The interior of the plane is a dump, with one fraying seat for the pilot and a dark linoleum floor for everyone else. We’ll be jumping from eleven thousand feet, the highest this puddle jumper can go.

Through the window below is the dazzling landscape of the Finger Lakes, Upstate New York.

Mike is okay as a skydiver. I’ve trained him since our first meeting, and he’s earned his licenses fair and square. Certainly, in the first few years, our relationship was symbiotic—I taught him how to fly and he taught me how to be in this world. Socializing is not one of my superpowers.

There’s another couple on this load, belted to the floor near the pilot’s seat. In theory, all skydivers are my friends; though in practice, my nature gets in the way. Mike does enough chatting for both of us.

Over the PA system, Todd announces we’ll be on a jump run in about three minutes—time to ditch our safety belts. I sit like the Buddha, cross-legged and perfectly parallel to the door, gathering my mental energy, but Mike can’t sit still for a second, hunched over his knees and rapping his knuckles on the floor. “Blue skies, sweetie,” I mouth to him. He grins. It’s a running joke between us, his hyperactive personality. It doesn’t matter what he’s doing—pounding a keyboard or pacing in front of a class.

The door light signals it is time. Our plane-mates will jump first. When they flip the door up, a whoosh of air shudders through our flimsy airplane. The jump light is flashing and out we go: one, two, three, four. Mike has never been a natural jumper, and true to form, he tumbles out inelegantly. Then his training kicks in, and he maneuvers into a stable arch. When I jump, there’s a familiar rush of stomach-dropping fear, then…freedom!

The wind roars past—it’s cold up here, an icy blast of early June, carrying the faint smell of diesel burning off the Cessna.

The four of us get into a round, grasping hands, legs fanning out behind, floating like Matisse dancers, high above the Earth.

When it’s time to separate, we turn—rotating 180 degrees—sweep our arms back, and glide far away.

Soon we are floating free, flying solo. Belly down, I own the sky. There’s a tingle in my fingertips, an unbearable lightness that’s never with me on Earth.

A glance at my altimeter—six thousand feet, not yet time to deploy my parachute, but close. The friction of the air buoys me up as I gaze down, far above Cayuga’s waters, Ithaca, and the towers of Cornell University, my academic home.

There are the Finger Lakes vineyards, purple and green, a wine-tasting heaven. And the landing area, a large open space of farmland to the west, where we’ll drift as we descend.

It’s time. I pull the handle to release my pilot chute and a great orange wing blows out above me. My body jerks out of freefall—what the hell?—the lines of the parachute are twisted, pulling the fabric from my control.

Stay calm. Deep breath. I reach up to the bundle of lines and begin to tease them apart, while my canopy twirls madly in the wind. An accelerating spin threatens to sink me if I can’t fix the problem. My mind tunes out everything but the job at hand, then, all at once, like the fibers of a rope, the lines untwist and the parachute unfolds. Whew, that was close.

I pull both brakes simultaneously, and my billowing canopy and I surge forward in a rush of relief.

Cool under fire—that’s me. My mother once said, “You’re a cold fish, Madeline, just like your father.” My daddy, who died when I was ten.

“SHIT!!” Mike’s shout jolts me out of my reverie. He’s way too close to me, which means he didn’t track far enough away from our formation. He’s already under canopy, but he’s out of kilter—his lines uneven—spinning out of control. Why isn’t he getting himself out of it? A pulse beats in my neck. “MIKE! RELAX! SHOULDER DOWN!” But in the roar of air, he appears deaf and reels wildly on his axis.

When it seems I’ve lost him, his shoulder dips low, like it should, and his body slows. Finally…

But the crisis isn’t averted. His parachute is a tangle of lines, preventing it from opening properly. How is that possible? I packed it myself.

Now he’s flailing about, grabbing at lines, twisting in the wind. It’s futile to yell—he won’t hear a thing—and yet still I shout, “MIKE! USE THE RESERVE!”

We’ve never had to use the reserve.

Come on, Mike! Do it, Goddammit!

He is heading toward me in a slow-motion horror show—there’s no way to prevent the collision of our parachutes.

Paralysis. Terror on his face. His mouth a frozen scream lost to the wind. The tentacles of his twisted canopy wrap themselves around my lines and I’m sucked into his disaster, my tangled chute going into a slingshot revolution, the world turning upside down. We are lashed together in a twin death spiral, plummeting at 120 miles per hour.

He’s frantically yanking his red and silver handles, but his equipment is in catastrophic failure. We’re heading for a crash.

In a wild panic, I lunge forward—try to grab onto him—something—help us— futile—

Stop! Think! It’s suicide to stay attached. Free yourself! My cold brain clicks in. Just one chance to save us both. Like lightning, I pull my own red cutaway handle and release Mike and the whole damn mess. Then the silver handle—a miracle, it turns—my reserve chute slapping open—too near the ground for good deployment, but maybe I’ll get some drag before hitting the ground and perhaps the orange-yellow mass of twisted canvas on Mike will inflate enough to slow him down…

My speed is increasing. Dear God forgive me…

Breathe. My reserve is only partially inflated but holding. Any drag is good, and I feel it. A bird flying on damaged wings. Icarus. The sun reflected on the farmland below.

Barreling down too fast to survive.

It all flashes past in a Fibonacci spiral of lake, sky, Mike, Earth, pink, curves, trees, forests, gravity, dragging me down down down into the vortex.

Chapter One