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.'
Abe didn't waste time being thrilled. He marked five weeks on his calendar and got
on with it. He had to get immunized against eight different diseases, obtain a passport,
read and memorize thirty-seven monographs and books on high altitude medicine,
buy a small fortune of personal gear, and train for the most extreme route on the
highest mountain on earth.
Abe had developed a habit of tidiness in approaching new terrain, and that included
the names of things. He'd always assumed Kore was Japanese or Chinese or Tibetan
for north. It sounded Oriental, and the Japanese had spent a number of lives trying to
climb the route in '90. Finally, most big mountain routes were named prosaically for
their geographic features: the North Face, the West Ridge, and so on. But he was
wrong. In an article about the New Zealand attempt three years ago, he found the
briefest of etymologies. Kore was another name for Persephone. Kidnapped by Pluto
and taken into cold darkness to become the queen of Hades, the goddess was
permitted to surface into the sunshine six months of the year. It was an apt name for
a north-facing wall that saw the light of day only with the approach of spring.
According to the article, a climber on the initial British expedition had baptized the
