by John Shors
“Well, luv, when that baby is your baby, and you’re kissing her, you just sort of feel at peace. No matter how hard your day has been, no matter what disasters happened, you realize that the most important thing in the world is in your arms, held tight, and that’s a powerful thing.”
“And you carried me to bed? Almost every night?”
“I reckon so, Roo. Even when I came home late. Your mum was sweet. She let me do that, because she knew I fancied it.”
Mattie glanced below, realizing that he’d already carried her halfway up the steps. “Don’t drop me, Daddy.”
“Never, luv,” Ian replied, glad that she was no longer crying, but worried because her knee seemed to be swelling. He doubted that she’d be able to walk the next day. They’d have to remain in one place and say good-bye to the women whom Mattie seemed to look up to so much.
THE DAY EVOLVED EXACTLY AS IAN HAD feared. He managed to carry Mattie to the next village, but by the time they arrived, her knee was swollen and achy. Fortunately, she could move her leg without much additional pain, so he doubted she’d broken anything. His guess was that she had badly bruised her kneecap and would need several days of rest before tackling the trail again.
Ian paid for a room at the best hotel in the village, which was really nothing more than a collection of stone homes and two-story buildings that bordered terraced wheat fields. The room was like the others they’d stayed in—sparsely furnished, cold, and inhospitable. Ian pushed the two beds together, combined their sleeping bags, and lay Mattie down. Leslie, Blake, and Tiffany were as helpful as possible. Leslie gently cleaned Mattie’s wound, applied a new bandage, and gave her half an aspirin. On her guitar, Blake played the songs Mattie requested.
Since it was already past noon, Ian knew that the women would have to continue onward if they were to finish their trek on time. He didn’t want them to leave, as he was sure that their departure would sadden Mattie, but he couldn’t ask them to linger.
“You ladies should head out,” he said, standing up from where he’d been sitting next to Mattie. “If you’re going to make it to the next village before dark, you’d best buzz off.”
Tiffany glanced at Mattie. “Are you sure you’ll be okay? I feel bad about leaving.”
“No worries,” Ian replied, the taste of antacids dominating his mouth. “You’ve all been grand. Just lovely, really. We’ll be fine. Right, Roo?”
“Right.”
Leslie bent toward Mattie. “Is the aspirin helping?”
“A little. Thank you.”
“I hate to leave you,” Leslie said, straightening Mattie’s pillow, “but if we don’t get going, we’ll never finish our loop. And, you know, we have to get back to our jobs.”
Ian put his hand on Leslie’s shoulder. “Don’t fret about us. We’re lucky to have found you.”
Leslie removed a digital camera from her pack and handed it to Ian. “Can you take a picture of Mattie and us? I’ll e-mail it to you.”
“Lovely,” Ian replied, waiting to aim the camera until the women had gathered around his daughter. He took several photos, aware that Mattie was trying to smile and that her smile was fake. She looked so small compared to the Peace Corps workers. She shouldn’t have been in a dark and dreary room with them in Nepal, but with her friends back home. As Ian handed the camera back to Leslie and told her his e-mail address, he felt guilty about taking Mattie into the mountains, regardless of Kate’s request.
The women lingered for a few more minutes before saying good-bye, hugging Mattie and Ian, and stepping from the room. Mattie began to cry. She pulled the sleeping bag up to her chin and turned away from her father. She had liked walking with the women and didn’t want them to leave.
Mattie’s misery caused Ian’s spirits to tumble. Suddenly he didn’t want to be in Nepal. He was angry with Kate for sending them here, for asking them to pursue the impossible. “I reckon we should just go home,” he said quietly, sitting on the bed to untie his boots. “This trip is too bloody hard. On you. On me.”
“What?”
“What if you’d really been walloped today? If you’d broken your ankle or fallen off the top of that bus? You shouldn’t be here. You’re too young. You’re missing school.”
“But I’ve been reading. I’ve been studying. Just like I promised.”
