by Peggy Webb
“It’s a wrap,” Michael said. “Let’s go home.”
They made their descent to camp in the growing darkness. But even so, the vast plume arising from the top of Everest, caused by two masses of air, one warm and one cold, colliding, showed that the wind velocity had picked up.
Jake was glad to be descending. He didn’t relish the idea of being caught near the top of the mountain in a storm.
The avalanche caught them unaware. Exhausted from their long climb and exposure to both high altitude and the elements, they were sleeping the next morning when the first onslaught of rocks and snow hit their tents.
Gauging by the thundering roar, Jake figured the avalanche to be a mile away, Everest releasing its fury. With the avalanche so far off, there was no risk of being buried alive. The only danger was from the flying debris driven by a giant wall of air. With everyone still inside sleeping, they would be relatively safe.
As Jake rolled himself into a tight ball for the onslaught, he saw a lone figure outside, camera in hand.
“Michael!”
He had no more than yelled the name when a storm of snow and flying rocks blotted out everything except the sound of the mountain’s passing fury.
The pounding against Jake’s tent sounded like baseballs being thrown full force against canvas. He couldn’t see anything. Not even his fingers in front of his face.
There was nothing he could do now except hunker down and wait until the wall of snow passed over them. The minute the roaring ceased, he was up and running.
“Michael’s out there,” he yelled, and two Sherpas emerged from their tents, also running.
They found him facedown, a tiny stream of blood turning the snow red.
“Michael! Can you hear me?”
There was no answer.
“Turn him over. Gently now…gently.”
With the help of the Sherpas, Jake turned Michael over and cradled his head in his lap. Blood oozed from a head wound, coloring Jake’s hand and staining his clothes.
“Michael…Michael. It’s Jake. Can you hear me?”
Nothing but silence. Deathly silence.
Jake’s chest constricted and tears clogged his throat. How was he ever going to tell Emily?
Chapter Thirteen
“Noooo!”
The scream jerked Emily out of sleep and propelled her from the bed.
“Mother!” She grabbed a robe on her dash toward her mother’s suite. By the time she’d gained the hallway all she could hear was the harsh sound of sobbing.
Anne was huddled on the bed, hands over her face, shoulders shaking with the force of her pain. Beside her lay the telephone receiver.
“Mother, what’s wrong?”
“Oh, God, no-no-no-no.”
From the neglected phone came faint sounds. Emily picked it up.
“Hello?”
“Emily?” It was Jake. Emily wrapped her arms around herself to ward off the chills that went through her. “Thank God…Emily.”
“Jake, what’s wrong?”
“It’s your dad, Em. He got caught in an avalanche.”
Emily cupped her mouth to keep from adding her screams to her mother’s anguished moaning.
“Is he—”
“No. God, no, Em. He’s not dead. He’s in a coma. Except for that, he’s in good shape. No broken bones, no bruises except the one on his head where he got hit.”
Emily sat on the bed and put her arm around her mother. In moments of crisis she’d always depended on Anne…and Michael. Now she had no one to depend on except herself.
“Mother and I will fly out. Where are you?”
“We’re in Chengdu, flying out to Chongquing tonight, then on to Hong Kong in the morning. Meet us there.”
“Jake, how bad is he?”
“The team doctor is with your dad, Em. He says it’s hard to tell in cases like this.”
“He’ll come out of this, won’t he?”
She didn’t like the way Jake hesitated. “Jake, is there something you’re not telling me?”
“No, I’ve told you everything I know. Naturally, we expect him to come out of it. Have you ever seen anything keep Michael Westmoreland down?”
Emily could spot false cheer a mile away, and she loathed it.
“I’m not a little girl, Jake. You don’t have to paint a pretty picture for me.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to be doing that. I just don’t want you thinking the worst.”
The worst, of course, was that Michael had gone into a deep sleep from which he would never return. Days would turn into weeks and weeks would turn into months, then years while they stood at their father’s bedside watching him dwindle away, watching him leave them by degrees.
“No,” she said, “I won’t think the worst. All the Westmorelands are positive thinkers. By the time we get to Hong Kong, Daddy will be up in arms about us flying halfway around the world over nothing.”
“You’re exactly right.”
Emily held on to the phone, waiting for Jake to say more, but the gulf of silence only widened. Emily felt as if she were on a boat drifting slowly away from Jake. Part of her wanted to call out to him, but part of her wanted to disappear over the horizon into blessed oblivion.
Right now she didn’t want to deal with all the feelings attached to a new relationship. She didn’t want to deal with a passion that simmered underneath the surface, even in the face of disaster. She didn’t want to deal with longings of the soul and cravings of the body. She didn’t want to deal with need.
“Emily…”
“Yes?”
“I’ll take care of everything from this end, the hospital, the hotel. Everything. You just get the plane tickets and I’ll meet you at the airport in Hong Kong.”
Chapter Fourteen
June 25, 2001
I have this sense that I’m in the middle of a bad dream and I can’t wake up. I want to run away from this place, this sterile hospital room where my husband lies with his arms crossed over his chest sleeping like a child, but I can’t get my legs to move. My body feels too heavy for them.
