Muscle Memory

A fictional short story inspired by Rachael Maggio

                                                                by David Rawding

Rachael worked chalk into her palms and clapped her hands together generating a plume of white powder. She stepped through the trailing dust and approached the thick rope hanging from the warehouse rafters supporting the ceiling of her gym.

“You got this, Coach.” Sadie’s exposed arms revealed a network of veins traversing packed muscle. With a cell phone ready to record, Sadie offered a nod.

Rachael returned the nod. I got this. Back in college, she would never have attempted to climb a rope like this, but age had tempered her body and mind. She’d climbed this rope plenty of times before, but she’d always been aided by the use of her feet. This time, she would only use her hands. Now that she was in her thirties, she was stronger than she’d ever been, but there were still times when a whisper of doubt slunk through her ears into her mind.

She refused to allow doubt enough time to mount an attack; instead, she leapt up and her rough hands clasped and cinched down on the rope. Sadie cheered and several other voices of her gym’s Friday afternoon crew hollered encouragement that echoed throughout the space. Their voices blurred as Rachael focused on her lean body, which would tell the real story. With age, came control. Not only did she have muscles, she had years of training and testing that offered her crucial knowledge of how to fight through an obstacle like this. With each pull of the rope, she lifted herself higher, climbing fast and deliberate. Her sneakers dangled, while her arms carried her up the rope. As she neared the rafters, she felt all eyes of the gym on her. Her left arm was tiring, but she refused to let up. She grunted and felt heat rush her cheeks.

Her right hand grabbed the rope, but she transferred her weight before she had a firm grip. She slid for an instant and then held on for her life. Her palm was raw and she released a hot breath. She gripped the rope with both hands. A chance look down revealed the blue mat thirty feet below, hardly a safety feature from this height.

“Go, mama! Up! Up!” Her three year old daughter, Norah, screamed below, watching from the kid’s corner with her younger brother, Landon, and Sadie’s three girls.

Rachael bit down on the inside of her cheek and fought the lactic acid pooling in her forearms, the weight of muscle fatigue sought to end her climb. Sweat sprouted across her scalp and her palms became moist. Three more. Right hand grab, cinch, and pull—breathe—left hand grab, cinch, and pull—breathe—right hand grab, cinch and pull. At the top, she reached for the cool metal of the rafter. The cold steel was a welcome for her hot hands and her body became light with adrenaline. With both hands on the rafter, she finished off her climb with a victory pull up. “Yeah!”

The claps and shouts from her friends below came back into focus. She’d come so far in this place and unearthed a hidden strength inside her that might have been left for dead at the side of the road if she hadn’t believed in herself. She slid back down the rope and collected a few more compliments and backslaps.

She took a second to catch her breath and said, “All right! Back to work.” Climbing the rope without the help of her legs was an accomplishment, but it had been a quick break away from her Friday coaching session. Today’s group was an all skill level mix of newcomers and veterans. Men and women in their twenties, thirties, and even sixties stared at her awaiting her instruction. She made them sweat and dig deep, the way she had.

At the end of the workout, she collected her two kids and loaded them into her sedan.

Tom, a sweet, but stubborn man in his sixties with suntanned leathery skin and an ever-shrinking beer gut leaned against the hood of his Chevy truck and waved. “Thanks for the workout, Rach.”

She returned the wave. “Nice gains, Tom.”

Tom wore shorts and a tank top, perfect for the current summer weather, but even in winter, Tom didn’t defer from this fashion. Rachael had known many Mainers to do the same, a point of pride for him being “immune” to the cold, but, as a long-time Maine transplant herself, Rachael thought the man was downright ridiculous. She wasn’t afraid to tell him so every winter when he showed up to the gym in shorts and a tee-shirt during a blizzard.

She slipped into her car, dropped the windows, and checked the kids in the rearview.

“Mommy, you have chalk on your face.” Norah giggled from her car seat, her blue eyes lighting up and her blonde curls bouncing with every head rock.

Rachael eyed her son, Landon, who stared contemplatively at his chubby fingers. He seemed content to just tap his car seat’s buckle and spoke in a garbled language all his own.

