That's what this was supposed to be. A new route. New wall. New mountain.'
'Some wedding present,' the first man said.
'Yeah, that, too. They were supposed to get married. In the spring.'
Abe could tell they found their information poignant and moving. But he was
confused.
The two rescuers exchanged a glance.
'She's not still alive up there?' one asked in a low voice.
Abe looked from one to the other with blank eyes, wondering if he'd done something
wrong.
'Who?' he whispered timidly.
1
CHRISTMAS EVE – 1991
Abe reached home bloodstained and bone weary, with the song of sirens still
screaming in his ear. Two back-to-back twenty-four-hour shifts had left him so
empty it took a full minute just to recognize the living room as his own. He needed
some serious downtime, a bed, even just a flat spot on the floor so long as it was out of
the way and dry and warm and quiet. But he knew there was no way.
This was the afternoon of Christmas Eve and Jamie had charged him with making
his special sour cream enchiladas for the dinner party that night and there were still
gifts to wrap and the faucet to fix. Abe found some orange juice in the refrigerator and
the aspirin in the cupboard. He wondered why. Why fix it. He'd promised her a long
time ago, but the faucet was really the least of their worries anymore. Besides, drop
by drop, the slow leak had come to provide a clockwork to their discontent. Like an
old man, he had grown used to hearing it in the middle of their cold nights.
Abe pulled out his toolbox from under the stairs and rummaged for a pair of vise
grips. He rattled the eighteen-cent washer inside its little white bag, then went up to
the bathroom. By the time Jamie returned from work, the faucet would be silent. She
probably wouldn't even notice.
Abe's pager started beeping.
Abe sighed. He laid down the wrench. It had been too much to hope for that the
street would be done with him. Even without this snow in the air and glare ice on the
highways, there was something about the holiday season that always invited extra
chaos. More car accidents, more cardiac arrests, more domestic violence and suicide
attempts. More loneliness. More need. More overtime. So much for Christmas Eve.
Jamie would say nothing when he told her. She would simply turn away and busy
herself with the salad or eggnog or something else. Anymore that's how they managed
together.
Abe straightened and stretched and there in the mirror, move for move, the
cannibal rose up into the electric light. Long ago, twelve years next May, back when
he'd first become a paramedic, Abe had seen the cannibal inhabiting his universe of
ambulance crews and emergency room staff and cops and firemen. Since calling it
burnout only half described the living deadness, the off-time wags had cooked up the
cannibal, this voracious eater of the heart. Abe had sworn to leave the pain business
before it got to him, but here he was, thirty-five years old and still riding shotgun for
Boulder Ambulance and packaging disasters for Rocky Mountain Rescue. And the
cannibal had caught him.
He knew, because of late his work had turned into a sort of cheap pornography, less
for its voyeurism than for its repetition and the predictability of his responses. When
his pager went off, when the siren turned on, when he smelled the blood, Abe could
almost stand back and watch his body react – patching and splinting and injecting the
afflicted. Jamie saw it in him, too, though on another level. 'You don't love me,' she
pitied him. 'You don't know how to love anymore.'
Abe turned off the pager and called in.
'You ever hear of some guy named Peter Jorgens?' asked the dispatcher.
Abe hadn't.
'He's called about you twice today. A pretty pushy guy. He's in some kind of major
sweat. Says there's no time for reference letters. Some kind of emergency. He makes
me hook whoever's closest to the phone and he pumps them for your rep, your
experience, all that.'
'Med school,' Abe said. Like the faucet, that was something else he was finally
getting around to. Of the four schools he'd applied to, two still seemed interested. He
wondered which school Peter Jorgens would be with and what kind of war stories the
other medics had probably fed the man, not that Abe was worried. He had a good
reputation. Better than good. He'd seen some of the references people gave him and
they were good. They called him their best, with over a dozen years of experience in
both the city and the mountains. Rock, snow or ice, day or night, he was an
all-weather, all-terrain, one-man scoop. Someone had stenciled ST. BERNARD on Abe's
locker at work. Underneath someone else had taped a piece of movie poster:
dozen years.
'He just called again,' said the dispatcher. 'Says he needs you to contact him. And not
tomorrow. Tonight. Right now.'
All Abe could guess was that one of the schools had accepted him and wanted to give
him the word before Christmas closed their offices. What would Jamie say? he
wondered. Probably not much, they were so wounded by each other. Once upon a
time, he'd thought they would celebrate just such a moment. But those days were
gone.
Abe placed the call to an area code he didn't recognize.
A game-show voice answered, female. 'U.S.U.S. Expeditions,' she singsonged. 'Merry
Christmas.'
Abe's anticipation fell to pieces. U.S.U.S. Expeditions? This was no med school. They
were peddling something, American flags or adventure-travel tours or what? Worse,
they were peddling on his one night off and after snooping on him at work.
'May I help you?' the woman said.
Tired, his temper short, Abe nearly hung up. On second thought he decided to
confront their trespass.
'Yes.' He made his voice flat and statutory, a lawyer's trick. He wanted their full
attention, their fear of litigation or at least a promise to stay out of his life. 'I want you
to tell Peter Jorgens...'
'Oh, wait,' she interrupted. 'Pete just walked in the door. You can talk to him
directly. May I ask who's calling?'
Abe gave his name. He checked his clock. Thirty seconds. That's all this got.
'Burns?' a hearty man boomed. 'Abraham Burns? Do I have an offer for you.'
'Yeah, well I started to tell your secretary...'
'Wife,' Jorgens said, 'that was my wife. She didn't tell you yet, did she? I want to be
the one.'
The clock showed forty seconds gone. Abe meant to register at least one profanity
