Someone Else's Husband(81)

Cerebral edema was the part of AMS that killed you, and quickly. I knew that much. Brooks handed me the pill as Kito gave me the oximeter: “Eighty-five, one twenty,” I said. My numbers were worse again. A long time elapsed while we sat in silence. Or maybe it was seconds. Time kept stuttering forward and then reversing.

There was something going wrong with my brain.

I swallowed the pill.

“I’ll be okay,” I said. “I want to finish—I need to.”

Bakari shook his head. “Sometimes it is not your day. The most important thing is to be safe so that there will continue to be other days.” He considered. “We will wait a little while to see if the dex begins to work. There is a chance…” The usual humor in his voice was gone. “If your numbers do not improve, we will call for evacuation.”

I nodded.

“For now, everyone eat quickly and drink,” Bakari said. “Especially you, Frankie. Even if you do not want to.” He exited the tent again.

I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it, but the fog lifted slightly as I finished my soup. Even the tingling in my hands had lessened—the dex, maybe. It was designed to act fast, though admittedly not that fast.

“Thank you, Brooks,” I said. “I think the medication is starting to work.”

“Good,” he said, shooting a look in Richard’s direction. “Side benefits of not being overconfident.”

When I’d finished my bottle of water and drunk some tea, Kito passed me the pulse oximeter. Everyone watched as I inserted my finger and fixed my gaze on the flashing red dashes, waiting for the results to appear.

Eighty-eight over 100.

“Improving! Good. How do you feel?” Kito asked.

“Better, actually,” I said. “My hands are still tingling a little, and my vision isn’t perfectly clear. But everything else—the headache and the nausea—is lessening.”

“Her numbers are better,” Kito said to Bakari as he came back into the tent.

But Bakari’s eyes narrowed as he regarded me seriously. “We can very easily, very safely take you down now. It is always a risk to continue. A very big risk. People do die, Frankie. Not often. But, as we have said, it happens. Do you want to continue?” He wanted to be sure the moment he put my life in my own hands was made very, very clear and for the record. “But with your numbers improving, the decision is now yours.”

“I want to finish,” I said without hesitating. “Yes.”

“Okay.” Bakari nodded. “And everyone else is okay to continue? We are one hour with a very steep incline, poor footing, but no scramble. Then—the summit.”

A chorus of quiet but sturdy yeses from the group. All ready. We slowly gathered our things, adjusting our gear as we had done countless times in the preceding six days. But this was it. The end.

There was still a chance for me to become someone else, or maybe to be all the parts of me—even that seventeen-year-old girl I judged so mercilessly.

“Okay, then,” Bakari said, turning to face the mountain. “Slowly, slowly. To the summit.”



* * *



*

“Frankie—what’s wrong?” Noah sounds startled and half asleep when he finally answers his phone. It’s nearly 2:00 a.m. He keeps his phone on at night only when he is on call, and I’d been crossing my fingers tonight would be one of those nights. “What time is it?”

I hear Max in the background. I can’t make out the words, but he sounds pissed.

“I can call back in the morning. I’m not—it’s not—my life isn’t in imminent danger. I don’t think.”

“Hold on one second. Just let me…” There is rustling, followed by a quiet thud, presumably his bedroom door closing. “Okay, what’s going on?”

“No, I just—” My voice cracks. I try to compose myself. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

“I’ll be right there.”

“But Max—”

“Will be annoyed. And then he will get over it. Let’s face it: One more knock against you won’t matter.”



* * *



—

Twenty minutes later Noah and I sit on my couch side by side. He is holding my phone, studying the texts from the Senator. And the photos.

“I don’t understand. What does he even want?” He scooches closer to me on the couch and zooms in on the last photo.

“To keep me quiet, I guess? But I’ve been quiet all this time, so it doesn’t really make sense…Anyway, I keep asking, and he won’t answer.”

Noah is wearing an old T-shirt and pajama pants underneath his jacket. I still feel bad that I woke him but also validated by how shocked he seems by the messages.

“You need to go to the police, Frankie,” he says. “This isn’t optional anymore.”

The jig is officially up. It is time to come clean with Noah about the NDA. Something I should have done a long time ago. My behavior really doesn’t make sense otherwise.

“I can’t.”

“Frankie, I know you don’t want to, but the way he’s responding to you…It’s really disturbing. Like he’s had some kind of psychotic break.”