“Thank you,” Richard says. He seems genuinely touched.
“I’m still having flashbacks, and I’m not sleeping. And it wasn’t one of my best friends who died.”
“Really?” Richard looks so relieved. “I thought I was going a little crazy. It’s like a—”
“Tape on a loop?”
“Exactly,” Richard says. “I keep seeing the exact same images, some are of the— Some are really haunting. Some are just of things I was looking at before, I think.”
“For me it’s the sounds,” I say. “Everything I heard right before.”
“It’s really fucking disturbing.”
“That’s for sure.”
“It already helps, just talking about it like this. Gretchen’s not…” He’s quiet again, and I try to ignore the prickle of discomfort I feel at hearing her name. “She’s not great with feelings. She’s an amazing person. A truly good person, but she freezes up around big feelings. It’s like she gets overwhelmed or something. She’s very good at doing—you should have seen her at the gathering at Van’s house after the service. She had her sleeves rolled up in the kitchen washing dishes. She took care of the donation and ordered flowers. She’s incredibly thoughtful. But she can’t just sit with you when you’re upset. She could never bear when the children cried. She always had to do something about it.” He looks so confused. “Do you know what I mean?”
“I think a lot of people are like that. Feelings are uncomfortable. They can be too much—for people who feel too muchandthe ones who don’t feel enough. Maybe it’s just too painful for your wife.” I can’t bring myself to say her name, but I did take her side. And that’s something.
“She’s doing her best,” he says, then looks over at me intently. “We’re all just doing our best.”
“I don’t mind listening,” I say. “If you just want to talk. About being sad. Or feeling guilty. Or maybe about what Van was like back when you met him. The good times.”
He leans forward, elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped loosely together. I know from the trip that he sits that way whenever he’s considering something seriously. He was in the same position when he asked me what it felt like to paint.
It was day six. We had been sitting at Arrow Glacier Camp, altitude 16,076 feet, watching the sun disappear behind the cloudsin a kaleidoscope of orange, clutching cups of tea with our knit hats pulled low.
“Why?” I replied. “Do you think you could be an artist?”
It came out a little snide, but so many people think they could easily paint abstract modern art, that a child could.
Richard laughed. “I wish. As you heard earlier from the guys, I gave it a try once upon a time, but I eventually realized there probably wasn’t much of a modern market for mediocre sketches of fruit bowls. I think I could have made a great art dealer, though, or a curator.”
“What stopped you?”
He shrugged. “I grew up,” he said. “Anyway, I don’t have that kind of creativity in me. But I have always wondered what it feels like.”
No man had ever inquired about what it felt like to be me. Because not a single one had ever given a shit? Because they already thought they knew? Because I’d purposely never had the right men around me? Maybe all those things were true.
I don’t remember what we said after that, only the way my pulse quickened. The way everything suddenly existed in such sharp relief—the colors, the textures. Like someone had just fine-tuned the settings on the world.
It’s the way the world feels right now. Magnified.
“Yeah,” Richard says finally. “Talking would help, I think. If you don’t mind.”
“I’d be happy to listen.”
***
To mark the official beginning of the expedition, Bakari took a group photo of all of us standing behind the Mercedes jeep, the colorful True Altitude logo displayed prominently on its back tire cover. I was so much shorter than all of them except Brooks. And I was still shorter than him. It was not going to be easy, ignoring my differentness, even though it was obviously the only way forward.
“Frankie sits there,” Bakari instructed as we climbed inside, pointing to one of two prime, freestanding seats behind the driver.
I felt annoyed about being singled out because I was the only woman, but maybe there was no pretending I didn’t have special status.
“I’m sure this isn’t exactly what you signed up for, a bunch of old friends,” Richard said to me quietly after everyone was in the car.
“I tried not to have any expectations.”
