Page 113 of Think Outside the Boss

Six years later

The strong wind whips at my hair and pulls tendrils out of my tight braid. The New Mexican air is dry and hot, the glittering Rio Grande a thin snake of water more than five hundred feet beneath me. It’s the exact spot Tristan and his sister bungee-jumped from more than twenty years ago.

Tristan and Joshua had planned our trip here since he was ten, but it had taken time, because you had to be fourteen to be allowed to jump. Tristan had insisted on waiting one more year.

Sweat drips down my spine and I give the harness I’m in a tentative tug.

“It’ll hold,” Tristan says by my side. His calm, familiar voice steadies me. Of course it’ll hold.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Two bungee-jump operators unstrap Tristan’s own harness with quick hands and I grip the railing tight. “And you’re sure you enjoyed it?”

His grin is wide beneath his wind-tousled hair, handsome streaks of gray at his temples. “A rush like no other,” he assures me.

Joshua gives me a nearly identical smile. “It was amazing, Freddie. You won’t regret it.”

I peer over the edge of the bridge to the five hundred feet drop. It had been hard enough to watch my husband and stepson jump, both of them screaming at the top of their lungs. “You were so brave,” I say. “Both of you.”

Joshua runs a hand through his curls and smiles down at me. Down, because he’s now taller than me, and I still haven’t gotten used to it. “It wasn’t as scary as I expected. Not when I’d actually jumped.”

At fifteen, he’s not yet at the age where we are terribly embarrassing to be around… but it’s getting closer. Every trip we still go on where he’s enthusiastic and invested is one to treasure. Tristan slings an arm around his son’s shoulders. A few years more and they’ll be the same height.

“Your mom would have been so proud of you,” he tells Joshua. “Or angry at me, for letting you jump.”

“Perhaps both?”

“Very likely,” he agrees, tugging Joshua closer. “At any rate, I’m proud of you, kid.”

Joshua laughs. “I’m proud of you too, Dad. Thought you’d chicken out at the last minute.”

“Who, me?”

“Yes.”

“I’d never,” Tristan says grandly, but we’re all grinning. The adrenaline of the day has pushed us all to the edge in more ways than one, here on the bridge to honor Jenny and to overcome fears.

Tristan gives Joshua’s shoulders a final squeeze. “Do you want to go wait by Grandma and Julie?”

He nods, shooting me one last smile. “You can do it.”

“Thanks, honey.”

Tristan and I watch him walk the twenty feet or so back to where Maud is standing, our two-year-old safe and snug in her arms. Julie watches us with the rapt attention only an awed toddler possesses. We both give her a little wave, and she waves back, dark hair whipping in the wind, just like mine.

Mommy jumping too? she’d asked earlier. It had been easy then to give her a confident affirmative.

Tristan turns me away from our family, his hands steadying weights on my shoulders. “Frederica,” he murmurs.

“Tristan,” I murmur back.

“You don’t have to do this, you know.”

“I know, but I want to.”

He doesn’t raise a questioning eyebrow, doesn’t comment. Just steadies me with the familiar gaze that promises truth, and kindness, and loyalty. “You don’t struggle with elevators anymore. You can sit on a balcony without feeling anxious, and we even zip-lined in Costa Rica. I’d say you’ve already conquered this fear.”

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