by James Rubart
LIO A33.
Liking intelligent orangutans after thirty-three.
Launching igloos over a thirty-three.
Life is over at thirty-three.
CHAPTER 3
Cameron sat on a cliff overlooking Icicle Creek watching the glacier-fed stream wind its way toward the Wenatchee River.
He stared at the outline of a boulder buried under the surging river as he pulled off the stone hanging around his neck and massaged its smooth surface. When had Jessie given it to him? Not long before she died, he was sure of it.
Why hadn't two years taken away more of the pain from Jessie's death?
Two years?
The accident felt like two days ago.
Like two seconds ago.
Fragments of the scene tried to rush into his mind, but he forced them into the deep recesses of his heart like he'd been doing for the past twenty-four months. He wouldn't let himself relive it again. Ever. Jessie's accident was the one memory he wished he could forget completely.
Hadn't someone told him after the accident that it would be okay?
Okay?
It would never be okay.
Fairy-book marriages snuffed out after only five years were not okay.
Wild Turkey whiskey should have given him an award for the amount of their booze he bought and drowned in after Jessie's death.
Then on a Friday night, a little over half a year after he lost her, he quit drinking. When he came within inches of hitting an SUV head-on, he was convinced. Part of him wished his Mini Cooper had wound up the size of a microwave—with him inside.
That same weekend he started rock climbing again. It didn't cause his forehead to split open the next morning like drinking did, and although the sport wasn't quite as adept at helping him blunt the pain, it was a way to be with Jessie.
He looked up from the edge of the craggy rock face as the last sliver of a mid-July sun vanished behind the Enchantments, leaving strains of orange, cotton-candy clouds. The temperature dropped and Cameron rubbed his bare upper arms. Tank tops were ideal for climbing but not for watching the sun set.
Six months after he stopped drinking, well-meaning friends started the blind-date merry-go-round. He went on three dates. The first yakked about her divorce two hours nonstop; the second spent the evening asking herself questions, then laughed at the answers like a bored late-night talk-show host. The third woman was perfect. Smart, funny, pretty, and she loved the outdoors.
But she wasn't Jessie.
Nobody could be, and after he turned down the next five setups, his friends stopped playing matchmaker.
In the movies when the hero loses the love of his life, another perfect girl comes along full of liquid light and fills all the dark places. It didn't work that way in the real world.
Three or four times a week a dream of Jessie wrenched him from sleep. In those moments he wondered if his memories were true, or if the passage of time had made their marriage more wonderful than it really had been.
And now he'd started losing those memories of her. And some days—he clenched his teeth—he couldn't quite capture her face.
These days when he pulled up photos of Jessie and him together, he sometimes couldn't even remember where they'd been taken. Most times when he concentrated, the memory rushed back into his mind like the ocean filling a tide pool. But other times . . .
Cameron lingered on the edge of the cliff a few more minutes and gazed at the valley three-hundred feet below. He sucked in a breath and held it as long as he could before releasing the air.
Wasn't heaven in the clouds? He massaged his arms and stared at the darkening sky. Was that where Jessie was?
To his right a squirrel screeched. Cameron squatted and peered at the animal who sat ten yards away at the base of a western larch. The life of a squirrel. Simple. No pain. No maddening mysteries. Few questions and an answer with every acorn. He dug into his day pack, pulled out a large handful of trail mix, and tossed it toward the creature.
"You'll be able to feed all your kids for a week on that."
The animal squealed and skittered around the trail mix and stuffed its cheeks full before scampering off.
Cameron reached down and grabbed a baseball-sized stone, stood, and hurled it with all his strength at a quaking aspen. It smacked into the tree and tore off a section of bark. Strike. He picked up another rock. Then another.
Smack! Strike two.
Strike seven, eight, nine. You're out.
He ignored the pain knifing through his arm and shoulder and didn't stop throwing stones till the water in his eyes blurred his vision too much to see.
First Dad, then Jessie. People died. Why couldn't he get over it and move on?
Cameron slumped to the ground and massaged his eyes with his palms and tried to recall the first time Jessie and he had met.
The memory wasn't there.
Here we go again.
Cold sweat broke out on his forehead. What was going on with him? Impossible. How had his dad known? How could this be happening to him at thirty-three?
Cameron pounded his forehead with the flat of his palm. "You can't lose your mind, Cameron! You can't."
A few seconds later their first date surfaced like the sun cresting a mountain ridge at dawn. It didn't help the panic pinging through his mind.
One year for Christmas he'd framed a collage of all their most memorable days leading up to their wedding. First real date . . . their trip up to Vancouver, B.C., where they'd visited Flintstone Land and he danced with Wilma and stepped on her toes three times. First kiss . . . Larrabee State Park in Bellingham, wasn't it? First time they'd said I love you. First . . . The canvas of his mind went blank after that.
