Chapter Fifteen

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

March 2014, Seattle, Washington

In March, the first hints of spring trickled into Washington as the sun poked its head out from behind the clouds, and Sophie fell in love.

She had met Miles in the damp chill of February—a new employee at her favorite outdoor gear store, a short conversation at the register, his phone number written carefully on the receipt. She hadn’t thought much of it at the time. She was seeing, casually, another climbing guide, sleeping at his apartment some weekends. But they weren’t exclusive, so there was no harm in seeing where things went with the green-eyed, quietly intense kayaker behind the counter. And things went well.

After their first night together, Sophie and Miles were nearly inseparable. Nearly—because Sophie had school, no matter how unenthusiastic she was about it, and Miles had work and weekend river running. But they found time, as winter trickled into early spring, for Sophie to slide beneath the heavy flannel sheets in Miles’s bed and for him to make them breakfast the next morning. He was a talented chef— of course he is , Sophie thought, every time he presented her with brioche French toast and berry compote or eggs Benedict, never mind the fact that he made it all on a two-burner hotplate.

“I’ll admit that I eat a lot more yogurt and granola when you’re not around,” he told her.

“Then I guess I’ll have to be around a lot more,” she replied.

Sophie started spending more time with him, sometimes driving up to his rented cabin near Darrington on weeknights and staying through Sunday evening. She rescheduled her phone calls with Evelyn on those weekends, but the guilt she felt was minimal compared to how much she liked seeing Miles. She found in him a kindred spirit, someone who understood her obsessive drive. And maybe that should have been a sign, that two obsessives would only light a short-fused fire, that they were too similar not to burn each other out. But late at night, curled up on the couch, surrounded by Miles’s paintings of ferocious rivers, swapping stories about climbing and paddling, Sophie couldn’t imagine being as happy anywhere else.

They were at a farmer’s market when her phone rang. It was lunchtime on the east coast, probably Evelyn’s only break in a long day of society meetings and writing papers. Sophie hesitated for a moment and declined the call.

Miles had drifted ahead but stopped to look back at her. “Sophie?”

“Sorry,” she replied, typing a quick apology to Evelyn. “My sister called me.”

“You always say, ‘my sister.’ I’m sure she has a name.”

Sophie tossed her phone back in her tote bag and lengthened her stride to catch up with him. “It’s Evelyn.”

They fell into step together, wandering through the crowd, on the hunt for a specific stand that sold the best goat cheese. “What’s she like?”

Sophie paused, mulling over how to answer the question, how to summarize a person she knew so well. “She’s nothing like me,” she said finally, and shot Miles a quick glance. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, she’s just as good of a climber. But she’s so serious, in an ‘I want to save the world’ kind of way. And she probably will. She’s so smart. She can be funny, sometimes, too, when she’s not obsessing over some obscure case or law.”

“She lives in New York?” He seemed to think for a moment after Sophie nodded. “I’m not sure I could do it. I want to be somewhere wild.” He reached over and took Sophie’s hand, something he hadn’t done before, not in public like this. “You’re smart too, Sophie. And driven. Sounds like just not in the same direction.” He glanced at her. “I don’t think you’d make a very good lawyer.”

“Are you kidding? I’d do a great job of getting people off the hook.” She heard her phone buzz, probably Evelyn responding, but didn’t pull her hand from Miles’s grasp to dig through her bag. She knew Evelyn had exams coming up, was under a lot of stress, but Sophie wasn’t in the mood to think about someone else’s problems. Nor was she in the mood to hear Evelyn’s opinion about how much time she was spending with Miles. She had called Evelyn after her first date with him, and Evelyn had asked what the catch was. Sophie remembered her response clearly.

A sharp exhale. “Twenty-six? God, Sophie. He’s older than me. Does he know you’re only twenty?”

“Yeah,” Sophie had said. “He seemed maybe a little bothered by it, but then he said that he doesn’t usually go on dates or, you know, get into relationships. So, I guess this is different. Not that we’re in a relationship yet.”

