Summary

"The Leap" begins with the unnamed narrator informing readers that her mother is "the surviving half of a blindfold trapeze act" (1). Her mother is also blind, but is able to walk around her house in New Hampshire without disturbing a single object. The narrator believes her precision even in blindness is due to her training as a trapeze artist in her youth. The narrator explains that her mother was part of an act called The Flying Avalons, but that her mother has kept no evidence of that past: "She has kept no sequined costume, no photographs, no feather or posters from that part of her youth" (1). The narrator wonders if her mother's muscle memory is still active.

The narrator announces that she owes her own existence to her mother for three specific events. She begins telling the story of the first event, memorialized...