He used to know all the dates better than Jessie ever had.
Now all he had were fragments.
Cameron trudged back to his amber one-man climbing tent, pulled his iPhone out of his climbing pack, sat, and scrolled through his favorite pictures of Jessie and him.
"Where are you now? If you're in some blissful afterlife, can you see what's going on down here?"
A picture of Jessie holding her pilot's license, a big grin on her face, slid into view. Immediately he was back at the scene of the crash, and the memory surged up from his heart like a flash flood.
This time he couldn't stop it.
"Let me talk to her!" Cameron shouted into his cell phone. Through the phone he heard a siren wail through the night.
"I'm sorry, sir. Her condition isn't . . . she can't—"
"Please put her on the phone. Please."
Cameron heard muted voices and then rustling.
"Hey." Her voice sounded soft and muffled, as if she were speaking through a thick blanket.
"Jessie!"
"Hi, Sweet-dream." A labored breath. "I love you." Silence. Then barely a whisper. "Hurry, baby, please?"
He hung up and tossed his cell phone onto the passenger seat.
Sweat dripped off his forehead into his eyes as he alternated between crushing the accelerator and mashing the brakes. Swerving around and through light traffic on I-5, he felt like he was in a movie chase scene on double speed. Rain hammered against the windshield and "Don't Fear the Reaper" played on the radio, the perfect soundtrack to the nightmare he was living.
Breathe, Cameron.
This couldn't be happening.
But it was.
He wanted to call her back, tell her something, anything, to keep her alive.
Jessie was dying.
No. Impossible. They were meant to be together always—till they were old and gray and it was time to lose their minds.
This wasn't the end. It couldn't be. There was so much life left to live.
By the time he reached the off-ramp that would take him to Paine Field, the rain had shifted from a downpour to a fine mist, as if a giant spray bottle pumped out little bursts overhead.
As he skidded around the final corner leading to the air strip and straightened his MINI Coo
per, the lights of the police cars and ambulance lit up the horizon like the Las Vegas strip. But the lights pulsed with death.
He rolled down his window as he approached the scene, and the silence struck him like a wall. No sirens sliced into the night. No one spoke, no one shouted, no one ran back and forth between the ambulance and the mutilated metal that had been Jessie's midnight blue and white Cessna Skylane.
As Cameron got out of his car, he tried to take slow breaths. He'd imagined running for Jessie the moment he arrived, but his feet felt bolted to the asphalt.
A medic squatting next to the wreck glanced at him, then nodded toward the inside of the ambulance and spoke to someone inside.
A medic appeared from the ambulance, jogged up to Cameron, and stuck out his hand. Cameron didn't take it.
"Mr. Vaux?"
"Yes."
"She only has minutes left. You need to come."
"Now?" As Cameron uttered the word he realized how stupid it must sound. But everything was out of rhythm, out of body, far past surreal.
"Yes, you need to come now. Right this way." The paramedic took his arm and guided him toward the mangled Cessna.
Part of him wondered why he didn't sprint to the plane, cradle Jessie in his arms, and somehow pull her back into this life.
"How did it happen?" Cameron mumbled as the medic guided him toward Jessie, his hand still on Cameron's arm.
"You need to talk to her now."
Cameron scuffed up to the plane and stopped just before reaching it.
"Is she . . . ?"
"Her body has been . . . her upper body is okay. She can talk to you."
Jessie lay inside the plane, her head resting on the passenger's seat, eyes closed. No cuts, no bruises, dark hair framing her face like a work of art. A tiny speck of blood on her chin was the only imperfection.
But what must have been the cockpit lay buried in her torso, her blouse dark red from blood already starting to dry.
As Cameron reached out with his pinky finger and stroked her chin, Jessie's eyes opened.
"Hey, baby. You're here." She coughed lightly.
"I'm here, you're going to be—"
"Shh, only moments now." She coughed. "I was never completely sure it was real, but it was. What I saw. Death brings clarity. It sweeps away all the doubts, you know?"
"What—?"
She laughed but the blood mixing in her lungs made it sound like she was gargling. "Mortality makes many things clear, my love." She swallowed. "One is I love you more than life. The other is, the book is real. I know it is. I saw it."
Cameron braced himself against the plane's frame. The book? Too weird. The memory of his last conversation with his dad flashed into his mind. Dad had talked about a book he'd seen that he wanted Cameron to find. It was a nightmare version of déjà vu. It couldn't be the same book, could it?
"Jessie, are you talking about a book with all days in it?"
"No time." She coughed again. "You have the stone, yes?"
"What stone?" He stared into her eyes, as if he could do it with enough intensity to climb inside her mind.
"I gave you . . . before I left . . . this afternoon." She sucked in a stilted breath. "You must not lose it. It's the key."
"Yes, I have the stone, but a key to what?"
