed the fringe of the town. Some of them called themselves artists, and lived together in an abandoned farmhouse. They were young, most of them, but already disenfranchised, known to be odd or mildly crazy or even faintly dangerous. Stephen, who fell into the last two categories because he had smashed out an ex-lover’s window one night and tried, twice, to kill himself, kept a certain distance from the others. Still, he was always at Mickey’s, leaning over the pool table, a dark silhouette against the back window with only his hair illuminated in a fringe of red.

Before Emmy Lou left, I had not liked Stephen. He was eight years older than we were, but he still lived in a fixed-over apartment on the second floor of his parents’ house. He slept all morning and spent his nights pacing his small rooms, listening to Beethoven or playing chess with a computer he’d bought. I had seen the dark scars that bisected both his wrists, and they frightened me. He collected a welfare check every month, took valium every few hours, and lived in a state of precarious calm. Sometimes he was mean, teasing Emmy Lou to the edge of tears. But he could be charming too, with an ease and grace the boys my own age didn’t have. When he was feeling good he made things special, leaning over to whisper something, his fingers a lingering touch on my arm, on my knee. I knew it had to do with the danger, too, the reason he was so attractive at those times.

“Kate understands me,” he said once. Emmy Lou, the only person who was not afraid of him, laughed out loud and asked why I’d have any better insight into his warped mind than the rest of the world.

“Can’t you tell?” he said. I wouldn’t look at him so he put his fingers lightly on my arm. He was completely calm, but he must have felt me trembling. It was a week after my father had been taken to the hospital, and it seemed that Stephen knew some truth about me, something invisible that only he could sense.

“What do you mean?” I demanded. But he just laughed and left the porch, telling me to figure it out for myself.

“What did he mean?” I asked. “What did he mean by that?”

“He’s in a crazy mode,” Emmy Lou said. She was methodically polishing her fingernails, and she tossed her long bright hair over her shoulder. “The best thing to do is pretend he doesn’t exist.”

But Emmny Lou left and then there was only Stephen, charming, terrifying Stephen, who started to call me every day. He asked me to come over, to go for a ride, to fly kites with him behind a deserted barn he’d found. Finally I gave in, telling myself I was doing him a favor by keeping him company. But it was more than that, of course.

One night, past midnight, when we were sitting in the quiet darkness of his second story porch, he told me about cutting his wrists, the even pulse of warm running water, the sting of the razor dulled with valium and whiskey.

“Am I shocking you?” he had asked, after awhile.

“No. Emmy Lou told me about it.” I paused, unsure how much to reveal. “She thinks you only did it to get attention.”

He laughed. “Well, it worked,” he said, “didn’t it?”

I traced my finger around the worn pattern in the upholstery. “Maybe,” I said. “But now everyone thinks you’re crazy.”

He shrugged, and stretched, pushing his large thick hands up toward the ceiling. “So what?” he said. “If people think you’re crazy, they leave you alone, that’s all.”

I thought of all the times I had stood in front of the mirror, of the times I woke at night, my heart a frantic movement, no escape.

“Don’t you ever worry that it’s true?”

Stephen reached over to the table and held up his blue plastic bottle of valium. It was a strong prescription. I knew, because I had tried it. I liked the way the blue pills slid down my throat, dissolving anxiety. I liked the way the edges of things grew undefined, so I was able to rise from my own body, calmly and
with perfect grace.

Stephen shook a pill into his hand. His skin was pale and damp, his expression intent.

“No,” he said. “I don’t worry. Ever.”

*  *  *  *  *

Still, on the day the cake collapsed, I could tell he was worried. When I got to the pool room he was squinting down one cue at a time, discarding each one as he discovered warps and flaws.

“Hey, Kate,” he said, choosing one at last. “Care for a game?”

We ordered beer and plugged our quarters into the machine, waiting for the weighty, rolling thunk of balls. Stephen ran his hand through his long red beard. He had green eyes and a long, finely shaped nose. I thought he was extremely handsome.

“How goes the tournament?” I asked. He’d been in the play-offs for days, and each time I came in the stakes were higher.

Stephen broke, and dropped two low balls. He stepped back and surveyed the table. “You’ll love this,” he said. “Loser goes skydiving.”

“You’re kidding,” I said, remembering the plummeting shapes, the silky streaks against the sky. “You know, I’ve always wanted to do that.”

