Free Fall
by Wesley Rey
Her mama is an angel, you know. One of the real ones with a scary kind of twinkle in her eyes and wings big enough to touch both ends of the turnpike if she stretched ‘em a little. Star of the show, she was. Used to drag hundreds of thousands out just to see her spin circles above their heads. I didn’t really see the appeal of it. Maybe it was ‘cause I spent every hour of my day with her, watching her swat and swear at them for getting in her way. But the people liked it. Loved it, even. Made the show lots of money.
Poor thing wasn’t her mama, though. She never had her mama’s heavenly flair, in appearance or performance. She was a timid little thing. Smart as a whip, sure, and sweeter than sin, but she was so reserved. I think she spent more time wrapped up in her mama’s wings than she did talking to people. God, she was fascinated by them. Always running her fingers through the soft, downy feathers with a smile, but a sadness in her eyes that didn’t really match it. We used to tell her that hers would grow in one day. That her lack of wings was only temporary, and that one day she’d be doing laps around the ring just the same. Her mama didn’t grow hers in until she really needed them, so maybe she wasn’t ready yet. She just had to give it a little time and a little thought, that’s all. She just had to be patient.
As she got older, though, she and heights just clicked like a couple of Legos. That gave us a bit more hope for her. She was always climbing up on things she shouldn’t have. Trees, cliffsides, truck beds, you name it. You’d look away for three seconds and she’d be halfway up the side of the tent pole, trying to get a better view of whatever bumfuck town we happened to be staying in. Putting her up on the trapeze was supposed to be our way of giving her an outlet. A safe way to let her be up that high without the risk of hurting herself. Really, it was just some last ditch effort to try and make a performer out of her. Get her closer to the sky and maybe, just maybe, those wings of her would pop right out of her back like a cheap jack-in-the-box, ready to soar. Just like her mama. It was only a matter of time, surely. She just had to think a little harder. Nevermind the fact that she’d stay up there so long, she made herself sick. Nevermind how often we’d have to drag her back down to keep her from falling. Nevermind that she was only eight. All she had to do was put a little bit more work in. A little bit more, and then she’d be flying.
In the end, her wings never grew in. The girl just fell. Fell almost thirty feet straight down from the trapeze platform, landing limp on the cold, dead grass like a sack of old potatoes. Not one feather in sight. Just a bloodstain the shape of Idaho leaking out of a hole in her head, and a silence in the air that felt like choking. By some miracle, she didn’t die. She broke her skull, eight ribs, her pelvis, and most of the bones in her right leg, but she didn’t die. Her daddy heard her scream all the way from their trailer and we managed to get her to the hospital before she even realized she was bleeding.
We didn’t need to ask her why she was up there in the dark, all alone, without a safety net to break her fall. We already knew what she was trying to do.
It took three weeks in the hospital before they let us take her home. I don’t even know how long it was before she was walking again. The doctors were more than a little pushy about us trying to find her a more “normal” place to stay after the accident but eventually they compromised with us. We could keep traveling around with her as long as we didn’t let her back up on the trapeze. God, that hurt to tell her. I still remember how heartbroken she was. That dull look of pain, so distant and sorrowful. “Never,” she had asked, voice so soft we almost couldn’t hear it. “Not even when my wings come in?”
No one had the heart to tell her that they wouldn’t. Not even her own mother. None of us could get the words to form on our tongues, so we just shook our heads and changed her bandages. Called her Angel. Pretend everything would be okay. I suppose one day, she’ll figure it all out. She’ll come to terms with her humanity and unfurl the lies we sewed into her fractured mind. But until that day comes, all we can do is tie the nets under the tightrope a little more secure, and lie awake at night pretending that it wasn’t our fault.
Wesley Rey (he/they) is a queer, disabled author with a passion for the weird and unnerving. Though born and raised in Missouri, he’s currently living in Iowa while he gets his Bachelors in Creative Writing and Studio Art. When he isn’t writing, he can be found sewing, conniving, and causing a general ruckus.