“Stop kicking and you’ll stop spinning!” he called.

“I like to spin!”

For the next ten minutes he let her tire herself out. Ten minutes using practically every muscle in one’s body could be a long time. She was panting when he finally took mercy on her and grabbed the rope and pulled her back up to the ledge sixty feet below. Leaning her head on the wall, she closed her eyes and struggled for breath. He knelt by the edge.

“Having fun yet?” he asked.

She looked up, not smiling. “I didn’t need your help.”

“Sure you did. Want me to pull you up the rest of the way?”

She shook her head. “I can make it.”

“Whatever you say.”

It took her twenty minutes to make it back to the top. By then she was drenched in sweat and her mood had changed. But she insisted she was fine and wanted him to try it out.

“I don’t know, it’s getting late,” he said.

She unhooked her diaper sling. “What’s the matter, scared?”

“Hardly. A cliff like this is nothing to me. You’ve seen what I can do.”

She handed him the rope. “I forget. Show me.”

“So I still have to prove myself to you?”

“Of course. Show me what a man you are.”

He stared at her, thinking of their nap together a little while ago.

“Okay,” he said.

Matt did not have to make up a diaper sling. He had bought an actual harness to secure to the rope and carabiners. Squeezing his legs and hips into it, he rechecked the knots on the webbing that circled the boulder. Amy stood quietly nearby. Jimmy continued to amuse himself beside the tent.

He went over the side easily and reached the ledge within seconds. They were losing the light. It was a crazy time for indulging in such a sport. But it had been his idea to begin with. Puffy orange clouds rode the western sky. The blue sky was changing into a hard violet. Staring straight up, he saw Amy lean over the edge, her face almost lost in the shadow cast by her long hair.

“Tired already?” she asked.

“Just getting my bearings. I’m going down a little farther.”

“I’m watching you.”

Matt eased off the ledge but kept in contact with the hard wall with the tips of his shoes. He fed rope into the carabiners, descending in two-foot jolts. Far below he heard the noise from the stream, and thought how exquisite it had been to make love to Amy on the smooth stone, the clear water inches away, the sun blazing overhead. A line from a book he had read passed through his head: “You never know when it is the last time.”

A lot of truth in that remark. Who would know?