“Chalk, huh? Mama better clean that off then, right?”

Norah giggled.

Easy audience.  Rachael smiled a toothless grin, removed her sunglasses, and gazed at her reflection in vanity. Her dark hair was tied off in a ponytail and appeared disheveled, but she didn’t have time to bother with it. She wiped her freckled cheeks and brushed away the chalk. Her husband, Jeff, out on his best friend’s boat for the day, was due to be home within the hour, and she was hoping that the chicken chili she’d left in the crockpot would be done just in time for dinner. Coupled with some cornbread, two cold IPAs, and a pair of sippy cups, they would probably spend the rest of the night cuddled up on the couch rewatching the best of Walt Disney, along with the other exhausted families spread across America.

She hit the highway letting the speedometer hover around nine over as she wove around commuters. I did it. Sadie had recorded Rachael’s rope climb on her phone and she’d promised to send the video over soon. Rachael would tell Jeff, but not right away. She wanted him to probe her for it, that way she could downplay her triumph. Like a badass.

She turned off the highway and relished the early evening sun. The rest of her drive was along a country road that wound past farmhouses and capes dotted among a mixture of farmland and dense scrubby forests.

Her smartphone buzzed, she saw it was Sadie, and she’d sent the video. Rachael eyed the road and pressed play on the video. She darted her gaze on and off the video, watching snippets of herself climbing the rope on the small screen, marveling at how fast she was able to ascend. She shifted her gaze back to the road as she came upon a blind corner. A dark lump appeared in the middle of her lane.

“Shit!” She abandoned the phone and gripped the wheel with two hands as she swerved around the dark mass. Her tires kissed gravel and she swung the wheel back and righted the car. Her phone, still glowing, had tumbled to the passenger floor mat.

“Whoa,” Norah said.

“Whoa,” Landon mimicked.

“Whoa is right,” Rachael agreed. “What was that?” She veered onto the shoulder and swung the car back around. She parked the car at the outside bend of the sharp turn safely off the side of the road and put on her flashers. The dark shape was still there. It appeared to be a black dog, head down in the middle of the lane, visibly shaking. She couldn’t tell if it was hurt. The rational part of her mind told her to stay in the car with the kids, maybe call the police or animal services, but the dog was a sitting duck and if she didn’t do something fast the next car coming through was probably going to take the dog out.

It might attack me. The dog was a pit bull and Rachael could make out clear outlines of ribs across her dark, matted fur. From her driver window, Rachael couldn’t see any obvious injury, but it was tough to tell at fifty feet away. The dog seemed scared and confused, not a good combination for a Yorkie, let alone a pit bull. Despite the tugging whispers of her rational thoughts, she stepped out of the car. She spied a van coming to her left. Rachael walked out into the car’s lane and crisscrossed her arms. The driver hit his brakes and came to a stop well short of her. Rachael pointed at the scared dog and the driver seemed to understand her motives as he tossed on his flashers.

 Rachael moved closer and called, “Here, puppy, come here. Come here, pup!” She caught a glimpse of a box truck barreling in the opposite lane approaching the blind turn fast.

The dog was frozen in place shaking with its tail buried between its legs.

As the incoming box truck took the turn, Rachael waved frantically. The driver’s eyes went wide and the woman at the wheel hammered on the brakes. The truck was too big and too fast to stop in time. For the second time that day, Rachael took a leap. She scooped the dog in her arms and sprinted to the other side of the road. The box truck skidded to a halt at her back and came to a rest past where the dog had been a second before. Rachael collapsed with the shaking dog in her arms. The dog didn’t bite her or take off–it just stared up with dark, moist eyes and a frightened look that they both understood.

— One year later —

“Ellie, Come!” Rachael called.

Her family’s black pit bull perked up her ears from across the backyard and leapt and bound over the grass. Tail wagging at Rachael’s feet, Ellie’s dark eyes stared at the new dog toy that Rachael brandished. She offered one end of the multicolored length of knotted rope. Ellie’s powerful jaws clenched onto the rope and held on as Rachael gently lifted her off the ground. Ellie’s once malnourished body was now thick and toned with muscle. She held on tight to the rope and refused to let go.