“Well,” Stephen said, “keep the loser company, then.”

He missed his next shot and we stopped talking. I was good, steady, with some competitions behind me. The bar was filling up around us, and soon a row of quarters lined the wooden rim of the pool table. After a while Teddy Johnson, one of the artists in the farmhouse, came in and leaned against the wall. Stephen tensed, and his next shot went wild.

“Too bad,” Ted said, stepping forward. “Looks like you’re on a losing streak, my friend.”

“You could go fuck yourself,” Stephen said. He was tense, but his voice was even, as though he’d just offered Ted a beer.

“Thanks,” Ted said. “But actually, I’d just as soon ask Kate a question, while she’s here. I’d like to know what you think about honor, Kate. Specifically, this: Do you think an honorable person must always keep a promise?”

I shot again. The cue ball hovered on the edge of a pocket, then steadied itself. There was a tension, a subtext that I couldn’t read. I sent my last ball in and took aim at the eight. It went in smoothly, and I stepped back. There was a moment of silence, and we listened to it roll away into the hidden depths of the table.

“What’s your point Teddy?” I asked, without turning to look at him.

“Stephen is going skydiving tomorrow,” Ted said. “Or so he promised.”

“Stephen, you lost?” I felt betrayed, and wondered why he hadn’t told me about it when I first came in.

“It was a technicality,” Stephen said, frowning. “Ridiculous, in fact. I’m the better player.” He took a long swallow of beer.

“What bullshit,” Ted answered. “You’re graceless in defeat, you know.”

Stephen was quiet for a long time. Then he put his hand to his mouth, very casually, but I knew he was slipping one of his tiny blue valiums. He tugged his hands through his thick hair and smiled.

“It’s no big deal, skydiving. I called today and made the arrangements.”

“All the same,” Ted answered, “I can’t wait to see it.”

Stephen shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’ll go alone.”

Ted was surprised. “Forget it, champ. You’ve got to have a witness.”

“Then Kate will go,” Stephen said. “She’ll witness. She’ll even jump, unless she’s afraid.”

I didn’t know what to say. He already knew I wasn’t working the next day. And it was something to think about, too, after a summer of sky-gazing, to finally be inside a plane.

“I’ve never even flown before,” I told them.

“That’s no problem,” Ted answered. “That part is a piece of cake.”

I finished off the beer and picked up my purse from where it was lying on a bar stool.

“Where are you going?” Stephen asked.

“Believe it or not, some of us work for a living,” I said.

He smiled at me, a wide, charming grin, and walked across the room. He took both my hands in his. “Don’t be mad, Kate,” he said. “I really want you to jump with me.”

“Well,” I said, getting flustered. He didn’t work, but his hands were calloused from playing so much pool. He had a classic face, a face you might see on a pale statue in a museum, with hair growing out of his scalp like flames and eyes that seemed to look out on some other, more compelling, world. Recklessness settled over me like a spell, and suddenly I couldn’t imagine saying no.

“Good,” he said, releasing my hands, winking quickly before he turned back to the bar. “That’s great. I’ll pick you up tomorrow, then. At eight.”

When I got home that night my mother was in the kitchen. Sometimes the house was dark and quiet, with only her even breathing, her murmured response when I said I was home. But usually she was awake, working, the radio tuned to an easy-listening station, a book discarded on the sofa. She said that the concentration, the exactness required to form the fragile arcs of frosting, helped her relax.

“You’re late,” she said. She was stuffing frosting into one of the cloth pastry bags. “Were you at Stephen’s?”

I shook my head. “I stayed late at work. Someone went home sick.” I started licking one of the spoons. My mother never ate the frosting. She saw too much of it, she said, and hated even the thick sweet smell of it.

“What is it that you do over there?” she asked, perplexed.

“At work?”

My mother looked up. “You know what I mean,” she said.

I pushed off my tennis shoes. “I don’t know. We hang out. Talk about books and music and art and stuff.”

“But he doesn’t work, Kate. You come home and you have to get up in a few hours. Stephen, on the other hand, can sleep all day.”

“I know. I don’t want to talk about it.”

My mother sighed. “He’s not stable. Neither are his friends. I don’t like you being involved with them.”

“I’m not unstable,” I said. I spoke too loudly, to counter the fear that seemed to plummet through my flesh whenever I had that thought. “I am not crazy.”

