Chapter Forty-Eight
My eyes opened to a blinding white light. I was cheek-down in the snow, and the light was my headlamp beam shining onto it.
My first thought was Luke. I could not die on this mountain without him knowing that I had changed my mind about coming to Washington. I could not die without seeing him one more time.
I had no idea how long I’d been lying there, but I was terrified of that light running out. I tried to push up into a sitting position only to realize I couldn’t feel or move my right arm. I tried again with the other side and was able to struggle upright.
Doc.
She was lying on her back in the snow like she was getting ready to make a snow angel. I looked away.
I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t bear to see her body. She was my mom. My mom-sister. Sister-friend. Mom-friend. Role model. Prospective stepmom. Friend. She’d been a better mom to me in the few months a year we’d see each other than my actual mother’s ten years combined.
But if there was a chance she was still alive, I had to check.
I forced myself to look back, praying her face wasn’t iced over. I would vomit.
Thankfully it wasn’t, but the bits of skin on her face that were exposed were well on their way to black. The snowflakes that were falling on her cheeks were still melting. That was a good sign.
A familiar voice came on the radio. Dad. At first, I thought it was a hallucination, but he kept talking.
“Jim suspects your radio isn’t functioning, or that you might be in a position where you can’t make a call out. But that doesn’t mean you can’t hear, so I’m radioing at the top and bottom of each hour from here in Base Camp. This is the fifth call.”
I fumbled for the button. “Dad! I hear you!” My mouth was so dry that hardly any sound came out.
He kept talking. If only I had a swallow of unfrozen water to drink, I might be able to bring my voice back. I tucked into a ball, shoving my hands in my armpits and stilling my shaking body the best I could so I could listen.
Dad was perfectly calm. This fact was unbelievably soothing.
“Hand warmers,” he was saying.
Yes! I had unused hand warmers.
“Wiggle your toes. Rub your fingers.”
I obeyed.
“Now for the unpleasant part. Last we all know, Teresa was snow-blind with a suspected fracture. Jim said you had two tanks of oxygen and that Teresa was approximately twenty minutes from Camp Four. We don’t know that you reached her, so you could have plenty of oxygen. But if you did, and you each have only one tank, you’re both nearly out by now. If you can get yourself down, you need to leave. Right now. If she’s with you and she’s conscious, I know she’s telling you the same thing.”
Thank god Doc wasn’t hearing any of this.
“It’s a whiteout up there. I know you can’t see, but you’ve been across this stretch into Camp Four a dozen times. If anyone knows it, you do. Just go very slowly so you can catch your mistake if you get turned around and are heading for the Kanchenjunga Face.”
I shook my head no. I wasn’t leaving Doc.
“I’m going to repeat this. If you’re in a place where you cannot help any more, you need to go down. You need to leave Teresa.”
Dad! My heart twisted for him. It was a situation a thousand times worse than the one he’d warned me about, with two people he loved—the only two people he loved—being unaccounted for in the Death Zone. Never could he have imagined he’d be ordering his daughter to leave his girlfriend to die alone on the mountain.
What would I do if it were Luke unconscious next to me? I wouldn’t leave him for anything. So I wouldn’t leave Doc, either.
Luke.
“I’ll be back on the radio in another thirty minutes, and I’ll be listening in the meantime,” Dad said. “Keep trying to communicate with us. If you absolutely cannot do anything else, don’t let yourself fall asleep. Stay awake at all costs. As soon as it’s light or the winds die down, there will be people looking for you. I love you, Emily.”
After more than twenty-four hours of exposure in the Death Zone, you don’t just pull yourself up by the bootstraps, stand, and walk out of there. Besides, I wasn’t nearly as confident as Dad that I could find my way to Camp Four in these conditions. If I could even walk on my frozen feet. And I hadn’t done all I could for Doc yet. I had one thing left: heat.
Jim was on the radio now. “Greg is right. With the windchill tonight, it is better to try to reach Camp Four than wait for light. Sunrise is still a long way off. If you can get yourself down, you need to do that. Then you can lead us right back to Teresa if you were with her.”
It was a trap—he wouldn’t let anyone back out in this, especially if he knew the frailty of Doc’s condition. Her chances were not good considering that we’d have to get her all the way down the Lhotse Face before a helicopter rescue was possible. As Dad had bluntly said four nights ago, you don’t risk staff for clients who don’t have a chance.
I tried not to let my immobile right side terrify me as I used my other hand to dig for the hand warmers. I had three packages left. I tore them open with my teeth and slipped them into Doc’s mittens the best I could and put two down her jacket. I distributed what was left along my own body. Dexamethasone would be okay now. I had three syringes with me. I stabbed one straight through my down suit into my thigh and did the same for her.
I lay down next to her. All that was left was time and body heat, and the hope that the friction of my shivering body against her down suit would provide a little bit of warmth for us both.
The freeze of the snow radiated up from the ground like an ice bath. The wind drove pellets of snow into me with the force of a lash. It hurt so badly. Part of me longed for it to be over—really over—as soon as possible.
I heard Luke’s voice. I was truly losing it now, slipping out of reality, like the dream last night. Was this what it felt like to die of exposure?
“Emily, Greg just got ahold of me. We’re in the Global command center now.” He started coughing and let go of the mic button for a few seconds.