Evelyn had been silent for a few moments. “Well, just take it slow, okay? I think it’s a little weird that he’s into someone six years younger than him. It might say something about his maturity level.”

So Sophie didn’t want to think about Evelyn’s judgment now, of her disapproval. They had acted as equals for so long that Sophie resented when Evelyn tried to play the big sister card. If Sophie could make life-or-death decisions on a mountain, she could handle a romantic relationship. The stakes were much lower.

Sophie spent her last weekend at the cabin in mid-April. The climbing season was about to begin, and she would have to be in the Cascades every weekend, and then full time over the summer, living in bunkhouse-style communal housing. It wasn’t the worst deal, a free place to sleep on the outskirts of a beautiful national park. Still, they hadn’t talked about it much, she and Miles. She foresaw things ending as simply as they began—two unattached people drifting together and then apart, separated by different passions for the natural world. But she was waiting for him to say it first.

On Sunday morning he handed her a plate of blueberry pancakes, her favorite breakfast. She sat in the armchair, Miles on the couch. “Sorry, nothing fancy this morning,” he said. “I feel guilty enough for buying the blueberries out of season. And no candles. Happy birthday?” he chuckled softly.

“This is better than any cake.”

A moment of silence passed, made sharper by the physical distance. A cloud had lingered over them all weekend. Sophie wondered if they would simply never address it, or if she would have to draw it out of him like pulling teeth. She thought about moving to the couch to sit beside him. But then he set his mostly full plate aside, looked at her, and said, “We should talk.”

“Okay.” She looked up, plainly, waiting for him to continue.

“I—well, I think the reason why is obvious.” He ran a hand through his hair, still messy from bed. “I have—a proposal of sorts, I guess. It might sound crazy.”

“Let’s hear it.” She could no longer guess where the conversation was going.

“I got offered a job in Wyoming for the summer. Guiding river trips. I did it a few years ago and enjoyed it. And then I was thinking, what the hell is keeping me in Washington? Not much. You, maybe. This cabin is a sweet deal. But I have some cash saved up and I thought, maybe if I save all my pennies, at the end of this summer I could buy a place. Just something small. The guiding is good money. Well, I’m sure you know that.” She nodded, and he continued. “So here’s the thing that might sound crazy. What if you moved with me?”

Sophie blinked. “I have a job here for the summer. And school.”

“I know,” he said quickly. “But what about just for the summer? See how you like Wyoming. And—” he raised a hand, preempting her interruption “—I have connections at Grand Teton. I already asked my friend there and he said they’re short a guide or two. For climbing. And I’m certain they wouldn’t say no to someone with experience.”

Sophie’s eyes traced the dizzying patterns of the rug for a moment. He wants me to move to Wyoming with him? She looked at him again and allowed herself to smile. “I thought you were going to break up with me.”

“Me too,” he said, and then laughed at the look on her face. “Really. I mean, I don’t want this to sound like an ultimatum, but that’s probably the alternative. I didn’t find out about Wyoming until earlier this week. And I thought, shit, there’s no way to make this work. But I like you and I like what we have right now, and I started to wonder if there was a way to stay together. And it seemed like maybe we could. In Wyoming.” He paused. “I realize I’m asking a lot of you, to uproot your life even if it’s just for a few months.”

“And what happens at the end of summer, when I have to go back to school?”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

Sophie leaned back against the chair. She tended to dive headfirst into these situations without thinking. She knew exactly what Evelyn would say when she heard—that she was being irresponsible. That she wasn’t thinking about her future. That the relationship would fizzle out and she’d have to find her way back to Washington, a new job, and the motivation to finish school. Whatever , Sophie thought, why do I care what Evelyn thinks? It was the first time she had disregarded her sister’s hypothetical opinion so quickly. Usually, she could recognize that Evelyn was rational and practical and many other things that Sophie was not. But now, she studied Miles’s face, the hopeful expression that worked its way across his brow, and she didn’t want to think about what her sister would say. She opened her mouth to speak, but he beat her to it.

