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Rosemary liked powerful women.
“He studied public policy. He wanted to study law, go into government, but his father died and he had to return to Nepal to run the business. My family are outfitters in the Khumbu for three generations. My brother”—she poked the man standing next to her in the flesh of his upper arm—“he took over, even though I knew the business better. I’m just a woman, my father thought, so I couldn’t run it. I told my brother what to do, he expanded it to four times the size when our father was alive. Right, Dorjee?”
“Right.”
“And then Mom made them sell it to a German guy for a boatload of money and moved here,” Kal’s sister interjected. “They got enough to start a grocery store and a restaurant.”
“Don’t boast,” Yangchen told her daughter. “It’s impolite.”
“You were boasting,” Sangmu shot back.
Yangchen shook her head. “I was telling family history. It’s not the same.”
“Yeah, but—”
Kal cleared his throat. His sister rolled her eyes. Yangchen’s mouth settled into a firm line, which Rosemary attempted to soften by saying, “Sometimes men are idiots.”
For a moment, no one responded, and she worried she’d been grotesquely insensitive, but then Yangchen let out a bark of laughter. Sangmu smiled, and even Dorjee looked amused. “Present company excepted, of course,” Rosemary added.
“My father was no idiot. He was old-fashioned, though,” Yangchen said. “I always wanted to do boy things, and he tried to make me do girl things. He said I had a boy’s spirit, maybe he’d named me too strong.”
“What does your name mean?”
“It means ‘sacred one.’ It’s not so strong a name—Dorjee means ‘thunderbolt,’ so I told my father I think maybe he got our names mixed up.”
Dorjee nodded, smiling. Rosemary wondered if Kal’s was one of those families that produced terrifying women and mild-mannered men.
Although she wouldn’t call Kal “mild-mannered,” precisely. Not considering the way he’d taken charge after the avalanche, or looked after her in Lukla. Not to mention how he’d smoothed over their morning after in the hotel room, or teased her on the airplane about her reaction to the flight attendant’s interruption…
The back of her neck got hot again. Not the place or the time.
“How long are you staying in New York?” Yangchen asked.
“Not long. I’d come to see my daughter, but it turns out she’s working on a film in Wisconsin. I have to figure out if I can lure her here or if I’ll need to travel there.”
“How old is your daughter?”
“Nineteen.”
“She makes movies?”
“She’s meant to be at NYU, but apparently she’s taken some time out to work on a documentary project.” Relaying this information irritated her just as much as learning about it from Winston had. They’d cut her out of the decision, and it left her uncertain of her place in Beatrice’s life.
Yangchen fluttered her hand at her son. “Kalden took some time off, never went back. All he has to do is take three more credits and finish his thesis, but he won’t.”
“What kind of thesis?” Rosemary asked Kal.
“Master’s in public administration.”
“Environmental policy,” his mother said.
Kal shoved his hands into his pockets and looked away. Rosemary tried Yangchen’s trick, poking him in the upper arm. “Why didn’t you finish?”
“My priorities changed.” He’d shuttered his expression; she recognized the look from the mountain. Pleasantly bland but completely impenetrable, like a rock in a stream.
“What are your priorities now?” she asked, testing that face.
“Yeah, Kal, what are your priorities?” his sister chimed in.
