Chapter Sixteen

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

April 2018, Yama Parvat Base Camp, Nepal

“There was an avalanche last night.”

Evelyn almost asked James to repeat himself, desperate to believe that she had misunderstood. But James’s face was somber as he stared beyond the gathered team, out into the unforgiving wilderness.

“I thought I heard something,” Danielle said. “I thought I was dreaming.”

“No,” James said grimly. “It was on the southwest side of the mountain. Where Wojciech’s team was climbing.”

Evelyn realized that her right hand had involuntarily flown to her mouth. She dropped the hand, annoyed by the dramatics of her own gesture, her stomach sick with anticipation.

“Three of the Polish climbers were killed.”

“Christ,” Phil muttered. Danielle gasped softly.

“Only three? How?” She hadn’t intended the question to sound harsh, but James shot her a look.

“They were camped in two groups, apparently. Wojciech, Nina, and Oskar, and the three they lost, Maja, Krzysztof, and Witold. Not far apart, but enough to make a difference.” He took a deep breath. “The three who survived descended last night after the avalanche stopped. Which, I’m sure you all know, is goddamn stupid, but they were in a real state when they arrived early this morning. I was up in the mess tent, waiting for breakfast. I can’t sleep with this arm. I thought they had altitude sickness when the three of them burst in. But some of the Adventure Nepal staff had heard the avalanche last night. Satellite confirmed it.”

“So, what’s going to happen now?” Danielle asked.

“There’s going to be a meeting later this morning. They radioed word up to the Japanese team. Don’t panic,” he said, seeing the look on Evelyn’s face. “I don’t think anyone is going to suggest that you give up the summit altogether. We just need to discuss safety and logistics.”

Evelyn wanted to remind him that it was a mountain, and mountains always took lives, but she bit her tongue. He knew that, given his recent brush with death, and she didn’t want to appear insensitive. Besides, her mind was less occupied with the avalanche victims than with the fact that she had slept entirely through the avalanche last night, her second solid night of sleep on the mountain. She had retreated to Lowell’s tent after sunset and drifted off to the sound of his pencil scratching away at a crossword puzzle. Thankfully, she had woken before dawn to make her way back to her own tent, feeling like the teenager she never was, the one who snuck out to meet a boy.

Evelyn had been in the middle of getting dressed when James had knocked on her door. She had unzipped it expecting to hear a change of plans, that she, Phil, and Danielle should head to Camp Two before breakfast. Instead, he had summoned her to deliver the news.

“Well,” he said. “Go eat or occupy yourselves somehow. You can try to make Camp Two this afternoon,” he continued, looking at Evelyn. “If you’re up for it. You’ve got plenty of daylight to work with.”

They stood for a moment in uncomfortable silence. No one seemed eager to go to breakfast. Evelyn raised a hand to signal goodbye and stepped away, back to her own tent, where she forced down a few granola bars and some dried fruit. She wanted to see Lowell, to discuss the news with him, but she suspected he was somewhere with his own team, learning of the deaths. She wondered if he had slept through the avalanche, too, or had heard it and chosen not to wake her up.

Three hours later, every climber on the mountain assembled in the mess tent, taking up most of the seats at the three tables. Wojciech sat near the front of the tent, Nina and Oskar on his right and three conspicuously empty chairs on his left. The empty space made Evelyn’s heart catch in her throat. Though she hadn’t spent much time with the Polish climbers, she respected them, as she did everyone else on the mountain.

She took a seat between Phil and Danielle. Lowell sat across the table, and when they made eye contact, she couldn’t decipher the look on his face. Pain, maybe. She knew that he was probably thinking about Pablo, who had died on Kangchenjunga. The way that the bodies of the Polish climbers, like his, would probably never be recovered. A recording device, notebook, and pen sat on the table before him.

At the front of the table, Wojciech cleared his throat. “I’ll be brief. We all know why we’re here.” He paused, his chest rising and falling. Even the act of breathing seemed to hurt him. His weathered face, normally cheerful, looked ashen. “Last night I experienced something that has always haunted me. Something I have prayed to be kept safe from. And I was. But.” He stopped again, a small eternity passing as he collected himself. The room was deathly silent. “My climbing partners. My teammates, my dear friends. They were not safe.” He raised his eyes to the ceiling, as if directing the next part of his speech to the gods. “I’ll never understand why I—we,” he corrected himself, gesturing to Nina and Oskar, “were spared.” His gaze settled on the table again. “I could spend a lifetime questioning the forces of nature, but the truth remains. Three wonderful, talented people lost their lives last night. No errors were made. We carefully chose our camp location. The question we must ask is, where do we go from here?” A few people began to speak at once. Wojciech raised his left hand and the voices dropped. “I want to be clear. I’m not suggesting that any of us abandon our summit attempts. We’re certainly not going to. But we’ll be changing our approach.”