“I don’t know if you can hear me, but I’m going to be doing the same thing as Greg,” Luke said. “I’ll be calling every half hour.”
“I’m here. I’m right here,” I said, my voice as rough as Tinkerbell’s tongue against my jacket. I didn’t even know if I keyed my mic. Or if his voice was real in the first place.
A dog barked. The sound was so close that I startled and jolted against Doc. But then the sound morphed into the spine-tingling yell of a yeti. Not the happy Yellow Yeti on our jackets, but the real, horrible, dirty white yeti, baring its gorilla-like fangs and growling. Was I hallucinating? Unbearably humid air raged across me like I was lying on the beach in Thailand. A tsunami was coming, the waves growing taller and taller. I cowered into Doc.
“We just have to get through till morning,” I whispered in my non-voice to the unresponsive Doc. “The guys will come get us, and you’ll get that helicopter ride you’ve always wanted.”
My headlamp beam was dimming, crowning shorter as the blackness crept in. With my left hand, I managed to click it off to preserve what little power was left, and then everything went black again.
I was so, so tired. And I was hot. Like sunburn hot. But all over my body. Inside my body, too.
Stay awake at all costs, Dad had said. But I’d let myself drift out of consciousness.
Water.
I was dying of thirst, and I couldn’t feel my hands. If I survived the night, I’d have no hands left. They’d have to be amputated from the frostbite. I wouldn’t have toes, either. I’d probably lose my nose. If I didn’t survive, I hoped Dad would push my body off the side into Tibet as the Winslowe Expedition team made their summit bid. If he didn’t, I would end up as one of those corpses climbers used as a landmark, forever frozen in the exact body position they had died in.
My regret was singular. Luke.
For not being brave enough to take a chance on the person I loved until it was too late. For being so self-centered and careless with his heart. That he would never know that I had changed my mind about coming to Washington with him.
Stay awake at all costs.
My will was fading. Already faded. Was this dying?
I couldn’t be dying yet because my clothing was suffocating me. I sat up. The wind was oddly still. No wonder I was so hot. I’d just ventilate a little bit.
As I pulled my parka zipper down, I was vaguely aware that the wind wasn’t really still and that I shouldn’t be hot right now.
My hand paused on my breastbone. Right next to my breast pocket, where the unread letter from my mother was.
Do whatever you have to do to stay awake.
Reading the letter. That would get my adrenalin going. My fingers were like frozen fish sticks, but I managed to get the envelope out of my pocket. I gripped it tightly, biting little pieces off the top until I had enough to pull the letter out.
This time, I had no reaction to the pink stationery. I realized I was looking at it without having clicked my headlamp on. Visibility had improved, and there was light bleeding through the clouds from the moon.
I couldn’t see well enough to read the words without the light, so I clicked on my headlamp.
Emily,
First: I am sorry. For who I was and for who I was not. An apology will never be enough, but I owe it to you. I’d say it a hundred times more. A thousand.
I did a twelve-step program in prison. Making amends is one of the steps. That’s how I’m able to have a relationship with my parents again. But apologies are not the same thing as amends, and I knew you wanted nothing to do with me. Once I got out, I did the only thing I thought could possibly help you. I moved in with Dad and Mom to save money, and I work two jobs so I can help cover the remainder of your Townsend College bills.
When I heard you’d changed your mind about coming back to Port Townsend, I knew I had to at least try to contact you. It’s presuming a lot to think I might be the reason, but just in case, I figured now is the time to apologize to you directly.
I follow you as closely as I can through Greg’s communications with Dad and your Circumference account. I’m incredibly proud of who you’ve become. You are all Greg. All of the things that I loved about him. You’re even a mountain climber, too.
I know better than to hope you’d ever be willing to have a relationship with me now, but if you are, I’m here.
Amy
A letter like this should be a dream come true. A girl’s long-lost mother apologizes and assures her she still wants her. Or you’d think it would make me angry, like when Dad had given it to me in the first place. Instead, I simply felt nothing, like the cold had numbed my emotions just like it had my body.
The wind wanted to grab the paper and carry it away, but I resisted its pull, crumpling it best I could into an outer pocket.
I wanted to reread it later.
I would reread it later.
This mountain wasn’t going to be the last of me. I wasn’t going to die here. I wasn’t going to give in that easily. I might fail, but at least I’d fight to the end. I had other mountains to climb. With Luke. And cookies to bake in a real kitchen in my little white bungalow.
I was still suffocating in the heat, but I knew it was an illusion from hypothermia. I gritted my teeth and zipped my parka back up.
I thought about Luke-From-My-Dream, beckoning me to the stairs.
I’m following. I’m coming, I said to him. I will do anything for you.
I continued to fight the urge to tear off my down jacket. Instead, I rubbed my legs with all my might. I blew hot air down the neck of my jacket and ratcheted down the cinch on my hood now that I wasn’t wearing the oxygen mask anymore.
I noticed then that it wasn’t delirium making me think the winds had died down; they really had. If they stayed this way and I could make it to camp, then Norbu would get a fresh team with oxygen and a splint up to Doc immediately.
I examined her chest, which was still rising and falling. Barely.
I knew definitively. Leaving her was her only hope.