Dustin stared at the screen. The name sat there in plain black text, pulsing with each ring.
Was his mother as worried as Greg was?
Dustin answered the phone.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Hi, sweetheart.” Cathy's voice was calm. Of course it was. “I saw the announcement.”
Dustin leaned his head back and looked at the ceiling. He could feel a headache coming.
“Yeah,” he said. “It just went up.”
“Devil's Needle,” she said, contemplating. “It sounds dramatic. When are you doing it?”
“In three weeks.”
“Have you trained for that kind of jump?”
“I've done canyon flights.”
“Like this one?”
“Similar enough.”
A pause. Dustin could hear her moving around—the soft sound of a cabinet closing, water running. She was in the kitchen. He could picture it without trying: the small house, the counter that was always clean, the window above the sink that looked out onto a yard she kept tidy because she needed to keep busy.
“Your equipment's in good shape?” she asked.
“Always is.”
“And you'll have a team with you? Spotters, medical?”
“It's a sponsored shoot. They'll have everything.”
“Good.” Another pause. The water turned off. “Are you eating enough?”
Something cracked in Dustin's chest. A hairline fracture in the wall he'd built to keep conversations like this from touching anything real.
“That's it?” he asked before he could stop himself.
“What do you mean?”
“I just told you I'm doing a jump that's killed half the people who've tried it, and you want to know if I'm eating enough.”
“I asked about your equipment and your team.”
“Oh yeah, that was great.”
A pause on the other end of the line. “What is it that you need me to say, then?”
“I don't know, Mom. 'Please don't do this'? 'I'm worried about you'? Anything?”
“As if that would stop you.”
“You could try.”
“I tried. With both of you! For years. It didn't—” She stopped herself. When she spoke again, her voice was tight. “You're going to do what you're going to do. You always have. I'd rather know the details so I'm not blindsided.”