“You don’t have to decide right this second. But I just want to say that I love you.”

She blinked, wondering if she had heard right. They had never said those words to each other before, although Sophie was certain she had felt it, standing by his side in the forest or watching him cook breakfast on a cold morning. Love came easily to Sophie; she had fallen in love with nearly everyone she dated, even for a short time, but she sensed that might not be the same for Miles. He looked so nervous now that she realized she must have heard him correctly.

“I love you too,” she replied, and set her uneaten breakfast aside, crossing the living room to tuck herself onto the couch beside him. She stayed silent for a minute, half-facing him, her hand resting on his leg. “Is it bad that I already know my decision?”

“I’m all ears.”

“I’ll come. For the summer, at least. Assuming I pass all my classes and don’t have to retake any.”

“You could do it online, if you had to,” he replied. “Or not. You don’t seem to like school that much anyway.” He kissed her, briefly, then stood up and retreated to the kitchen to clean up, so she had to twist over the back of the couch to see him.

“It’s not that I don’t like it. I’m not good at it. I’m not book smart.”

“You can be bad at something and still be successful, if you enjoy it. Look, you hate being in class and studying because you would rather be climbing. And guess what? You’re good at climbing. So, you have something that you like, and that you’re good at, and you can make a living from it. So, why not pursue that?”

She didn’t have a good answer. Fear, maybe, of not having a fallback. What if she got injured? The risk would never disappear—some people climbed until they were ancient and never got hurt; some were airlifted off a mountainside in their twenties and never walked again. Or worse, lives were cut short. But Sophie knew the risks. Otherwise, there would be no reward, nothing to make scaling a mountain different from a walk in the park. The real answer was a different kind of fear—she didn’t want to disappoint her mother or, worse, Evelyn. She sensed all along that they both doubted she would go to college, her mother especially. Evelyn assumed everyone went to college; she didn’t seem to consider any alternatives. But her mother always looked at her with sad eyes when they discussed Sophie’s future—guiding climbs was not a career, she said, it was a job. If you don’t have a degree, you’ll never have stable income, never have benefits. Sophie didn’t care about that, but she worked hard to improve her grades senior year of high school and secretly applied to the University of Washington. Her mother had cried when she saw the acceptance letter. It was the first time Sophie had sacrificed her own desires to make someone else happy; it would not be the last.

“I don’t know,” she said to Miles. “Leaving school is a huge decision.”

He paused in the middle of wiping down the counter to look at her. “I’ve thought about getting a degree in something that isn’t painting. You know what advice is always given to me? ‘School is there forever. Kayak while your body lets you.’ You’re young and strong right now. You won’t be forever. Maybe you’ll hit forty and you’ll have climbed all the mountains you want to, and you can go back to school then.”

“That sounds like it would be incredibly difficult.”

He shook his head. “What’s incredibly difficult is being good enough to coach novices up mountains. And you’re doing that. If you transitioned to full time, you’d make a living, easy.” He looked at her plainly. “I think you should drop out. Honestly. I do value my degree. It made me a better painter. But you’re studying what, natural resources? What’s that got to do with climbing?”

“It’s natural resource management. Best practices, policy, that sort of thing. I don’t know, I thought park management would be an interesting career.”

“Or maybe you’ll end up managing guests at a ski resort like your mom. How exciting.”

She tilted her head, too surprised by his bluntness to feel any anger. “How is that relevant?”

“Just saying there are career alternatives. I know how much you’d love to follow in her footsteps.”