On the other side of Phil, James raised his hand. Wojciech nodded at him. “I think it’s clear that we know less about this mountain than we thought we did. I mean, everything beyond Camp Four is totally unclimbed, unmapped. Some of us—of you—are within a week of reaching that point.” He glanced at Yakumo. “I think we have to accept that disasters are going to happen, regardless of our best efforts to prevent them. But what steps can we take to minimize our risk?”

“Exactly,” Wojciech replied. “We’re abandoning the south ridge. We were making good progress, and it would have been a wonderful achievement, but it’s not worth risking any more lives.”

Andrew spoke next. “Our group,” he said, indicating the areas of the table where both the Canadians and Americans sat, “is quite large. I think it’s been working to our advantage. We have plenty of people to help in an emergency, whether that’s staying at camp or descending for help. Like when George collapsed.” He glanced at Levi and Sophie. “We were able to assist quite efficiently. We could further condense our groups.”

“That’s my thought as well,” Wojciech said. “We can’t be strung out all over the mountain. We’ve had shit luck with our radios. We need more people in reaching distance.”

“You’re welcome to join the six of us,” Yakumo said. “We’re ascending to Camp Three tomorrow.”

“Yakumo, thank you. We’ll talk later, but I think that makes the most sense for us.” His gaze drifted to Sophie. “There’s five of your team left now? Who’s leading?”

“Three,” Sophie replied. Evelyn watched her carefully, feeling an unexpected hint of pride for how confident she seemed in a room full of much more experienced climbers. “Ruslan and Ivan have been climbing separately.” She nodded toward the Russian duo, seated several chairs down. “We’re still trying to get our feet under us after what happened to George. It would be...” She trailed off, as if it was difficult to say what came next. “Beneficial for us to join a larger group.”

“Well, I can’t speak for everyone, but I say the more, the merrier,” Andrew said.

Evelyn flinched involuntarily. She didn’t know what Andrew thought, but she suspected that everyone on the mountain knew, at this point, about the sisters who weren’t speaking. Sure, that had changed yesterday, but Evelyn suspected her connection to Sophie was tenuous at best. Perhaps Andrew had forgotten. Evelyn looked to Sophie for her reaction.

Her sister nodded slowly. “We’ll think about it.” Sophie glanced at Levi, seated beside her. As the conversation in the room moved on, she whispered something to Levi. Evelyn was too far away to read her lips.

“Ruslan, Ivan.” Wojciech addressed the two men, regaining the attention of the room that had drifted into side conversations. “Care to join an existing team?”

“Respectfully,” Ruslan replied, leaning back in his chair, “no. We have our own plans, our own pace. We need T-shirts that say, maybe, Does Not Climb Well with Others.” Only one person chuckled, maybe not the reaction that Ruslan was hoping for, but he pushed on. “We all came here to make our own choices, to decide what’s best for us. We’ll take care of ourselves.”

Wojciech seemed annoyed by the answer. “Well, the offer stands.” He said nothing else to the room, just spoke to Nina and Oskar in a low voice, and together the trio rose and left the tent.

Danielle turned to Evelyn. “God. That man lost three of his friends last night, missed death by mere inches, and here he is, wrangling all of us through this meeting.”

“He’s stronger than I’ll ever be,” Evelyn admitted. She stood up, eager to leave and retreat to privacy, to be alone with her thoughts. Her head reeled. When she had spoken to Sophie yesterday, she had done so because she thought it would be the last time she would see her sister for a long time. Now, she suddenly faced the reality of seeing her every day. She wondered if Sophie would treat her as a teammate or if she would continue to ignore her, still refusing to expel even an ounce of forgiveness.

Evelyn was swept up in the current of bodies slowly leaving the mess tent. Evelyn made it a few steps outside before Dawa stopped her.

“Phone calls in the comms tent,” he announced. “Because of the avalanche.”

Evelyn thanked him. It made sense—families at home worried so easily whenever bad news came off a mountain. The climbing news sites, and possibly even larger news organizations, would soon publish stories about the avalanche, and even though the articles would all say Three Polish climbers were killed. No other injuries were reported , everyone would worry. She changed her trajectory, and made for the comms tent instead.

There was a long line. She fell in behind one of the Canadian climbers and noticed that Sophie was two people ahead of her. She wondered who she would call—home was the obvious choice, but maybe she had a friend somewhere who would worry about the news. Evelyn had also planned on calling their mother. The line inched forward slowly. She couldn’t overhear the phone conversations today; the tent was abuzz with voices, everyone surprisingly talkative given the somber nature of the meeting just a few minutes ago.