He shook his head. “This isn’t right, Roo. You’re too little to be here.”
“That Japanese woman was little. And she climbed Everest.”
“She was heaps older than you.”
Mattie moved away from his hand as he reached for her. “But Mommy wanted me to come.”
“Mommy was sick. Really sick. She wasn’t thinking straight.”
“Yes, she was.”
“No, she wasn’t.”
Her tears intensifying, Mattie pushed his hand away. “I’m not afraid.”
“I know, luv. I know.”
“And I’m not too little. Mommy wouldn’t have asked me to come if I was.”
“She didn’t—”
“No!”
“Easy on, Mattie.”
“You don’t get to decide!”
“What?”
“You decided everything for Mommy, at the end. And that didn’t work. So you don’t get to decide this.”
Ian leaned closer to her. “I tried my best. Just like I’m trying my best now.”
“You let the doctors put those tubes in her! Even when she didn’t want them!”
“I . . . I thought they would help. Don’t you understand that? The doctors told me the tubes would help.”
“They didn’t! And you didn’t listen to Mommy and you’re not listening to me!”
“I am listening. Though I don’t want to hear any of this.”
“You don’t listen!”
Ian rubbed his brow, trying to settle his emotions. “You know, Roo, I listen to you a lot bloody more than I listen to myself. If I didn’t, we wouldn’t be here. And those tubes . . . I wanted them in because I thought we could save your mum. Would you rather that I did nothing? I wanted to give her a fighting chance.”
“She didn’t want to fight!”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do! She didn’t want the tubes! And I don’t want to go home!”
Ian glanced toward the door, wishing that they were still walking, that Mattie hadn’t fallen. His stomach ached, and he pulled another antacid from his pocket. “I understand that you don’t want to go home,” he said, chewing the medicine, his thumb moving against his forefinger. “But I still think we should turn around. This trip is too hard. On both of us.”
“No, Daddy! It’s not.”
“But you’re hurt. You’re cold and crying. How’s that good?”
Mattie shook her head, wringing the sleeping bag in her hands. “I’m not going back! Not until we’ve finished. Mommy asked us to finish, and I’m going to listen to her. Even if you won’t.”
“I always listened to her. And to you.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Mattie.”
“You don’t.”
“I—”
“How can you listen when you’re at work? When you’re gone all the time? Mommy was home. And she listened. I know she heard everything I said. Everything!”
Ian closed his eyes, wanting to shout but staying silent, feeling trapped in the small, cold room. “I did my best. Maybe I made mistakes, heaps of them, but I did my best.”
“You should do what she says.”
“I came here, didn’t I? Even when I didn’t want to.”
“You came but—”
“And you know, Roo, this is tough on me too. I’ve been kicked in the teeth just as hard as you have.”
“I’m not going back.”
“Why not? Why are you so afraid of going back? We live in a lovely place, in a lovely country. We’ve got mates who would do anything for us. Don’t you miss your soccer team? Your art teacher at school? Walking to the movies with
me and stuffing ourselves with popcorn?”
She pulled the sleeping bag over her head. “I don’t want to go back because I know Mommy’s here. And I’m not going to leave her. I’m not ever going to leave her again.”
TWO DAYS LATER, AFTER THE RAIN HAD subsided and Mattie’s knee was no longer swollen and stiff, they left the stone room. They’d passed the time by going over her schoolwork, reading Harry Potter, and writing postcards. Through the years, Mattie had often sent Ian’s parents postcards and she wanted to continue the tradition. She’d only met them once when they’d visited New York, and she enjoyed receiving their postcards and seeing different parts of Australia, a country her father promised that she would come to know well.
Her mother’s parents were both dead, so Mattie didn’t have many people to send postcards to—mainly her aunts, uncles, friends, and a few teachers. She sketched miniature sights from Japan and Nepal between her words, bringing her best memories of the trip to life. A bullet train navigated its way around her words on several cards. Mountains rose on others.