“No,” said my mother. She had a tray full of sugary roses in front of her, in a bright spectrum of color. I watched her fingers, thin and strong and graceful, as she shaped the swirls of frosting into vibrant, perfect roses.

“Whatever happened to simple white?” she asked, pausing to stretch her fingers. This bride’s colors were green and lavender, and my mother had dyed the frosting to match swatches from the dresses. Her own wedding pictures were in black and white, but I knew it had been simple, small and elegant, the bridesmaids wearing the palest shade of peach.

“I saw your father today,” she said while I was rummaging in the refrigerator.

“How is he?” I asked.

“The same. Better, maybe. I don’t know.” She slid the tray of finished roses into the freezer. “Maybe a little better, today. The doctors seem quite hopeful.”

“That’s good,” I said.

“I thought we could go see him tomorrow.”

“Not tomorrow,” I said. “Stephen and I have plans already.”

“Katie, he’d like to see you.”

“Oh really?” I said sarcastically. “Did he tell you that?”

My mother looked up from the sink where she was doing dishes. Her hands were wet, a pale shade of purple that shimmered in the harsh overhead light. I couldn’t meet her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ll go see him next week, ok?”

I started down the hall to my room.

“Kate,” she called to me. I paused and turned around.

“Sometimes,” she said, “you have no common sense at all.”

*  *  *  *  *

Secretly I hoped for rain, but the next day was clear and blue. Stephen was even early for a change, the top of his convertible down when he glided up in front of the house. We drove through the clean white scent of clover and the first shimmers of heat. Along the way we stopped to gather dandelions, soft as moss, and waxy black-eyed Susans. Ted had given me his camera, with instructions to document the event, and I spent half the film on the countryside, on Stephen wearing flowers in his beard.

The hangar was a small concrete building sitting flatly amid acres of corn. The first thing we saw when we entered was a pile of stretchers stacked neatly against the wall. It was hardly reassuring, and neither was the hand-lettered sign that warned CASH ONLY. Stephen and I wandered in the dim, open room, looking at the pictures of skydivers in various formations, until two other women showed up, followed by a tall, gruff man who collected $40.00 from each of us, and sent us out to the field.

The man, who had gray hair and a compact body, turned out to be Howard, our instructor. He lined us up beneath the hot sun and made us practice. For the first jump we would all be on static line, but we had to practice as if we were going to pull our own ripcords. It was a matter of timing, Howard said, and he taught us a chant to measure our actions. Arch 1000, Look 1000, Reach 1000, Pull 1000, Arch 1000, Check 1000. We practiced endlessly, until sweat lifted from our skin and Howard, in his white clothes, seemed to shimmer. It was important, he said, that we start counting the minute we jumped; otherwise, we’d lose track of time. Some people panicked and pulled their reserve chute even as the first one opened, tangling them both and falling to their deaths. Others were motionless in their fear and fell like stones, their reserves untouched. So we chanted, moving our arms and heads in rhythm, arching our backs until they ached. Finally, Howard decided we were ready, and took us into the hangar to learn emergency maneuvers.

We practiced these from a rigging suspended from the ceiling. With luck, Howard said, everything should work automatically. But in case anything went wrong, we had to know how to get rid of the first parachute and open our reserves. We took turns in the rigging, yanking the release straps and falling a few feet before the canvas harness caught us. When I tried it, the straps cut painfully into my thighs.

“In the air,” Howard said, “it won’t feel this bad.” I got down, my palms sweaty and shaky, and Stephen climbed into the harness.

“Streamer!” Howard shouted, describing a parachute that opened but didn’t inflate. Stephen’s motions were fluid-he flipped open the metal buckles, slipped his thumbs through the protruding rings, and fell the few feet through the air.

Howard nodded vigorously. “Yes,” he said. “Perfect. You do exactly the same for a Mae West-a parachute with a cord that’s caught, bisecting it through the middle.”

The other two women had jumped before but their training had expired, and it took them a few tries to relearn the movements. After we had each gone through the procedure three times without hesitation, Howard let us break for lunch. Stephen and I bought cokes and sat in the shade of the building, looking at the row of planes shining in the sun.

“Have you noticed?” he asked. “Howard doesn’t sweat.”

I laughed. It was true, Howard’s white clothes were as crisp now as when we had started.

“You know what else, Kate?” Stephen went on, breaking a sandwich and giving half to me. “I’ve never flown either.”

