The mountain had handled too many people to deserve coveting, yet no one could
erase the memory of her glorious virginity. He'd wanted to go to the big mountain for
so long that the very idea had come to defeat him. But the Kore Wall?
'Four of our team's already in Kathmandu,' Jorgens said. 'The rest of us leave in
thirty-four days. That's five weeks minus a day,' Jorgens said. 'Can you handle that?'
'I could try,' Abe said.
'Is that the broader affirmative then? You can appreciate my need to know. Are you
with us, son?'
Abe knew ex-military when he heard it. Emergency work abounded with it: cops,
medicos, firemen. He had nothing against hierarchies and their jargon, but life was too
short to spend three or four months at high altitude fighting cabin fever with a
commander in chief. Jorgens was handing him Everest on a silver platter, and Abe
wanted it. But some inner radar told Abe that if he didn't back this man off right now,
even just a little, then he might as well not go. And so, though he meant yes, Abe said
maybe.
'I'll have to call you back,' Abe said. For extra weight, and just to prick Jorgens's
chauvinism, he added, 'My wife gets final say.' Then he hung up.
Jamie wasn't his wife, but Abe figured 'girlfriend' would never carry enough weight
with a man like Jorgens. He'd once asked Jamie to marry him, but the institution
hadn't worn too well with her. She'd already been married once, too young and to the
wrong man. She had borne a baby boy. Her husband had disappeared with the child.
Jamie had fallen into emptiness.
Abe had met her a few years after that tragedy. It seemed like a long time ago. The
first time she told him her story, Abe had determined never to speak to her again. He
had enough doubts about why he did what he did for a living without taking on a
victim for a lover. But she had eyes like black magnets. And Abe found himself in love.
It was one of those hospital hookups, the ambulance cowboy and the angel of mercy.
She was an R.N. up in maternity, slender and quiet as a flower. Between his reserve
and hers, it was a marvel they'd ever gotten beyond hello. On the day they started
living together in his Victorian townhouse with the skylight over the bed, they'd made
a house rule: No shoptalk. She wouldn't talk about birth. He wouldn't talk about death.
As it turned out, all their problems lay in between.
Over the years, Abe had watched other professional Samaritans grow to distrust
their own charity. With Jamie he tried to be careful to keep the kindness of rescue out
of the kindness of love, only to discover she was beyond rescue anyway.
Every night he helped her bury the lost child all over again. Every morning he
helped dig up her hopes for the new day. She had a habit of sleeping curled in a fetal
ball and sometimes crying in her sleep. It was not the best life.
They had grown apart. Abe blamed her losses. She blamed him. 'You never let me
smile,' she accused him. He wondered if that could be true. He wanted her happiness
and had said so. But that left him uncertain about what it was he wanted for himself.
Life with the drama stripped out and the siren turned down, that much for sure. Life
without the noise, without the losses. Part of him believed she had worn him out.
Jamie got home from the hospital at 5:30, out of sorts over a new boss and rumors
of a pay cut. Abe gave her a few minutes to sit on the couch and unwind. Then he
broke the news about the Ultimate Summit invitation. She took it well.
'I'd be gone a hundred days, maybe more,' Abe said.
'You really want this, don't you?' She was decent about subduing her relief. This was
probably the good-bye they'd been waiting for. There were no tears and she didn't
say leave. She said go. 'You need this.'
Abe was grateful for her dispassion. On a sudden impulse, he wanted to convey to
her just how important the mountain was to him.
'I can still remember, I was seven years old when the first Americans to climb
Everest came to the White House. JFK was there in the Rose Garden and he
welcomed them like they were astronauts. I saw it in the papers and my mother cut
the photo of it out and taped it to the refrigerator door.'
Abe paused and looked at Jamie to see if she cared about any of this. She was
wiggling her toes and winnowing her black hair with long fingers. Her interest seemed
more than polite.
'That photo stayed up on the refrigerator all week long, eye-level, and for a whole
week I imagined what it must be like up there. And then my father came home. You
know, rig work, one week on, one off.'
Now Jamie spoke, perhaps to abbreviate his tale. 'And your dad took you on his
knee and said, "Someday, Abe, someday."'
'No,' Abe said. It was his father who had first traced constellations for Abe, flat on
their backs pointing between the fireflies, and taught him how to build a fire, how to
whittle and read a compass. But all of that had stopped when his father lost part of
one hand to a wellhead accident. After that he'd quit sharing the stars. 'No. He took
the photo off the refrigerator door.'
When he was done, she said. 'I feel sad, Abe.'
Abe swallowed. 'I haven't said yes, yet,' he said.
'No,' she said. 'That's not what I mean. It's just, I can remember when you used to
talk like this. Excited. Alive.'
Thinking she wanted to hear more, Abe went on. 'I would bring you a fossil,' he said.
He told her about how climbers would fill their pockets with the sea fossils that riddled
the summit rock band. They had jewelers make the fossils into earrings and pendants
for gifts.
'You need to go,' she said. 'Now I've said it twice. You should go and climb your
mountain. Is there something else you want me to say?'
'I'm afraid of losing you,' Abe said. He didn't mean to be that blunt. They had so
many reasons to separate, but had never had the hate or anger to do it with. How
strange that a cold faraway chunk of stone was going to give logic to their parting. He
felt close to tears and at the same time freed.
Jamie didn't reply that she was afraid of losing him. Instead she said, 'I'm afraid of
you losing me, too, Abe. But your staying won't change that. As for your going? I don't
know. Or maybe I do know.' She stopped. 'Do we have to do this tonight?'
That was the closest she'd ever come to telling him her truth, that through their
three years together it was she who had protected him. Abe heard what Jamie meant
and it startled him because he'd never seen himself as someone needing protection.
'Call the man back,' Jamie urged. She leaned forward and kissed him. 'And smile. I'm
happy for you.'
'I have to go get an onion at the store,' Abe remembered. 'A red onion.' He was
stalling. He wanted more time to think.
'I'll go to the store,' Jamie said. She seemed to have thought about things enough.
'You make your call.'
Abe gave it another half-hour before calling Seattle. By then Jorgens had recovered
his gruff poise. He sounded disgruntled that the team's new medic didn't gush thanks,
but Abe didn't see this as a favor. It was a job, and if it was an opportunity, too, then it
was going to be an earned one. Jorgens said, 'Welcome on board.'
'Tell me what needs doing,' Abe said.
'Do you have a fax machine?'
Abe didn't.
'First thing, day after tomorrow, go rent one. You've got some catching up to do.'