Mattie had also whiled away the hours by sketching her father as he leaned against the doorway. Exaggerating his stubble, she drew his face the way she and her mother had liked to see it—a happy face, with dark whiskers that meant he wasn’t going to work.
Even though Mattie had been angry at him for wanting to head home, her anger hadn’t lasted. They had agreed to continue the trip and had made amends in their own ways. Mattie had done her best not to complain about her knee. She didn’t want him worrying about her, as she understood that her emotions tended to dictate what his would be. If she lay there and cried about her knee, he would be just as miserable.
And while a part of Ian believed that the trip was too hard on Mattie, he understood that she wanted to take it, needed to take it. His misgivings didn’t vanish with the rain, though. He felt as if Kate was continuing to force his hand, and he resented being pushed in an unwelcome direction. For the first time since she had died, a full day passed without him looking at her picture.
The stress of keeping his emotions at bay affected Ian, though he pretended otherwise. Mattie watched him carefully, and he couldn’t let her see his despair. His frustration, bitterness, and sorrow had to be hidden, buried deep behind a bright facade. If Mattie knew how close he was to breaking, what little progress she had made over the past months would be undone.
Ian remembered talking with Kate the day before she died, about how he would raise Mattie alone. He was afraid of doing so and had told Kate as much. What if he couldn’t give Mattie joy and hope? What if he failed her as he had Kate? He’d worked so hard to provide for his family, yet his long nights at the office had only hurt them. If he had been around more, maybe he would have been a bigger help to Kate; maybe she wouldn’t have gotten sick. And perhaps, as Mattie believed, maybe he shouldn’t have pushed Kate so hard to fight. He’d thought that she could beat her illness, that she was strong enough to battle until the end. His love for her had compelled him to press her, but his love had misled him, because she’d listened to him, endured far more pain than was necessary, and died anyway. He had failed her when she needed him most, when he could have made her comfortable. And because of that failing, he didn’t want to push Mattie to climb mountains or ace school or be someone she wasn’t. He just wanted her to be content, if that was possible.
Now, as Ian and Mattie slowly ascended a mountain that was so lush it could have come straight from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, he followed her up the narrow trail, eyeing fields of flowers near and far. Irises, orchids, and magnolias dominated uncultivated swaths of the valley. Herds of yaks and fields of wheat also loomed in the shadows of the Himalayas. The wheat fields were a light green, and appeared to glow in the sunlight. Bamboo fences enclosed the fields, which flowed from the valley floor to the foothills. Here the land had been cut into terraces, and the fields ascended for several hundred feet until the Himalayas became too steep to farm. The mountains were as lush as the fields, though a much darker green. Ian tried to compare the peaks to the skyline back home but realized that such a comparison was inherently faulty. The mountains were much, much bigger than anything Manhattan had to offer.
Ian lowered his gaze to Mattie. She was dressed in jeans and a purple T-shirt with a smiley face on it. Her hair was in long, fairly tight braids, a product of his determination. She appeared to move without pain, which delighted him. “You know, Roo,” he said, “I don’t fancy fighting with you.”
Mattie’s walking stick paused in midflight. “I know, Daddy.”
“And when we do fight, I’m not trying to pester you. I’m trying to do what’s best for you.”
“This trip is best for me.”
“Why? Why do you say that? What if one of us gets hurt or sick?”
“Like Mommy?”
“That’s right. Like Mommy.”
“But that won’t happen. You promised me that would never happen again.”
Ian glanced to their right, toward a waterfall that dropped from a crevice between distant rises. “Sorry, luv. You’re as right as rain. That won’t happen to either of us, just like I promised. But still, I reckon it doesn’t hurt to be careful.”
“I am careful.”
“I know.”
“So let’s not talk about it, okay?”
He sighed and moved ahead. Pointing to the waterfall, he said, “There’s a real beaut. Care to stop and sketch it?”
“No.”
They continued forward in silence. Ian glanced ahead, knowing that if the day remained clear, they would soon be rewarded with a view of Everest. “I’ve got a surprise for you,” he said, adjusting his traveling hat to shield his eyes from the sun.