“You’re kidding?” I said. He was gazing out over the fields.

“No, I’m not.” His hands were clasped calmly around his knees. “Do you think we’ll make it?”

“Yes,” I said, but even then I couldn’t imagine myself taking that step into open space. “Of course,” I added, “we don’t have to do this.”

“You don’t,” said Stephen, throwing his head back to drain his soda. He brushed crumbs out of his beard. “For me it’s my personal integrity at stake, remember?”

“But you don’t have to worry,” I said. “You’re so good at this. You did all the procedures perfectly, and you weren’t even nervous.”

“Hell,” Stephen said. He shook his head. “What’s to be nervous? The free fall is my natural state of mind.” He tapped the shirt pocket where his valium was hidden.

“Want one?” he asked. “For the flight?”

I shook my head. “No,” I said. “Thanks.”

He shrugged. “Up to you.”

He pulled the bottle out of his pocket and flipped it open. There was only one pill left.

“Damn,” he said. He took the cotton out and shook it again, then threw the empty bottle angrily into the field.

We finished eating in silence. I had made up my mind not to go through with it, but when Howard called us back to practice landing maneuvers, I stood up, brushing off the straw that clung to my legs. There seemed to be nothing else to do.

I was going to jump first, so I was crouched closest to the opening in the side of the plane. There was no door, just a wide gaping hole. All I could see was brittle grass, blurring, then growing fluid as we sped across the field and rose into the sky. The force of the ascent pushed me against the hot metal wall of the plane and I gripped a ring in the floor to keep my balance. I closed my eyes, took deep breaths, and tried not to envision myself suspended on a piece of metal in the midst of all that air. The jumpmaster tugged at my arm. The plane had leveled, and he motioned to the doorway.

I crept forward and got into position. My legs hung out the opening and the wind pulled at my feet. The jumpmaster was tugging at my parachute and attaching the static line to the floor of the plane. I turned to watch, but the helmet blocked my view. I felt Stephen’s light touch on my arm. Then the plane turned, straightened itself. The jumpmaster’s hand pressed into my back.

“Go!” he said.

I couldn’t move. The ground was tiny, an aerial map, rich in detail, and the wind tugged at my feet. What were the commands? Arch, I whispered. Arch arch arch. That was all I could remember. I stood up, gripping the side of the opening, my feet balanced on the metal bar beneath the doorway, resisting the steady rush of wind. The jumpmaster shouted again. I felt the pressure of his fingers. And then I was gone. I left the plane behind me and fell into the air.

I didn’t shout. The commands flew from my mind, as distant as the faint drone of the receding plane. I knew I must be falling, but the earth stayed the same abstract distance away. I was suspended, caught in a slow turn as the air rushed around me. Three seconds yet? I couldn’t tell. My parachute didn’t open but the earth came no closer, and I kept my eyes wide open, too terrified to scream.

I felt the tug. It seemed too light after the heavy falls in the hanger, but when I looked up the parachute was unfolding above me, its army-green mellowing beneath the sun. Far off I heard the plane as it banked again. Then it faded and the silence grew full around me. I leaned back in the straps, into air. Four lakes curled around the horizon, jagged deep blue fingers. All summer I had felt myself slipping in the quick rush of the world, but here, in clear and steady descent, nothing seemed to move. It was knowledge to marvel at, and I tugged at the steering toggles, turning slowly in a circle. Cornfields unfolded, marked off by trees and fences. And still the silence; the only audible sound was the whisper of my parachute. I pulled the toggle again and saw someone on the ground, a tiny figure, trying to tell me something. All I could do was laugh, drifting, my voice clear and sharp in all that air. Gradually, the horizon settled into a tree line a quarter of a mile away, and I was falling, I realized, falling fast. I tensed, then remembered and forced myself to relax, to fix my gaze on that row of trees. My left foot hit the ground and turned and then, it seemed a long time later, my right foot touched. Inch by inch I rolled onto the ground. The corn tunneled my vision and the parachute dragged me slightly, then deflated. I lay there, smiling, gazing at the blue patch of sky.

After a long time I heard my name in the distance.

“Kate?” It was Stephen. “Kate, are you okay?”

“I’m over here.” I sat up and took off my helmet.

“Where?” he said. “Don’t be an idiot. I can’t see anything in all this corn.”