He turned his back to her again. Sophie collapsed against the couch, frustrated by his sarcastic tone. He’d never pushed her like this, challenged her choices beyond acknowledging that she didn’t seem to enjoy college. She had never mentioned her mother’s career in more depth than passing, when she talked about her childhood of skiing the slopes with Evelyn. She knew how Evelyn would react in a situation like this—she’d get angry—but Sophie only felt anxious. Part of her wondered if Miles was right, if she was on track to a meaningless career with a pretty view. She closed her eyes, wishing she had her sister there for advice and decided she would call her on the drive home. Evelyn knew about Miles; her mother didn’t, and how was she going to explain that she was moving to Wyoming for the summer with a man she’d only known for a few months? But Evelyn could help her with that, too. She always knew what to say.

Sophie swallowed the lump in her throat and stood up. “I should get going,” she said, crossing the room to grab her coat from the hook by the door.

“Your bag is upstairs,” Miles replied. “Hey, wait. You don’t have to decide anything today. All of this is your choice—Wyoming, school, all of it. I just think you should really consider how you want the next year of your life to look. It’s not the end of the world either way. You’re young. We both are. We have time to figure out what we want.” He paused. “I’d just like to do that together.”

“I know.” She moved closer, kissed him, felt the warmth of their bodies pressed together. She pulled away slightly. “Tell your friend in Wyoming that I want the job. We’ll go from there.”

By the end of summer Sophie realized she was irretrievably in love with two things: Miles and the state of Wyoming. The realization came to her while she was away from both, back home in Colorado. She’d taken a few days off at the beginning of the week to visit her mother and Evelyn, who was also home, on break from law school.

They were sitting on the back porch of one of the lodge buildings, sharing a wooden swing and sipping hard cider from their mother’s fridge. “This is nice,” Evelyn said aloud. The sun set, spreading its fiery reds and oranges across the low-hanging clouds in the distance. Soon the colors would fade to pink and purple, and then night would settle in. It reminded Sophie of a painting Miles had been working on for the last month, of a glacial river at sunset in the mountains. Already the crickets were beginning to raise a chorus. She felt a twinge of nostalgia for all the afternoons they’d spent like this growing up, both off from school for the summer, bored to death on the ghost-town-like property of the ski resort. Their mother worked year-round—the resort held events like work retreats and weddings. But theirs was a quiet existence in the summertime, marked by long days spent trudging up and down the snowless slopes, trying to find the best views. That was until Evelyn, and shortly after, Sophie, discovered the rock-climbing wall at the local recreation center. Summers were never boring again.

“I’m just glad we’re together,” Sophie said. She was secretly glad for the break, too. Working in the Tetons was the most exhilarating and challenging experience of her life so far. She climbed every day, even on her days off, and her whole body ached with a force that reminded her, every second, that she was alive. The soreness was still fresh today; yesterday, she had summited Torreys Peak and Grays Peak with Evelyn. But it was good to be back home and to knock out two more 14ers. She twisted now, half turning to Evelyn, her heart pounding in her chest. Afraid of what she had to say but knowing that waiting would only make the reveal worse. “I have something to tell you.” She hated the way her voice shook and drew a breath to steady herself. “I’m not going back to Washington this fall. I’m staying in Wyoming.”

“What about school?”

Sophie hesitated, and Evelyn connected the dots instantly.

“You’re dropping out? Sophie. No way.”

“Hear me out before you say anything. I love Wyoming. I love my job. I don’t love school. And it’ll always be there. If I get injured or give up on climbing, I can always go back.” She felt like she was parroting Miles’s words, but Evelyn wouldn’t know that. Sophie had heard the same speech from Miles nearly every day for the last month, as she wavered between staying in Wyoming and going back to school. A week ago, she had decided that he was right.

“That’s not how it works. You’d have to reapply. You’ll be older than everyone else. It will be harder to make friends and feel included. Do you understand that? You’ll feel years behind.”

“And right now, I feel like I’m falling behind on the things I actually care about.” She folded her arms over her chest, defensive. Of course Evelyn would use the standard life trajectory to shame her, the one Evelyn had managed to follow flawlessly. “Look. Clearly, I don’t care about graduating at twenty-two and having a normal career.”