When Sophie’s phone call was over, she stopped by Evelyn on her way out of the tent. “I called Mom.”

“I figured,” Evelyn replied. “I’ll call someone else. I’m sure she’s had enough of us these last few days.”

A look of recognition crossed Sophie’s face. Though it was unspoken, they both knew who Evelyn would call. “Okay. See you around.”

Evelyn watched her leave. Sophie’s emotions were never difficult to read. Evelyn had been trying to avoid the reality of Miles; she intentionally hadn’t mentioned him in their conversation yesterday.

When it was her turn at the phone, she dialed the familiar numbers and held her breath. It rang three times before he answered, and she had just relinquished hope of speaking to him when she heard his voice, low and smooth even over the poor-quality connection.

“Hello?”

“Miles? It’s me.”

A pause. “Well, good. I thought maybe it was some stranger calling to tell me you’d fallen off the mountain.”

She grimaced. “That’s the reason I’m calling. My feet are firmly on the mountain, but there was an avalanche last night. It buried a few members of the Polish team. I didn’t want you to read about it and worry.”

“I’m not worried.” Ouch , Evelyn thought, remembering how blunt he was capable of being. “About you, I mean. Sorry, I know how that sounded. I saw an article this morning. I knew you were safe.”

“Right,” she said, a little hurt by his flippancy. “Well, I thought you’d still want to hear from me.” She stayed quiet for a moment. “Look, I know the state we left things was confusing.”

“It felt pretty clear to me. Evelyn, you getting on the plane was the biggest ‘fuck you’ imaginable. You left us both with empty bank accounts.”

“It’s not my sole job to bring in money, Miles. I said I would cover us through the end of our lease, and I budgeted for that. When I get home, we’ll have to sit down and go over a new budget together. Maybe find a cheaper apartment. We’re both responsible for our living situation. This isn’t just on me.”

“But you’re the one who left—you’ll be gone for months, and I have to cover any unexpected expenses in the meantime. You know it’s difficult for me to compete right now, and what am I supposed to do if my art isn’t selling? I can only do so much.”

“I don’t have all the answers. Like I said, we have to figure that out together. But this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me. Unclimbed peaks don’t suddenly spring up out of nowhere. I’ll likely never get a chance like this again.” She paused, still struggling with the idea that he didn’t understand. “This was important to me, you should know that. I’ve never tried to stop you from traveling to kayak, have I?”

“That’s different. You didn’t used to have this one-track mind about climbing, with no room for anything else. You used to want things—to practice law, to go to dinner with me, to just—I don’t know, build a future together. I’m happy for you, Evelyn, really. I’m glad you’re chasing your dreams. But I feel a little bit screwed over in the process.”

“Wait.” The conversation had slipped out of her control. “This trip just came at a bad time for us. But there are ways to make this work, so we can both have what we want.”

He laughed, a burst of static through the phone. “How? You quit your job and left me to go climb a mountain. Sounds like the only real concern is what you want. You keep saying ‘together,’ but I was the one left to figure it out on my own. Well, if you want to be selfish, if you want to leave your responsibilities and me behind, I’m not going to wait around for you to come back.”

Evelyn inhaled a shaky breath, wondering what he could possibly expect her to say. She hadn’t anticipated such a vicious reaction from him. “Okay. I understand. You won’t hear from me again until after the summit. Then we can—we can talk, I guess. I—I love you, Miles. Bye.” She clicked off the satellite phone without waiting for his response and sat for a moment, fighting back tears. She rarely cried, but everything about the conversation made her want to. She could acknowledge that things hadn’t been perfect with him a few months ago, but they had been fixable. She would have gone to Vermont with him. He wasn’t even going to give her the opportunity.

“Are you finished?”

She turned to see Oskar behind her. “Oh. Yes. Sorry.” She handed the phone over and stepped away from the chair, ashamed of hogging the phone from someone who clearly needed it more. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling of shock. What if she never saw Miles again? What if he was already gone by the time she got back? That meant that everything—the grief she put Sophie through, the strained relationship with her mother—would have been for nothing. It was enough to make her head spin.

She spent the next few hours in a daze, alone in her tent, staring at the thin red ceiling and letting her mind go blank, something like meditation. She used to meditate with Sophie on climbs, sit together and see who could go still the longest, sometimes passing whole hours in silence. Sophie almost always won, but Evelyn could hold her own on the right day. Today, she left her body out of necessity, afraid of her own thoughts if she indulged them.

At the tail end of the lunch hour, she emerged and drifted to the mess tent, happy to find it mostly empty. As she finished her meal Andrew entered, lifting his hand in a wave when he saw her.