We found each other by calling and moving awkwardly through the coarse, rustling leaves. Stephen hugged me when he saw me.

“Wasn’t it wonderful?” I said. “Wasn’t it amazing?”

“Yeah,” he said, helping me untangle the parachute and wad it up. “It was unbelievable.”

“How did you get down before me?” I asked.

“Some of us landed on target,” he said as we walked back to the hanger. I laughed, giddy with the solidity of earth beneath my feet.

Stephen waited in the car while I went for my things. I hesitated in the cool, dim hangar, letting my eyes adjust. When I could see, I slipped off the jumpsuit and black boots, brushed off my clothes. Howard came out of the office.

“How did I do?” I asked.

“Not bad. You kind of flapped around out there, but not bad, for a first time. You earned this, anyway,” he said, handing me a certificate with my name, and his, and the ink still drying.

“Which is more than your friend did,” he added. He shook his head at my look of surprise. “I can’t figure it out either. Best in the class, and he didn’t even make it to the door.”

I didn’t say anything to Stephen when we got into the car. I didn’t know what to say, and by then, anyway, my ankle was swelling, turning an odd, tarnished shade of green. We went to the hospital. They took me into a consulting room and I waited a long time for the x-ray results, which showed no breaks, and for the doctor, who lectured me on my foolishness as he bandaged my sprained ankle. When I came out, precarious on new crutches, Stephen was joking around with one of the nurses.

It wasn’t until halfway home, when he was talking nonstop about this being the greatest high he’d ever had, that I finally spoke.

“Look,” I said. “I know you didn’t jump. Howard told me.”

Stephen got quiet and tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. “I wanted to,” he said. His nervous fingers worried me, and I didn’t answer.

“I don’t know what happened, Kate. I stood right in that doorway, and the only thing I could imagine was my chute in a streamer.” His hands gripped the wheel tightly. “Crazy, huh?” he said. “I saw you falling, Kate. You disappeared so fast.”

“Falling?” I repeated. It was the word he kept using, and it was the wrong one. I remembered the pull of the steering toggle, the slow turn in the air. I shook my head. “That’s the funny thing,” I told him. “There was no sense of descent. It was more like floating. You know, I was scared too, fiercely scared.” I touched the place above the bandage where my ankle was swelling. “But I made it,” I added softly, full of wonder.

We drove through the rolling fields that smelled of dust and ripening leaves. After a minute, Stephen spoke. “Just don’t tell anyone, okay, Kate? Right? It’s important.”

“I’m not going to lie,” I said, even though I could imagine his friends, who would be unmerciful when they found out. I closed my eyes. The adrenalin had worn off, my ankle ached, and all I wanted to do was sleep.

I knew the road, so when I felt the car swing left, I looked up. Stephen had turned off on a country lane and he was stepping hard on the gas, sending bands of dust up behind us.

“Stephen,” I said. “What the hell are you doing?”

He looked at me, and that’s when I got scared. A different fear than in the plane, because now I had no choice about what was going to happen. Stephen’s eyes, green, were wild and glittering.

“Look,” I said, less certainly. “Stephen. Let’s just go home, okay?”

He held the wheel with one hand and yanked the camera out of my lap. We swerved around on the road as he pulled the out the film. He unrolled it, a narrow brown banner in the wind, and threw it into a field. Then he pressed the accelerator again.

“Isn’t it a shame, Kate,” he said, “that you ruined all the film?”

The land blurred; then he slammed the brakes and pulled to the side of the deserted road. Dusk was settling into the cornfields like fine brown mist. The air was cooling on my skin, but the leather of the seat was warm and damp beneath my palms.

Stephen’s breathing was loud against the rising sound of crickets. He looked at me, eyes glittering, and smiled his crazy smile. He reached over and rested his hand on my shoulder, close to my neck.

“I could do anything I wanted to you,” he said. His thumb traced a line on my throat. His touch was almost gentle, but I could feel the tension in his flesh. I thought of running, then remembered the crutches and nearly laughed out loud from nerves and panic at the comic strip image I had, me hobbling across the uneven fields, Stephen in hot pursuit.

“What’s so funny?” Stephen asked. His hand slid down and seized my shoulder, hard enough to fix bruises there, delicate, shaped like a fan.

“Nothing,” I said, biting my lip. “I just want to go home.”

“I could take you home,” he said. “If you didn’t tell.”

“Just drive,” I said. “I won’t tell.”

