A Leap of Faith

TW: family bereavement

I’m in my study sitting at my laptop, I’ve just finished writing an email. The cursor on my screen is hovering over the send button. I almost press it, then delete a couple of lines and rewrite them. I’ve been doing this for an hour. Heavy rain is hammering at the window and thunder and lightning is cracking the steel grey sky. I can hear what sounds like a sea of water surging through the drain pipe next to my window. My husband is playing a game with our two girls downstairs, their laughter and squeals are echoing around the house. Our dog, Rosie, is barking, she doesn’t like thunder. The noise is still a welcome distraction from the dilemma I’m facing. I’m at a crossroad in my career. Working from home during the pandemic has proven to me that I work best when I work solo, in my own environment. I want to go freelance as a graphics designer but that means leaving the comfort and security of my job working at an agency, which has become a little stale. It’s a big risk. When I sat down with my husband and told him what I wanted to do, he told me to go for it and gave me his full support. He said we’d work it out financially if that’s what I wanted. So, here I am. I’ve typed my resignation, all I need to do is press send. In situations like this, I’ve asked my twin sister for advice, but she hasn’t given me a straight answer yet, which is unusual for her. Jess makes her opinions known, loud and clear, so that’s the other reason I’m hesitating. It sounds crazy but I’ll explain.

I remember one rainy day like this when Jess and I were kids. We were probably about thirteen, and we were arguing because she wanted me to go to Alex’s birthday party, a girl at our school. As usual I didn’t want to go. Our parents preferred it if we went to parties together so the other (me) wouldn’t be left out, which I actually wouldn’t have minded at all. They did this with the best of intentions, in the hope that I would make more friends and learn to be more sociable, like Jess. Some of the other kids only referred to me as ‘Jess’s weird sister’ and I definitely didn’t want to go if they were going to be there. Jess didn’t think Alex would invite them anyway, so reluctantly I agreed.

The day of the party arrived. We walked to her house. 

‘But how will I know for sure without going in first?’ I asked.

She said ‘Tell you what, I’ll go first and give you a sign, wait for my signal’

So I waited. And waited. She came to get me five minutes later and gave me a thumbs up. We went inside. The party was a little boring, but at the very least I got cake. Shortly after, we gave each other the look. It was how we let each other know we wanted to go home. No one else would’ve ever noticed it but we knew.

We lived very different lives at school; people knew her as Jess, ‘the pretty one’, she was good at hair and make-up as a teenager, and ‘the popular one’ because she was good at making friends. The nicest thing people called me was ‘the other one’. But despite not having many of my own friends at school, I never felt alone. I had her and she was enough.

When we were about sixteen, Jess asked me to come swimming at the lake with her and her friends, which I knew meant Jamie would be going. He always smiled at me. He was good looking, everyone knew him, he seemed like the type that would be interested in Jess, so why was he smiling at the girl who chose to spend her time in the library over lunch? I felt so nervous whenever I was anywhere near him, yet there I was in front of him illuminated in bright sunlight, standing on the edge of a rock in a bathing suit. Everyone else had already jumped, they swam in the water below, cheering, watching, waiting. I looked at the drop. It wasn't that high looking back but at the time, it seemed infinite. Jess said she would jump with me. She grabbed my hand. I pulled it back. I couldn’t do it. It felt stupid and dangerous. I thought of the older kids below, and of Jamie, waiting. Jess had already done it once, she pleaded with me, ‘You'll be okay, trust me. On the count of three… ready?’. I didn’t want to embarrass her. I took her hand, shaking a little. We took three steps back, counted to three holding hands, and took three leaps forward. Our feet left the edge and we were falling, falling into a deep, dark blue abyss. Jess let go of my hand mid-fall. I hit the water first, holding the air in my lungs. I felt the hard slap of the water against my body as it engulfed me completely. Sinking down and down like a rock, legs kicking, arms punching, trying to find their rhythm, trying to swim. I swam towards the white and gold light and pulled myself through the water to the surface. Air escaped out of me in bubbles as I emerged, gasping, to the sound of cheers. The warm water lapped against my face and I tasted its saltiness on my lips. I felt exhilarated, I felt alive. I enjoyed their cheers. I did it. A second later, Jess emerged. She climbed to the top of the rock and jumped again. She wasn’t scared to jump. She never was. She was always braver than me, always there, holding my hand.

She was twenty two the night it happened. I felt a hard slap against my body again. This time, when I emerged from the abyss, I was in hospital. This time, I couldn’t kick or punch or pull my way out. 

‘Jenny’ my dad held my hand. I remember the look on my parent’s faces; drawn, colorless. They told me what had happened. Jess had been driving. A driver on the other side of the road ran a red light, distracted by his phone. I remembered the blinding headlights and the blood-freezing panic, then nothing. I was the only one out of the three of us who made it out alive.

For a long time after she let go of my hand, I struggled to find my rhythm, to swim alone. I lived back at home with my parents for months while I recovered from the accident. I would sit on her bed sometimes. No one went into her room. I still felt a connection to her there; her bedroom was the place where I’d crawl into her bed in the middle of the night with her when I didn’t want to sleep alone, where we would listen to music, where she tried - and failed - to teach me how to do make-up. I lay there in the darkness talking to her, one night I told her that I didn’t know how I’d live without her. I told her that I didn’t want to. I told her I was scared and I needed a sign, something to let me know I was going to be okay. As she always did, she let me know the following day. I was practicing the exercises that my physiotherapist had told me to do.

‘On the count of three… ready?’ My dad helped me up.

For the first time since it had happened, I felt my body pulling me, little by little, and finding strength that I hadn’t felt for a while. I wanted to kick and punch and pull myself back to the surface. I tasted salty, happy tears.

I’m most grateful for her being there for me when I was out on a double date in a bar one night with Daniel, Norah, a friend at work and her boyfriend. I’d been seeing Daniel for a couple of months but I was pretty sure I was going to end things. I’d asked Jess what she thought I should do. His brown eyes looked at me with a flicker of mischief, the way Jess’s did right before she did something that got us both in trouble. She would have liked Daniel, they both had the exact same sense of humor, both so full of life.

‘Tequila?’

I shook my head. Slamming tequila shots was way out of my comfort zone, but the reason for that was the same reason that I was thinking of ending it; he was way more outgoing than me, more fun, more crazy. It wasn't that I didn't like him, we were just different and I thought he would get bored of me eventually. I’d been through a messy break up the year before and I didn’t want to get hurt again. I thought he needed a girl more like him, a girl who liked tequila shots.

‘Come on?’ said Norah. I gave in, silently cursing Norah.

Daniel ordered and raised his glass, ‘On the count of three… ready?’

Like a camera flash, I thought of my sister holding my hand on the edge of the rock telling me to jump, to take a leap of faith. I licked the salt, picked up the shot glass and felt the tequila hit the back of my throat. I swallowed. I felt warmth running through me. Maybe it was helped by the tequila, maybe it was something else, but after that night I decided to give things another chance and from then on, I never wanted to be without him. Seven years later, here we are with two daughters and a dog. A happy family.

Whenever I ask her to give me a sign, I get one. I tell her that I don’t know what to do and she lets me know that she’s there. She takes my hand and tells me to jump. To take a leap of faith on the count of three. But this time, nothing. I save the email to my drafts folder. I’m about to close my laptop when I hear Jessica, my oldest daughter, talking to my youngest, Annabelle in her bedroom. They’re playing a different game now. Annabelle is laughing.

‘On the count of three... ready?’

I reopen the email and press send.