“What?”
“Actually, two surprises.”
She nudged him with her walking stick. “What, Daddy?”
“Just wait until we get to the top.”
The trail, bordered by stalks of wild marijuana, twisted to the left, approaching a vertical section of a mountain that had stairs etched into it. The stone steps, of which there were several hundred, led to a crevice in the mountain. At the base of the steps stood a Nepalese girl about Mattie’s age who wore a tattered blue dress. She carried an immense bundle of firewood on her back. A thick strip of canvas encircled the firewood and hung from her forehead. The girl had her hands on the canvas near her forehead, keeping it in place. She leaned against a large boulder near the bottom of the stairs, glancing up the mountain, and then at Ian and Mattie.
“Namaste,” Ian said to the girl, placing his hands together and bowing slightly.
She smiled. “Namaste.”
Mattie studied the girl, noticing how dirty and ragged her clothes were. Her dark hair was matted, long, and disheveled. “Hello,” Mattie said, embarrassed to be carrying almost nothing and to be dressed in such clean clothes.
“Hewwo,” the girl replied, still smiling, still holding the canvas strap in place against her sweating brow.
“Daddy,” Mattie asked, “could you carry that for her? I don’t think she’ll make it up all these steps.”
Ian was glad to hear the request. Though his own pack wasn’t light, he felt that he could also carry the firewood. “Reckon I can take that from you?” he asked the girl, gesturing toward the wood. “I’ll carry it to the top of these steps and then you can take over.”
The girl’s brow furrowed. “No understand. No speak English.”
“May I take your wood? I’ll put your strap around my forehead, like you’ve done. And I’ll carry it up these steps.”
Mattie saw that the girl was still confused. Stepping closer to the stranger, Mattie pretended to take the wood and put it on her father’s back, on top of his large backpack. “He will carry it up for you,” she said slowly.
The girl nodded, her eyes widening. Mattie saw that her knees trembled, probably from the weight of the firewood. Not wanting to waste any more time, Mattie helped the girl lift the strap over her head
and set the wood on the ground. Mattie was surprised by the weight of the load, which she knew she could never carry. “Can you do this, Daddy?” she asked. “Maybe I could carry your backpack.”
“And if your leg was in proper shape, I’d let you try. But no worries, luv. Just help me get that strap up on my thick head.”
Ian dropped to his knees, and Mattie and the girl lifted the bundle of firewood, setting it atop his backpack. The girl took the strap and placed it over his forehead, so that his neck would carry the load, as hers had.
“Be careful, Daddy,” Mattie said as he stood up. She did her best to help him lift the firewood, as did the girl.
“Holy dooley, that’s heavy,” Ian said, straining beneath the weight. He held the canvas strip in place against his forehead, clenching his teeth from the pressure put on his neck. Leaning forward, he stepped on the first stair.
“Maybe you shouldn’t do this,” Mattie said, pushing up from behind to try and help him.
“Rubbish, Roo. Now let’s stop our yabbering and get this to the top.”
“But, Daddy. . .”
“Come on, now. I’ll race you.”
The stone steps were wide and high. Ian watched the ground carefully, aware of the two girls behind him. Despite what he’d said to Mattie, he was worried, as his load threatened to pull him backward. Continuing to clench his teeth, he moved up the steps, glad that they were dry. As he struggled, he thought about the girl, wondering why she wasn’t in school. Even though villagers were usually poor, their children attended school as long as crops didn’t need harvesting. Ian was surprised that the girl was carrying a load of firewood in the middle of the day. Perhaps her parents were sick and needed help.
“Twenty more steps, Daddy,” Mattie said from behind him.
“Is that all?” he answered, sweat emerging from his brow to fall to the stone stairs.
“Your knees are wobbling.”
“You must need glasses, luv. I’m as strong as a mallee bull.”
“A what?”
“A cow that lives in the Outback. Deep in the bush.”
“You don’t look strong.”