He stared at me. “You promise?”

“Yes,” I said. “I promise.”

He was quiet for a long time. Bit by bit his fingers relaxed against my skin.

His breathing slowed, and some of his wild energy seemed to diffuse into the steadily descending night. Watching him I thought of my father, all his stubborn silence, all the uneasiness and pain. It made me angry suddenly, a sharp illumination that ended a summer’s panic. The sound of crickets grew, and the trees stood black against the last dark shade of blue. Finally he started the car.

When we reached my mother’s house he turned and touched me lightly on the arm. His fingers rested gently where the bruises were already surfacing, and he traced his finger around them. His voice was soft and calm.

“Look,” he said. There was a gentle tone in his voice, and I knew it was as close to an apology as he would ever come. “I have a bad temper, Kate. You shouldn’t provoke me, you know.” And then, more quietly, even apprehensively, he asked if I’d come over that night.

I pulled my crutches out of the back seat, feeling oddly sad. I was too angry to ever forgive him, and I was his only friend.

“You can go to hell,” I said. “And if you ever bother me again, I’ll tell the entire town that you didn’t jump out of that plane.”

He leaned across the seat and gazed at me for a second. I didn’t know what he would do, but it was my mother’s driveway and I knew I was safe.

“Kate,” he said then, breaking into the charming smile I knew so well. “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”

“No,” I said. “Not crazy. I think you’re just afraid.”

I was quiet with the door, but my mother sat up right away from where she was dozing on the couch. Her long hair, which reached the middle of her back, was streaked with gray and silver. I had a story ready to tell her, about falling down a hill, but in the end it seemed easier to offer her the truth. I left out the part about Stephen. She followed me as I hobbled into the kitchen to get a glass of water.

I didn’t expect her to be so angry. She stood by the counter, drumming her fingers against the formica.

“I don’t believe this,” she said. “All I’ve got to contend with, and you go and throw yourself out of a plane.” She gestured at the crutches. “How do you expect to work this week? How in the world do you expect to pay for this?”

“Oh, Lord,” I said, shaking my head. Stephen was home by now. I didn’t think he would bother me, but I couldn’t be sure.

“Working is the least of my problems,” I said. “Compared to other things, the money aspect is a piece of cake.”

And at that my eyes, and hers, fell on the counter, where the remains of yesterday’s fiasco were still piled high, the thick dark chocolate edged with creamy frosting. My mother gazed at it for a minute. She picked up a hunk and held it out to me.

“Piece of cake?” she repeated, deadpan.

My mouth quivered. I started laughing, then she did. We were both hysterical with laughter, clutching our sides in pain. And then my mother was shaking me. She was still laughing, unable to speak, but there were tears running down her face too, and when she hugged me to her I got quiet.

“Kate,” she said. “My God, Katie, you could have been killed.”

I held her and patted awkwardly at her back.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Mom, it’s okay. Next week, I’ll be as good as new.”

She stepped back, one hand on my shoulder, and brushed at her damp eyes with the other hand.

“I don’t know what’s with me,” she said. She sat down in one of the chairs and leaned her forehead against her hand. “It’s too much, I guess. All of this, and with your father. I just, I don’t know what to do about it all.”

“You’re doing fine,” I said, thinking about all her hours spent on wedding cakes, building confections as fragile and unsubstantial as the dreams that demanded them. My father sat, still and silent in his white room, and I was very angry with him. I wanted to tell my mother this, to explain how the anger had seared away the panic, to share the calmness that, even now, was growing up within me. Eventually, I knew, I would forgive my father. Whatever had plunged him into silence, and Stephen into violence, wouldn’t find me. I had a bandaged ankle, but the rest of me was whole and strong.

My mother pulled her long hair away from her face, then let it fall.

“I’m going to take a bath,” she said. “You’re okay, then?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’m fine.”

I went to my room. The white curtains lifted, luminous in the darkness, and I heard the distant sound of running water from the bathroom. I took off all my clothes, very slowly, and let them lie where they fell on the floor. The stars outside were bright, the sky clear. I knew that even now Stephen was home, making fun of the jumpmaster, and telling his friends how it felt to step into air. I knew I wouldn’t see him again, and I was glad. I leaned against the window sill. The curtains unfolded, brushing against my skin in a swell of night air, and what I remembered, standing there in the dark, was the way it felt to be falling.