Cassidy nodded, liking the idea of his computer being used that way. Her thoughts turned to Pete’s pictures, most of which she didn’t have copies of. Were there other things on his laptop that she would want to keep? “Maybe we could copy some of his stuff to a thumb drive.”
“Sure,” Quinn said. “I could do that.”
“Can you put his pictures on my computer?” she asked as a fresh wave of tears sprang from her eyes. “Maybe in a special file somewhere, for when I’m ready to go through them?”
Quinn nodded, his lips tight in a grimace. “What about his twitter account, his email, have you dealt with those?”
Cassidy looked away, feeling the tug of overwhelm drag her down. “No,” she said.
“C’mon, we’ll tackle it together.”
Twenty-Five
Roosevelt High School auditorium, Seattle
April 13, 2017
Awash in emotion, Cassidy hugged Emily tight when she entered the auditorium. As the strangers attending the book launch event filed in, she held it together, but seeing a familiar face tore away her protective shield and the tears built up behind her eyes.
“Thank you for coming,” Cassidy said as she released her friend. She wiped her eyes with a tissue stashed in her pants pocket.
“Do you think I’d miss it?” Emily scrutinized Cassidy with a long look. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?” she asked in a quiet voice.
Cassidy inhaled a deep breath. “No,” she said. Cassidy had finally worked up the nerve to call University of California Press to ask about planning a book release party in Seattle. The book’s editor had already set up events at a few bookstores in the area, with similar setups in Portland, San Francisco, Boise, and Bozeman, Montana. They were thrilled with her interest and offered their full support.
The first copy of Pete’s book arrived two weeks prior. Cassidy smoothed the bright blue cover with the image of a giant wave in the background and let the tears fall. She read the back, amazed at the flashy blurb, the enthusiastic testimonials by people whose names she recognized: Laird Hamilton, Lindsey Vonn, and editors from magazines like Men’s Health, Outside, and Climbing. The inside flap continued with an outpouring of supportive phrases from more athletes and media, and her fingers turned the pages slowly, reverently, savoring this moment the way Pete would have. She turned to the opening pages and her heart stopped when she read:
For Cassidy: Thank you for believing in me
The tears tumbled down and she had to look away. Anger and pain gripped her, threatened to pull her under. She sat with it, knowing that she needed to feel it, to let it in so that she could give it its place on her journey. She tried to think of Pete, jumping around the living room in excitement, holding his book, his eyes wild with joy. They would pore over the pages together, with him reading passages aloud to her, unable to resist reading them again now that they were polished. Now that they were real.
Cassidy checked her watch. Almost time, she thought as her nervous stomach completed a nauseating roll. After the doors closed, Cassidy walked to the front of the room. In the row of seats facing the stage, familiar faces stared back: Emily, Mark, Tara, Aaron, and Pete’s parents holding hands, their weathered faces tight with grief, but their eyes bright as she took her seat next to them. Tim squeezed her hand.
A thirtyish woman with shoulder-length brown hair and glasses stepped up to the podium. “Good evening,” she said. “My name is Willa Tate, the editor of Nearing Death, Twelve Close Calls from Extreme Athletes.” She paused, and clicked a small remote at a projector mounted on the ceiling. The cover of the book appeared on the screen behind her. She talked about how the idea for the book came to her after reading Pete’s avalanche survival story and described Pete’s effervescent energy for the project. The crowd laughed at the story about Pete yelping his trademark “Great Scott!” upon acceptance of his proposal.
“And now, I’d like to introduce Dr. Cassidy Kincaid,” Willa said, smiling at Cassidy.
Cassidy’s stomach dropped to her knees. It seemed to take her a great deal of effort to get to her feet. Finally, she felt the ground under her and climbed the steps to the stage. Willa retreated, allowing Cassidy to face the audience.
All eyes watched her. Her hands trembled and she fought a rising tide of panic. Breathe, she told herself. Breathe.
She tried to feel Pete’s joy, tried to conjure the pride she felt for his accomplishment, but the crushing sadness did something to her mind, wiping it clean of everything she had prepared, and she wondered what she had been thinking, planning this. I can’t do this! she thought.
Her eyes met Emily’s, then Mark’s. And she remembered that she had to do this. She wanted to do this. For Pete.
She took a slow breath and let it out. “Good evening,” she said, her voice sounding weak. She reached for the glass of water on the podium, ignoring her trembling hand.
“Thank you all for coming,” she said. She took another breath. “It means a lot to me, and it would have meant a lot to Pete,” she finished carefully. She bit her lip to hold herself together. She imagined Pete in her place, his intelligent eyes full of appreciation, his voice cracking as tears of pride filled his eyes. This is my dream, he would say. Thank you for being a part of it.
The audience, muted by the dimmed lights, did not stir, and she wondered briefly if she had slipped into some kind of alternate reality, where the people were just cardboard cutouts set up for her to practice. She had practiced in her living room, over and over again in an attempt to get through her speech without crying. But she had failed and was surely headed for disaster.
She read from the prepared
