Falling Read Free Page A

trees weren’t so dense and dark. They seemed to be filled with light, and his father called them hardwoods. He had scooped up Lisa and carried her over a puddle and set her down on her feet again, and it was then – just then – that a ruffed grouse made such a loud drumming that Damian, startled, fell back against a birch. Finally they had come to a very steep bank where someone had rigged ropes to guide people to the bottom.
    It’s fine, his father had said. We’ll just go slowly and hold on to the ropes.
    But his father wasn’t with them now, Damian thought, as he walked across the parking lot with his mother. They were two sleepwalkers, walking a little apart, as if leaving space between them for another person. They’d arrived at Niagara Falls in the middle of the afternoon, but he had the feeling of having woken up in another country. A country of clamour. The exhaust from the buses was blue, and there were tinny voices on intercoms hawking tickets. A helicopter flew over once, twice, and at intervals a great balloon, striped with gold and scarlet, rose straight up, slowly, and descended just as slowly, settling on the American side ofthe Falls. Damian crossed the road, lagging behind his mother, and a leather-clad man on a motorcycle swerved to miss him. The man turned to raise a gloved hand, middle finger extended.
    Now get together, said a man with a camera, facing a little group posing in front of a flowerbed, where exotic blooms of amaryllis stood, darkly crimson, behind them. The man pushed his cap back on his head and waited for people to move out of the way.
    All righty, let’s get this show on the road. No, get in closer, Dwayne. Closer. Okay, say
cheese
.
    Ingrid said she’d meet Damian in half an hour in the same spot. Was he listening? She was going to buy a few bottles of water. Her white hair was beaded with diamond-fine droplets as the mist fell over it. He nodded, wanting to tell her about the droplets, but she’d already turned to leave, and he squeezed into a place at the railing beside a heavy-set woman. The Niagara River ran swiftly past, just beneath where he stood, and thinned to green transparency before falling over the ledge of stone. It began with water, thought Damian. Things began and ended with water.
    I don’t like vinegar on them, said the woman beside him.
    Damian half turned to her, but she was speaking to her friend.
    I like gravy, though. Donald can’t stand it on fries, but I like it.
    A person caught in that current might possibly have a chance of swimming to the bank, Damian considered. But the current would be unrelenting; it would sweep the swimmer away just at the moment he held out a hand for help. He’d be tossed over the edge.
    He who hesitates is lost, his father called. Don’t be afraid.
    Damian knew he’d slide and fall straight into the dark, rushing river below. So Lisa went first. She was only five. She did what their father told her to do and laughed when she tumbled against him at the bottom. Damian’s heart was thumping hard as he reached for the rope and held it with both hands. Thumping hard as a grouse. He clutched the rope and skidded down, holding on so tightly that the rope seemed to rip the skin from his hands.
    His father caught him, rubbing the burns on his hands, and the three of them stood on the bank together. Damian’s heart was still beating fast, but he was dazzled by the water pouring into the deep, black pool, a pool that was ringed around with a wall of rock topped with spruce trees. They gazed at the waterfall without speaking. Bright and dark. Then their father tore off his T-shirt and jeans, his socks and shoes, and made a swift, shallow dive into the pool. He came up, laughing, his hair plastered against his head.
    God knows where Donald got to, anyway, said the woman. He said he was going for a leak, but it can’t take that long.
    Damian lifted his eyes to see, farther away, a place where the river dipped and rolled before it