Everything about me feels too heavy. My arms, my face, my heart. Oh, my heart. Sometimes I think I can actually hear little pieces of it separating from the whole and falling to the floor. The sound is like Mother’s fine china that day I told her I was moving in with Michael and she said, “Over my dead body. You will not leave this house, young lady, do you understand?” I picked up the china she prized more than anything, and threw it as hard as I could. I wanted to hurt her.
That’s the way I feel now. I want to hurt somebody.
My husband doesn’t move, doesn’t talk, he doesn’t even blink his eyes, and I want somebody to blame.
I’m afraid Emily’s already assigning blame. It’s not Jake’s fault, I told her, but she wouldn’t believe me. She’s stubborn that way. Just like her father.
Sometimes I could shake both of them. I might even try that with Michael. Wake up, I’ll say. You’re scaring me. And he’ll come out of this awful sleep laughing and hugging me close and kissing my nose the way he always does when he’s played a prank on me.
But this is no prank. Yesterday when we got here I went straight to the bed and wrapped my arms around him and said, “Michael, it’s me, Anne. I love you, darling. Wake up. Please, please wake up. For me. Do it for me.”
He has never in his life refused me anything I want. I know he would respond if he could. He wouldn’t go off and leave me like this. Stranded. A woman without a home.
Michael is my home. What do I care about Belle Rose? Without him it’s just a pile of bricks with a roof on top.
I asked Jake if Michael said anything after the avalanche hit, if he moved, if he made any sign, any sign at all. “No,” he said. “I’m sorry, Anne. There was nothing. He was exactly as you see him now.”
It’s not fair. People don’t just go off and leave you without a word. A gesture. Something. Something to cling to. Some little shred of hope.
/>
I will not give up. I refuse to. Michael is going to come out of this. He will.
Because I love him. Because he loves me.
Chapter Fifteen
Emily hadn’t said anything about placing blame, but Jake could feel it simmering beneath the surface just the same. How could she not blame him when he blamed himself?
Michael Westmoreland would never have been on Everest if Jake hadn’t called him. It was that simple.
And now that the crisis was over, now that the long trek down the mountain was over, now that the agonizing journey out of the Himalayan villages with Michael still as death was behind them, Jake had nothing to occupy his mind except regret and self-recrimination.
Emily sat on the edge of a straight-backed chair in the hospital’s waiting room with her arms wrapped around herself. Jake sat facing her, not knowing what to do, what to say.
They felt like strangers to each other. How could that be after the passion they’d shared? Why weren’t they sitting side by side with his arm around her, her head on his shoulder? Why didn’t she say something? Cry? Accuse him?
Anything. Anything at all except this frightening silence.
She hadn’t even said anything to him at the airport, not really. Nothing personal. Nothing of significance. Just the basics. How’s Dad? Where is he? How long will it take to get to the hospital?
What did all this mean in terms of their relationship? Was this her way of saying I don’t want you anymore?
Maybe she was wondering the same thing about him. When he’d met them at the airport, he’d taken Emily into his arms, but she’d pushed quickly away. And so, not knowing what to do about her, Jake had done nothing.
“Emily?” When she looked up, her face was devoid of all expression, almost as if she were seeing a stranger. “I’m sorry about your dad. I’m sorry all this happened.”
“I appreciate your saying that, Jake.”
So cool. So remote.
“I heard the avalanche coming, Em. I saw your dad standing outside, but it was already too late. I yelled at him, but he never even heard me.”
She bolted to the window and stood with her back to him.
“I don’t want to hear about it. All right? I don’t want the gory details.”
“I was just…” Jake faltered, uncertain. The truth hit with the force of the avalanche. He was losing her. He was losing her as surely as he’d lost Michael.
He joined her and stood quietly for a while, staring at the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong beneath the window. Then he put his hands on her shoulders. She suffered them there, stiff and unyielding.
“There was nothing I could do, Em.
I’d give the world if I could change things, but I can’t.”
“I’d give the world, too…if I had him back.” She hunched forward with her arms wrapped around her waist. “I want Dad back.”
He felt the tremor that ran through her, sensed rather than saw her tears. Jake turned her around and pulled her into his arms. At first she resisted. And then she melted against him and wet his shirt with her tears.
Relief flooded him. He wasn’t going to lose her, after all.
“Everything’s going to be all right, Em.”
He rubbed her back and caressed her hair while she cried soundlessly against his shoulder. And when her tears ceased, she lifted her face to him, and he bent down and kissed her softly on the lips.
“Yes. Everything’s going to be all right,” she said. “Do you have a handkerchief? I never have one when I need it.”
He pulled one from his pocket, then wiped her face with all the tenderness that was in his heart.
“Now,” she said, “let’s go in and see Dad.”
“You want me to come, too?”
“Yes. Please.”
She wrapped her arms around him, and Jake’s world righted.
When Emily walked into the room where her father lay, the first thing that struck her was how natural he looked, as if he’d fallen asleep watching a ball game. His color was good, his breathing sounded normal, at least to her untrained ears.
“Mom?” Emily spoke quietly, the way you do when you don’t want to wake somebody from a well-deserved rest.
