“What does she do again?” There was no cell reception here, but Maisie’s bullshit detector was pinging.
“I don’t know. Something with nonprofits.” He leaned down over her shoulder and pointed. “Look at the midpoint of the runway, see how it sits on a diagonal? Now follow that over and to the right. Somewhere in that area.”
“But what for nonprofits specifically?”
“Raising money. That sort of thing. Nonprofits always need money because they don’t have any . . . profits. Why the sudden interest?” Patrick wanted off the topic of Clara before they reached the top. Today was about clearing the air, returning to some semblance of normal, moving on. Mostly, he wanted to settle his guilt.
“That’s where your house is?” Grant asked, looking at the dotted horizon.
“YES.” Finally. Some traction. “That’s where you’ve been living.”
The car operator announced they were passing over tower four and advised everyone to hold on for support. Patrick guided Grant’s hands to the guardrail; Maisie already had a tight grip.
“Whoa.” Grant looked up at his uncle as the cable car swayed back and forth. “It tickles my tummy.”
“Mine, too,” Maisie added.
Patrick was about to intercede, but in the wake of Clara’s departure recognized he needed to work on letting things go. Besides, tummy was fine if you were six. “Mine three.”
“What are we going to do at the top?”
“Hike!”
“HIKE?!” They complained.
“Oh, come on. You know where PopPop took your father and Aunt Clara and me? Battlefields. Revolutionary and Civil War battlefields. I take you to see dinosaurs, to the zoo, swimming, on this tram—all of it much more fun. Believe me, you’d rather hike the ridge of these mountains with me than haul ass all over Pennsylvania to see Valley Forge, or Maryland to see Antietam.”
“Why?” To Grant it all seemed equally horrible.
“Because of the views! You know what Maryland has? Crabs. You know what Pennsylvania has? The Dutch.”
Maisie and Grant shook their heads at one another and they rode the rest of the way to Mountain Station in silence.
* * *
“It’s cold up here.” Maisie kept her arms crossed, partially in protest, partially to keep her body heat contained.
“It’s seventy-five degrees!”
“It is?”
“Yes, this is what summer feels like in Connecticut. You’ve just gotten used to it being a hundred and five.” They forged ahead on the easiest trail Patrick had scouted; it was a loop with five scenic overlooks that ran just over a mile. The forest floor was littered with enormous pine cones, the size, almost, of Grant’s head. Birds were chirping, chatty but unseen, and the ground was soft with pine needles. It took less than ten minutes in the cable car to get from the Valley Station to their destination, but they were a world apart.
“Look, a lizard!” Grant was beside himself with joy.
“Where, bud?”
“Thunning himthelf on that rock.” He pointed to a sunny patch that formed between two trees.
“Good eye.”
“Ith it dead?”
“No, just sleeping.”
“Are you sure?”
Patrick took Grant’s hand. “I’m positive.”
Grant ran toward a cluster of trees to study the pine cones that lay beneath them until he was far enough ahead to make Patrick uncomfortable. “Slow down, Grantelope!”
Grant picked up a pine cone and studied it. “Can I keep this?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Bears eat them.”
Grant looked skeptical. “Bearth eat pine cones?”
“You know what else they eat?” Patrick picked Grant up in one sweeping motion and threw him over his shoulder. “Grantelopes.”
Grant laughed and squirmed. “What’s a Grantelope?”
“You are. Like an antelope, but a Grantelope.”
“Or a cantaloupe,” Maisie observed.
“I’M NOT A CANTALOUPE!” Grant protested more and Patrick set him down on the ground.
A term of endearment, Patrick thought. That was new.
They stopped at the third outlook and sat on a rock that mimicked a bench to sun themselves like lizards. Patrick closed his eyes. It was nice to feel sunshine as comforting warmth and not scorching heat. Although they were ten thousand feet closer to the sun. Shouldn’t it be hotter? Science, he thought. Not to be understood. “Isn’t it strange how the higher we get the cooler it is? It’s the opposite of what you might think.”