She closed her eyes and her head slipped back.
"Jessie!"
Her eyes fluttered open and she gasped for air.
"Use it to find the book, okay?" She blinked and drew another breath.
"What book? My dad's book?"
"He saw it too? You never told me." She coughed out a barely audible laugh. "That's God. He loves you so much, Cameron."
"I thought Dad was crazy."
"Promise you'll find it." Her eyes closed. "It's okay."
Tears fought their way onto his cheeks.
"No. No tears, Aragorn." The most precious name she had for him.
"You can't leave me, Jessie."
"I have to. It's going to be all right, I promise." Her grip on his hand faded. "Someday you'll know that it's okay."
Jessie drew one more breath and locked her eyes on his. "I love you, Cameron. Always and forever."
He blinked back tears as he shook his head.
Unbelievable.
Jessie and his dad both saw this book, whatever it was, or at least they believed they saw something.
Cameron stood and wiped his moist palms on his shorts as he paced back and forth on the top of the cliff near his tent. Was the book real?
He had to find out.
Now.
And he needed help.
But from whom?
Someone who wouldn't think he was nuts when he told his dad's and Jessie's story. Someone he could trust. Someone who knew Jessie almost as well as he did.
He sighed and slumped forward.
No, he wouldn't call her.
But he had no choice. He picked up his iPhone and scrolled through his contacts. If she was still in Portland, her number would be in there.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Ann, it's Cameron Vaux."
"Yeah, I saw that on caller ID."
"It's been a long time. How are you?"
"Fine."
Cold as ever. What was he doing? He could hang up right now and Ann wouldn't call back. He needed another option. If only there was one.
"Cameron?"
"Yeah, I'm here. Are you still doing investigative reporting?"
"No, I'm hosting Adventure Northwest. For almost two years now."
"That's right, I'd heard that." He rubbed his forehead. "Today's the anniversary of Jessie's—."
"What do you need, Cameron?"
"I thought maybe you would want to talk about—"
"I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but we haven't had a conversation in two years, and it seems a little strange that you want to talk about Jessie all of a sudden."
Cameron massaged the back of his neck and walked to the edge of the cliff. No choice. He had to tell her. "I have to talk to you about something important."
"Okay."
"When my dad was forty-two, forty-three, his mind started slipping."
"I remember Jessie mentioning something about that, but I never knew the details."
Did he really want to get into this with Ann? Cameron glanced at the river below surging with the spring runoff. No choice.
"Are you there, Cameron?"
"I'm not sure I want to talk about this."
"So why'd you call?"
"I don't know." A red-tailed hawk soared above him screaming kee-eeee-ar as he tried to make a decision.
"Do you want to call me back?"
"I . . ."
"Look, Cameron, I know we've clashed in the past, but if you want to talk I'm willing."
He pressed his lips together and drew a deep breath. "I need to tell you the last thing my dad said to me."
"Okay."
"It was bizarre at the time, but now I'm not so sure." Cameron paused. This he needed to remember with as much accuracy as possible. "He said I would get the same disease he had. Not if, but when."
"I'm sorry."
"I went to my fifteen-year reunion a few weeks ago and didn't remember people."
"I'm going to mine next year. I'm sure I'll forget people too. You hadn't seen some of them in fifteen years."
"I didn't remember a girlfriend I had for a year, a guy I played in a band with for two years."
"You had no memory of them the whole time?"
"No, I mean, yeah I did . . . but it took a while each time for the memories to kick in. It's like it was locked up somewhere in my mind. I stared at this person, knowing I should remember them and just couldn't."
"And now you're thinking you're going to go down your dad's path?"
"Yeah, but there's more. At the same time he told me my mind would start going, he said I had to find a book with all the days in it. That he saw this book when he was a kid. That when I found it, everything would make
sense; everything would be all right."
Ann didn't respond.
Great. He needed video conferencing on his phone. Was she surprised? Amused? "Are you there?"
"You're saying he was coherent when he laid all this Twilight Zone stuff on you?"
"He was clear, Ann. It was only for a few moments, but he was all there."
"It's been eight years since you had that conversation with him. Is there any chance time has tainted your memory of it? Given what you've, uh, been going through lately?"
Maybe. It was a fair question. But Cameron knew what his dad had said.
"No, I remember." He kicked at a rock, then said, "Here's where it gets a little bizarre. Jessie said the same thing on the day she died. She said I had to find a book, and if I did, it would be okay." Cameron swallowed hard. "What if they were talking about the same book?"
"Jessie was on the verge of dying; the mind can come up with fantastical things in those moments."
"But they both came up with the same story." Cameron shuffled back to his tent and sat next to it. "Jessie also said her stone was one of the keys to finding the book."
Again, Ann didn't answer.
"Did Jessie ever talk to you about a book or her stone?"
"What does all this have to do with me, Cameron?"