Anne sat beside Michael, holding his hand, and if anybody had asked Emily which of her parents was sick, she’d have said Mom. Her dark eyes looked enormous in a face drained of all color.
“Any change, Anne?” Jake asked.
“No, none. And both of you speak up. I want Michael to hear you.” Anne turned to her comatose husband. “Darling, Jake and Emily are here. Wake up so you can talk to them. They want to talk to you, Michael. Open your eyes, darling.”
Her father didn’t stir. Anne leaned close and brushed his hair back from his forehead. “Squeeze my hand, darling. Just to let them know you hear them.”
He didn’t move, didn’t acknowledge their presence in any way.
The hope Emily had recaptured in the safety and comfort of Jake’s embrace began to fade.
“Come over here, Emily, and touch your father. Rub his hand. Let him know you love him and want him to come back to us.”
Jake squeezed her hand, then gently nudged her toward the bed. Why was it so hard for her to approach her father?
“Dad?”
Up close she could see the difference between normal sleep and a coma. Michael’s stillness was complete, his body totally inert.
“I’m here, Dad. I love you.”
His hand was a dead weight in hers, lifeless. Emily fought back tears.
“You come over here, too, Jake,” Anne said. “I want you to tell Michael about the film.”
Jake stood close behind her, and Emily took comfort from his nearness, his body heat. On the heels of her comfort came the guilt.
Jake stirred feelings in her that all of a sudden felt wrong, out of place, totally inappropriate in light of the situation. She had to escape. She needed to think. She needed space. She needed air.
“I don’t think Dad’s warm enough, Mom. Why don’t I go down to the nurses’ station and get another blanket?”
“That’s a good idea.”
When Emily left the room, Jake was telling Michael that the IMAX film was safe and already in post production. Just as if they were having a normal conversation.
Oh, God, it felt awful to think of her father as helpless. Michael Westmoreland had always been the strength of their family, the rock that sheltered all of them, the beacon that always brought them to safe harbor.
Where was her safe harbor now? When she’d been in the woods with Jake, she’d thought of him in that way. He was home to her, safe harbor, shining beacon.
And now she felt it all slipping away. She didn’t want it to. God knows, she didn’t want to lose that, too. And yet already the absolute certainty she’d once felt with Jake was eluding her.
She would get it back, that was all. Somehow she would reclaim those feelings.
Leaning against the wall, she took deep, steadying breaths. A nurse passing by on her rounds hesitated in front of Emily.
“Are you all right, miss?”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
She wasn’t, of course. At the moment Emily wondered if she’d ever be fine again.
When she returned to her father’s room with the blanket, Anne was at the foot of the bed massaging Michael’s feet, and Jake was standing by the window looking anxious.
“There you are,” Anne said. “Hannah called while you were gone. She was going to fly to Hong Kong, but I told her we’d be going back to the States as soon as the doctor okays a transfer.”
“When do you think that will be, Mom? Have they said?”
“Probably another day or two. Daniel wants to fly over, too, but I told him Jake would see us safely home. Besides, Michael is going to be awake by then.”
How easy her mother made it all sound. It wasn’t lack of intelligence that made Anne so confident in the future, but a deep faith and a strength that Emily was only beginnin
g to guess at.
Anne covered Michael with the blanket, then moved to the head of the bed and kissed him softly.
“Aren’t you, darling? Aren’t you going to wake up in time for our trip back home?”
Beyond the window, lights pierced the veil of darkness that had enveloped the city, artificial lights so bright they blotted out the stars. All of a sudden a wave of homesickness hit Emily. She wanted nothing more than to be standing outside her cabin in northeast Mississippi gazing up at Venus blazing over the deep woods like a promise.
It wasn’t the place so much as the state of mind she longed for. That feeling of knowing the ground beneath her feet was solid. That nothing in her life had shifted out of focus. That tomorrow would be as safe and secure as all the days that had gone before.
Emily reached for Jake’s hand and held on tight.
“Anne,” he said, “I’ll take you and Emily back to the hotel whenever you’re ready.”
“No. I’m not leaving Michael. You two go ahead.”
Jake held Emily close in the back seat of the cab, and she didn’t say a word all the way back to the hotel, just leaned bonelessly against him, trusting and sweet. They stayed that way, wrapped up together in the elevator all the way up to her room.
He didn’t ask if he could come in. It wasn’t necessary. The awkwardness of the past few hours had vanished, and when they walked into her room, she stood in his arms kissing him as if he were a soldier recently returned from war.
“Oh, God, I’ve missed you, Emily.”
“Shh. Don’t talk, Jake. Just hold me. Hold me.”
They kissed until their lips felt bruised, and then they lay down together, fully clothed, and caressed each other. Simply caressed.
He didn’t speak. Didn’t dare. Words might shatter the spell.
And surely this was a spell they were under, the same bit of magic that had overtaken them in Mississippi. With the blinds closed against the sights and sounds of Hong Kong, they might have been at her cabin in the woods, instead of in a strange hotel in a foreign land. With the door shut against the world, they might have been in a time before the avalanche, a time when there was no doubt about their future together.
