The holding of breath, the resurfacing of past trauma. I made a mistake, but it turned out OK. The moment that I let go of my breath, the moment in which I relented into the shame and accepted to face myself, the problem resolved. There is no fertile embryo; there is no impending child.

Saturday morning. We sit across from each other at the kitchen table eating bowls of oats and drinking coffee, both laced with cream. The climbing guidebooks spread out in front of us. We suggest climbs to each other and generate a game plan for the day.

Driving up to the crags, the sky wide open blue and the air cool and autumnal. Anna in the backseat, joining us for the day.

Today would have been the start of our fifteenth year together.

The anniversary of our first date. I wonder what he’s doing. I wonder if I’ll hear from him.

I belay Russell up the wall, and he in turn belays me up to follow him. My hands jammed into granite slots. I clean his gear from the cracks. A stubborn cam that he abandoned. I peer into the crack and wiggle it and determine the problem. I take my tool and place it precisely against a wing of the cam, line it up, and then tap crisply. The cam releases from the rock and I yell up to him, “I rescued your cam!!!”

I join him at the ledge of rock between the pitches. Anna is above, anchored to a tree. She takes a photo of us. I’m the happiest. This, here. I am in flow. I am part of a team. I am loved and free and happy and everything is perfect. I am with Russell.

That evening, we drive down into Washington State to a cabin in the forest. Playing games with friends late into the night, drinking red wine from the Columbia Valley that tastes of mineral and soil. We sleep together in a small wooden bed, the trees groaning as they rub together in the windy night. He gets up in the night to go to the bathroom. I wake when he returns to bed. He curls in behind me and places his arm around me. I take his hand, where it rests in front of my chest, and hold onto it, hold it close to my body.