“He's got to have a root canal, and no one's permitted to go down there unless they've got a complete bill of health. Most of all, since there isn't any dentist on call, you've got to have a note from your dentist saying everything's in perfect working order.”
Michael couldn't believe his ears. Crabtree had lost the assignment because he had a gum problem?
“So, please,” Gillespie said, leaning forward, “tell me you don't have any cavities and your fillings are all intact?”
Michael instinctively ran his tongue around the interior of his mouth. “As far as I know.”
“Good. So, that just leaves the main question. What do you think, Michael? Are you ready to get back in harness?”
That was indeed the million-dollar question. If he'd been asked last night, the answer would have been no and don't call again. But there was something stirring in him, something he could not deny- a flicker of that old excitement. All his life he'd been the first one to accept any challenge, to climb the sheer cliff, to bungee jump from the top of the bridge, to dive for the bottom of the coral reef. And though he'd tamped it down for months, that feeling was welling up in him again. He glanced at the satellite photo on top of the pile- from above, the base looked like a bunch of boxcars, scattered on an icy plain close to a rocky, barren shoreline. It was about as bleak a picture as could be, but it called to him as if it were a beach in Brazil.
Gillespie watched him closely, waiting. A wintry gust blew raindrops against the diner window.
Something started to turn in Michael's mind. His fingers rested on the grainy photo. He could always say no. He could go back to his place and… what? Have another beer? Beat up on himself some more? Throw away some more of his own life, to make up for what had happened to Kristin? (Though how that would make up for anything, even he could not say.)
Or, he could accept. He glanced at the next photo in the pile. This one, taken at ground level, showed a hut, raised on cinder blocks a few feet above the ice. A half dozen seals were lying around it like sunbathers.
“Do we have time for some pie first?” Michael asked, and Gille-spie, after smacking the table in triumph with the palm of his hand, signaled for the waitress.
“Lemon meringue,” he called, “all around!”
CHAPTER TWO
November 20 to November 23
The next few days were a total blur as Michael struggled to get everything in order for a trip to the Antarctic. Most of the cold-weather gear he already had on hand, procured for previous assignments in Siberia and Alaska, but getting all the rest done wasn't easy. His first stop was the dentist, where Michael feared, for a few minutes, that everything might stop dead.
“You know you've still got that wisdom tooth on the upper right side,” Dr. Edwards said. “That could give you a lot of trouble down the line.”
“But it's not giving me any trouble now.”
“Still, if I were you…”
“I can't get it taken out now. There isn't time for it to heal up.”
“Well, don't say I didn't warn you,” Dr. Edwards said.
“I won't, I swear. I just need you to sign that NSF release form.”
Dr. Edwards pushed his trifocals back up his nose and studied the form while Michael lay flat in the chair. “Twenty years in practice, and you know, I've never seen one of these.”
“Me neither.” Michael waited to see him sign.
“Antarctica, huh?” The dentist still studied the release.
“Yep.”
“I envy you. Wish I had the time to fit in a jaunt like that.”
He made it sound like a quickie trip to Acapulco. Michael kept thinking of the unfortunate Crabtree and his imminent root canal.
The dentist glanced one last time at the X-rays he'd just taken, still mounted on the light board. “But I don't see anything else amiss, aside from that darn wisdom tooth…” Finally, he pulled a pen from his shirt pocket and scrawled his signature on the dotted line. Michael was up and out of the chair before the hygienist had even had time to remove his paper bib.
Next stop was his internist, where another battery of tests had to be performed and another raft of papers filled out. Michael had had more than his share of physical mishaps over the years-a dislocated shoulder, some torn tendons, several broken bones-but considering his line of work, which often entailed going places no human being was supposed to go, he'd escaped relatively intact. And the internist couldn't find anything new to worry about. He had only one question, he said, before signing the release forms.
“How are you doing, psychologically? Are you seeing the therapist I referred you to?”
Michael was afraid that would come up.
“That's all okay now,” he said. “She's got me on Lexapro, and it's working great.” In actuality, he couldn't tell if it was having any effect at all; he just didn't want to risk anything interfering with his clean bill of health. “The best thing for me,” he added, with as bright an expression as he could muster, “is to get out of town and get back to work.”
The internist bought it. “I agree,” he said, scribbling his name on the bottom line of the form. “I wish I were going myself.”
Michael never would have guessed so many people harbored Antarctic dreams.
But there was one last stop, and that was going to be the hardest by far.
Ever since he'd had that lunch with Gillespie, he'd known it was coming, and he'd done everything he could think of to put it off. He'd kept going full speed ahead, getting everything organized for the trip. He'd stopped his mail delivery and his newspapers; he'd enlisted the neighbor to keep an eye on his place and run the pipes if a freeze set in. He'd spent several hours at Tacoma Camera Supply, buying every battery lens, tripod, and flash card he might need. Sure, he had plenty of that stuff already, but on an expedition like this, in a place where there wouldn't be any way to replace a faulty light meter or get hold of additional supplies, he wanted to be positive that he had everything he'd need. In a way, he'd welcomed all these distractions; for once, he wasn't absorbed in his thoughts, in an endless cycle of guilt and self-recrimination. He could focus on something else, something in the future, and coming at him fast.
But in the back of his mind, that last stop had always been there, and he couldn't delay it any longer. He was due at the Tacoma Regional Hospital.
In the coma ward.
Where he knew he was not welcome.
On the way over, he steeled himself for any possible confrontation. Kristin's parents were almost always there, or at least one of them. But he thought if he went around dinnertime, he might not run into them. When he got to the ward, he signed in-the nurse said, “Good to see you again, Mr. Wilde. I know Kristin will be glad you're here”-but as he walked down the hall, he wondered what that could possibly mean.
Kristin had not come out of her coma for months. Kristin, from everything the doctors had told him (even though he wasn't a family member, and technically should not have been told) was never going to come out of her coma. The fall had been too great, the delay in treatment too long, the insult to the brain too devastating. For all intents and purposes, Kristin was already gone.
All that remained of her was what he could see-a still form, so slim it hardly raised the pale blue blanket, nestled amidst a tangle of tubes and blinking, beeping monitors. He waited outside the glass, just looking between the slats in the venetian blind. And if he allowed himself to, he could almost slip into believing she was okay. Her blond hair (which her mom washed regularly) was spread out around the pillow, her face was calm, her eyes closed. Only her complexion-once burnished by the sun-was now pale and spotty, especially around her mouth and nose. Too many tubes and instruments had been put in and taken out.
But, to his relief, there was no sign of her folks. Michael unzipped his parka and went inside, stopping only at the sound of a voice.
