Someone Else's Husband(51)
“The mountain has its own plans,” Bakari reminded us later as we finished dinner, acknowledging the random swings in everyone’s homeostasis. “It is important to be patient.”
“Sorry about that earlier,” Richard said as the others rose from the table.
We were alone for the first time since the trip started, the rest of the group headed out into the darkness, headlamps guiding their way. The air in the dining tent suddenly felt charged. It was destabilizing. There was something here. Something I wasn’t looking for, did not want. And yet it was impossible to ignore.
Not that it mattered. I didn’t mess with married men—figuratively or literally. Never again. That had been a promise I’d made to myself and easily kept over the years. Inappropriate men, on the other hand—too young, too drunk, too creative, too distracted? Sure.
“Sorry about what?” I asked.
“Our bickering. Sometimes we all act like the teenagers we were when we met. But you don’t need our regressing ruining your trip.”
“Oh, it’s okay,” I said, because who cared about that in a moment like this. The quiet. How close we were standing. Had we moved closer together or did we start that way? I could almost feel the heat of his body. “I have a group of old college friends, too. It’s like family: complicated.”
Richard smiled. “That’s generous.”
“You guys are easy to spend time with. It’s kind of nice disappearing into all your history. In a way, it makes it easier to forget my own for a while.”
Richard was looking at me like he wanted to ask exactly what I meant. I saw the moment he decided not to.
“So why are you here?” I asked quickly. “I mean, aside from the joys of regressing.”
“That’s a good question,” he said, making a face as he tapped the table. “Lately, I’ve been trying to get to the point of all of it. I’ve been working my whole life, achieving things—and I don’t care about my job at all.”
“So, you decided to climb one of the seven summits?”
Richard laughed. “Wasn’t my idea, technically. But I am here now. You’re right, I should get something out of it.” He paused. “I bet you care, really care, about your work.”
“That’s true. But don’t worry—I have lots of other problems.”
And then we both laughed.
“Anyway, we’ll try to keep the juvenile razzing to a minimum so as not to disrupt your peace.”
I smiled. “Thank you.”
The tightness was still sitting in my chest as we stepped out of the dining tent into the darkness. In the distance, the headlamps moved back and forth. I could hear quiet laughter, the sounds of singing very far away. There were at least a dozen other groups at the camp, and it was much less serene than I’d anticipated. But we’d been assured that the groups thinned out as the days passed.
I looked up at the inky sky, so blanketed with stars that it looked like glitter-covered velvet. I felt at once so small and also infinite. “This place seems so impossible—the trees, the animals, the sunsets. I don’t even believe I’m standing here, to be honest.”
“?‘Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.’?”
“Where’s that from?” I tucked my hands into my jacket pockets and looked up again at the sky.
Richard laughed. “The Bible, I think. I’m not very religious, but I believe that at least.”
“Sounds…risky.”
We stood together for one last moment, eyes lifted to the glittering sky.
Finally, Richard shrugged. “Maybe that’s the best part.” He slid his hands into his own pockets as he started forward toward his tent. “Sleep well, Frankie.”
* * *
—
Inside my tent, with my headlamp set up like a lantern, I was still trembling from my exchange with Richard. But no—I’d already decided. Just no. I was grateful for the focus required to get even the most basic tasks accomplished: teeth brushed, spitting out the tent flap; face cleaned with wipes; getting the right clothes laid out for the morning. Trying to figure out what the right clothes might be. I left the air mattress for last, trying and failing to inflate it the way I’d seen the tech at REI demonstrate so easily. When I tried a second time, I instantly felt lightheaded. At this altitude, some things just weren’t an option.
I wiggled into my sleeping bag on the hard ground. And then there was only the dark and the mostly quiet. And me. Not silence, not yet. The smallest sounds traveled forever through the night air. Every cough, every shift or footstep. The rustling of some kind of creature at the outside edges of my tent. Still, so much space to think.
About the ground—so cold and so hard.
About that night. I was back in that cramped little bathroom at the back of the house, the noise from the party far away. The bathroom tiles cold and hard under my bare knees as I knelt to unbuckle the Senator’s pants—God, that part was thrilling. Because he was glamorous and powerful and so sure of himself. How I loved the feeling of being chosen by someone like that. Someone who knew things that I didn’t, who saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself. The sick truth was that his wedding ring made the whole thing more exciting. It made me feel mature and reckless and almost as powerful as he was. I wanted to take him in my mouth, I did. But suddenly, the Senator was on top of me. He shoved my dress up and pulled my underwear to the side. And then, so fast, he was inside me. I didn’t say no. Not out loud. But silently, a part of me was screaming. She had been screaming ever since.