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“Is it awful?”
“No.” It was oversized, sloppy, savory, delicious. Rosemary had no appetite. She set it on the plate and asked, “How do you know what you’re supposed to do?”
“You mean in general? Like, in life?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t.”
“So how do you decide?”
Kal’s eyes were wary. “I just take care of people, as best I can.”
“I took care of people my whole adulthood. I’m meant to be taking care of myself now, but I’m not sure I’m doing it right. You said something changed for you, something drove you away from the work you were doing, made you shift direction. What was it?”
“You were listening back at the hotel?”
“Of course I was listening. Why wouldn’t I have been listening?”
“You seemed toasted.”
“You’re too important for me to ignore you when you finally decide to tell me something personal.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Rosemary wished she could take them back. Too important. It wasn’t the sort of thing you said to a fling on your last night together.
She didn’t know how to do this.
Kal plucked a french fry off her plate and ate it.
“Are you going to answer my question?”
“Probably not.”
“This is it, you know.” She spread her hands wide, palms up. “I’m leaving. You’re driving your mother home. The whole barmy thing comes to an end.”
“I know.”
“But right now, I’m here.” She caught his eyes. “I’m listening. So…what happened to you?”
He slid his palms back and forth over the metal edge of the tabletop. “It wasn’t one thing that happened.”
“No?”
“No, it was more like I got tired or—I don’t know. I got to a point where I couldn’t remember why I was doing what I was doing, like I couldn’t remember when it had been mine, if it had ever been mine.”
“What do you mean?”
He sighed. “I told you about being Doctor Doom, but I didn’t tell you about being Kal Beckett.”
“You can tell me now.”
Kal looked at the dark window, and Rosemary listened to the buzz of the fluorescent lights overhead, water running in the kitchen, and waited until he finally spoke.
“The whole time I was growing up, everything I did was a reaction to my dad. Merlin Beckett, first-class climber, first-class asshole. I can’t remember any part of being a kid when he wasn’t hurting me, or hurting my mom, or I wasn’t thinking about what he was gonna do next. And then I was sixteen and it was over, suddenly, in the worst way possible. Merlin was dead with his head bashed in, and I had all these questions. But there was my mom, this tiny woman, walking away up the mountain, her backpack bobbing up and down. She left me there to wait for her, without an explanation or a story to tell people. Just walked off up the tallest mountain in the world. Maybe she’d come back. Maybe she wouldn’t. I didn’t know what to do.”
Rosemary’s heart hurt to think of him in that situation, so young and so vulnerable. “Of course you didn’t.”
“No, don’t.” He held out his hand, palm facing her. “I made up my mind. If she didn’t come back, even if she did, I’m going to change the world, I’m going to fight against all these assholes, get them off the mountain.”
“Assholes like me,” Rosemary said mildly.