“But you might when you’re thirty-five and a freshman again. Couldn’t you just take a semester off? You’ve only been out there three months. What if you feel differently after six?”

“Why put it off? I don’t need a degree to climb mountains and that’s what I want to do. I can’t think of anything I’d enjoy more. Even natural resource management, if I ended up working in a park—it’s all paperwork and uniforms. It’s not me.”

“Sophie. There’s more than one kind of job. You could even change majors now. It might take you an extra year or two to graduate, but a degree is important. It might make your life a lot easier.” Evelyn’s eyes were full of concern, which only made Sophie more annoyed. She had known exactly how this conversation would go; there were no surprises. Silence fell between them, infiltrated only by the chatter of birds and the low rush of the wind through the trees. The sunset colors had already begun to fade from the sky, replaced by the smooth indigo of late evening. Evelyn sighed. “The truth is, I envy you.”

“What do you mean?” Sophie had been about to take a sip of her drink, but she lowered the bottle from her lips, turning toward Evelyn.

“You figured it out. Sorry, I sound sarcastic, but I mean it.” Evelyn smiled, her gaze drifting to the mountains bathed in purple light. “You’re doing what you love, and you seem pretty sure that you can make it work. I wish I had that kind of faith in myself. This last year...it’s been hard. Some mornings I wake up and I have no idea what I’m doing. I look out the window at all the buildings and cars and people, and I feel like some animal taken from its native habitat. It all feels so foreign. But it’s what I want to do, right? I’m certainly putting myself into a lot of debt for it.” She lifted a hand, seeing Sophie’s expression. “And before you say anything, no, I will not drop out of law school to be a guide. I tried that once, remember? It was a disaster.”

“I was going to say that I thought you were the one that was sure of yourself.” She did remember Evelyn’s first and only attempt at guiding. She’d taken a job sophomore year of college at a company in Colorado that catered to novice hikers, shepherding them up some of the easier peaks. She’d come home in tears after a month and quit because, in her words, “I just can’t get through to any of these people.” Later, it was revealed that she often forgot she was guiding at all and silently marched up a mountain, only to realize a few minutes later that her group had disappeared. After the fourth complaint from guests, she’d been fired. Not a people person, that’s okay , their mother had said. Sophie had laughed about it for a week.

“That’s rich,” Evelyn said, polishing off her drink. “Well, that just goes to show you, no one actually has it figured out and we’re all just pretending.” She glanced at her sister. “I won’t lecture you. I don’t necessarily support this and I’m still not convinced it’s for the best. But I know that you’re stubborn and you’re going to do whatever you want to do, because I’m the same way. Our worst trait, or maybe our best.”

“The jury is still out on that one.”

A moment passed. “And what about Miles?”

Sophie’s heart skipped a beat. She knew, even then, that he played too large of a role in her decisions. But she was wild about him, and he had shown her a way to the mountains. She cleared her throat. “I’m in love with him. I know—I know that doesn’t mean much. But I’m happier in Wyoming, with him, than I was in Washington. I don’t think Seattle was for me. Or maybe I should say that cities aren’t for me. I thought I’d love it. People person and all that, you know. But man. I missed these mountains every single day.” She realized that she had wandered away from the question and hoped that Evelyn didn’t notice. “There aren’t many people around where we live but they’re all great. On Friday nights we have beers on someone’s back porch and watch the moon rise. It’s like—everything I’ve ever wanted.”

“Wow. A real cowgirl.” Evelyn laughed as she dodged Sophie’s elbow jab. “That’s great, I’m happy for you, really. I hope someday I find a place that feels like home.”

They stayed silent and looked at the stars, still bright even with the lights shining from the lodge building. A few coyotes trickled out of the woods and made their way across the grass, a familiar sight from the sisters’ childhood. They trotted across the field, lifting their noses to the wind, so certain of their path. Despite what Evelyn might think, Sophie wished she felt the same.