not to pry, not to violate his privacy or something sacred to him… I succumb. He looked so pained by it, I rationalize, perhaps I could help him. I am, I tell myself, experienced in the art of psychology. Just a peek inside, distill a little info, and then a diagnosis, perhaps followed by a cure? Anyway, I should know more about him, I reason. He could be anyone.
I feel the cover with my hand first. The black leather is smooth and worn. I open it up and look inside. There’s a name carved into the inside of the leather cover, but it’s been scratched out. I can still make it out: Will Hart. For Paul is etched in blue ink below.
Lying inside is a photo of Paul and, I assume, Will. They look like twins, but Will is obviously Paul’s senior by a year or so. The picture was taken from inside a hospital room and Will is in a blue hospital gown. Paul’s face is long and sad and beaten, but there’s stoicism there as well. I turn it over, and on the upper-right-hand corner of the photo, Will’s eighteenth birthday is written.
All the pages in the diary are blank and pressed in a way that suggests the pages have never been turned. I fan through trying to find any signs of writing, but there’s nothing.
In the back, I find a letter written on what my grandfather would have called onionskin paper. It is thin and practically see-through. Back in the day before email and texting, people used this stuff to save money on overseas letters. Did this stuff even exist anymore?
I open the letter and read.
Paul,
I asked Dad to give you this after I died. I can’t believe I’m dead. I can’t believe I just wrote that. I bet you can’t believe you just read it. I wish I had something to say to you, Paul, like in the movies. The dead guy always has something to say. But I’m drawing blanks. I’m glad we always got along. We were different, but we were always brothers. I know Dad’s an idiot in a brilliant idiot way. He doesn’t get it. I know. I’ve heard you say that a million times. You know what he’s said to me a million times? Paul doesn’t understand, he’s a rock head. Well, you are both fucking rock heads. Do it for Johnny, Paul. You know what I mean. Do it for me. Be Dad’s friend for me. I love you, little man.
Bye,
Will p.s. Got you last.
Bang, bang. My heart races.
“Are you decent?”
I tuck the letter in and close the book and place it back exactly as I found it. I lay my head down, as if his knocking and voice woke me.
“Yes, sorry. Enter.”
Paul pushes the door in and then pushes it shut, stepping gently beside my head.
“Sleep is good, but we only have the light for so long. Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“Up the mountain to the plateau-where we can be seen. It isn’t snowing anymore-the weather broke. It’s our best chance.”
“No. I can’t.”
I probably can’t climb up a mountain, but what’s really soul-crushing at the moment is I can’t just do things without a plan. One day we were making a nest and now he wants to climb a mountain. I feel that old sense of paralysis that’s plagued me for years seep into my heart. Just don’t move, Jane. If you don’t move, nothing will happen, and that’s better than something unexpected happening.
“You can. You will, unless you want to die alone in a bathroom.”
He shuts the door and the tiny echo reverberates a kind of loneliness that’s just as terrifying as climbing a mountain.
The ungrateful hardass has returned.
“Wait!” I shout. “Give me a minute and I’ll be outside.”
I get myself together, glancing briefly at the mirror. It ain’t pretty, but hey, there isn’t much competition up here.
Paul stands with rope and climbing stuff around his shoulders. With his sunglasses and gear, he looks a little like a warrior set for battle.
“Let’s talk about this for a second,” I suggest.
“I’m not wasting time talking about this. Let’s go. We’ll die down here if we don’t. They won’t find us until the spring.”
“I thought you said two or three weeks?”
“Look.” He points up. “The plane landed on a ledge deep in a steep valley in a thick forest of trees. They’ll never spot us down here, and if they can’t spot us, they won’t send a climber blindly into a vast, roadless tundra. We have to be seen.”
“But now?”
“Good weather up this high is the anomaly, Jane. This might be our only chance for a week or more.”
“Are there no other choices?”
He shakes his head and turns toward a slope that rises a couple hundred yards behind the plane. It doesn’t look quite as steep as the rest of the valley for about one hundred feet or so, but then it gets really steep near the top and inverts for about ten feet. It’s those last ten feet that make my stomach twist into knots.
“I can’t climb that,” I say.
“Stop it. You will,” he says bluntly.
“I’m not you.”
“No, but you’ll die here if you don’t climb.”
“That’s nice.” I snort.
“It’s a fact.”
“There are no facts,” I shout. I feel trapped and unsure. “You don’t know any more than I do. We could be saved in an hour or end up dying on that cliff because of your stupid facts.”
Paul’s eyes heat up. And then they cool.
“Die, then. It’s of no consequence to me. I’m not going to sit here and wait to die; it’s not my style.”
My heart dries and crumbles in my chest and the tears start to well up. A big, sad lump sags inside my throat. Coldhearted bastard. I hate him. I hate him more than any being I’ve ever met in my life, including my father, who I’ve hated since the day he abandoned me. I point to the top of the cliff.
“Don’t leave me, Paul,” I sob. And then fall to the snow on my knees. He stands over me for a minute as I cry.
“You want me to take you back to the cabin?” he asks.
I nod yes.
“I’m not doing that. That’s what the fucking shrinks do, isn’t it? Enable you? That’s what you call it, right? Well, that’s fine in a hospital, where they feed you and take care of you. But not here. Stasis is death.”
I hear Old Doctor’s voice echoing in Paul’s. I stop crying and look up at him and then back at the mountain.
“That invert, I can’t do that.”
“You’re only afraid of what you’ve never done. You’ll do it.”
“I’m not afraid; I just can’t imagine it’s possible.”
Paul looks up to the point in the wall where it pops out. “That thing? Oh, that’s easier than walking. You can walk, right?”
Sarcasm. That’s the answer-a stupid joke. How is it that a boy can go from amazing to jerkhead in a single second?
“I’m going first, so if I fall and die, you can feast on me until help arrives.”
He says this with a smile.
“I don’t like jerky.” So lame, but I had to say something.
“Insulting me won’t change anything.”
I stand there defiantly. He doesn’t say anything and then he looks up to the mountain, like he’s thinking about