“There you are,” he said once he reached her. “I’ve been all over Base Camp looking for you.”

“Sorry,” she replied around a mouthful of food. “What’s up?”

“We’re pushing to Camp Two. Whenever everyone’s ready, no big rush. I know you’ve kind of stepped in for James, so I wanted to check with you first, make sure you’re on board. The trio is coming with us.”

She knew he meant Sophie, Levi, and Penelope. “Okay.”

“That won’t cause any—issues?”

She blinked. “Andrew, it’s alright. We’re all adults here.” Though she felt confident, after her conversation with Sophie, that they would be civil with each other, her stomach still churned at the thought of spending every day together.

“Okay.” Andrew didn’t try to hide the surprise on his face. “Well. I’m happy to hear that. Hey, meet us around the supply tent in the next forty-five minutes or so, okay?”

Evelyn nodded, frustrated that her earlier assumption had been confirmed, and doubly annoyed that James had been the one to discuss her relationship with Sophie. But it was no longer her and Sophie, a single unit, a united duo. They were separate individuals now. So she would need to push her limits, to reach the summit, to prove herself capable of scaling big mountains without her sister. She had failed on Lhotse, but Yama Parvat was a different mountain. She retreated to her tent and readied herself for the climb.

That they were climbing in the afternoon instead of waiting for the morning worried her, but it was an overcast day, which lessened the risk of sunburn and overheating. The sun could be brutal at high altitude, where the UV radiation increased, burning any exposed skin and causing climbers to overheat. At the same time, cloudy days carried the risk of snow. She knew that the forecast for today showed no snow and little wind, an unusual day in the Annapurna range. They would reach Camp Two by sunset.

Once her bag was packed and her down suit donned, she forced herself up and out to meet the others gathering by the supply tent. She was always amused by how comical they all looked from afar in their down suits and jackets, like a moon landing with more colorful attire. Her own suit was plain maroon, gifted by a sponsor years ago. They offered her a new suit every year, the latest technology, but her old suit had kept her warm and dry through several summits now—she couldn’t bring herself to get rid of it while it was still functional.

She took her place beside her teammates. Sophie, Levi, and Penelope stood off to the side. Once the last Canadian climbers trickled in, Andrew clapped his hands and moved to address the group.

“Alright, thanks for all showing up. I know it’s been a strange twenty-four hours. We’re climbing this afternoon because the weather is nice. Up to Camp Two. This is a good test of the logistics of getting such a large group up this mountain.” He glanced at the trio. “We usually go Americans first, then us since we’re a larger group. We could throw you in front or tack you on at the end. What do you think?”

“We’ll go last,” Sophie replied, without hesitation. “Until we get a sense of your speed.”

“Fair enough.” Andrew turned his gaze to Evelyn. “Did I miss anything?”

Evelyn shook her head. “You’re good at this. I’d just say, ‘okay, let’s go.’”

Andrew grinned at her. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Evelyn took her place, first in line, as they headed up the mountain. It hadn’t snowed in several days, so there was no powder to fight through. Small gusts of wind sent loose bits of snow sparkling through the air and occasionally stinging the miniscule amounts of exposed skin on Evelyn’s face. They climbed steadily, uneventfully, traversing a couple of crevasses with ladders that were old news by now to all three groups, who had done their share of trekking to Camp Two. Evelyn could tell that she was acclimatizing; it was easier to keep breathing. Occasionally she stole a glance up at the summit, the shelf of snow that loomed far above them, still more than a mile away. She had visualized herself standing up there several times over the last few weeks, whenever she needed motivation to continue. Somehow it now felt farther away than ever. The first couple of weeks had been full of excitement, arriving on the fresh slopes of an unclimbed mountain, a new question waiting to be answered. This part of the expedition, the weeks of trudging up and down to acclimatize, Evelyn and Sophie had always referred to as “the slog.” They weren’t the only ones. It was the tedious, soul-crushing part of climbing, massive exertions of effort only to retreat. To an outsider, it would look like no progress was being made. But to rush straight up without acclimatizing was an almost guaranteed death sentence.

They passed through the empty lower snowfield as the sun began to slip behind some of the other massive peaks. For a few brief minutes the surrounding mountains came alive with alpenglow, reflecting purple, pink, and gold. The sight took Evelyn’s breath away, but still they climbed on, so she averted her eyes to the ground in front of her, lifting her hands to switch on her headlamp. She glanced over her shoulder for a moment, watching the line of lights turn on behind her like fireflies bobbing in the darkness. Seracs, huge columns of glacial ice the size of houses, rose on all sides, eerie blue and silver shapes that resembled twisted figures erupting from the snow.

She had spent enough time at Camp Two to recognize that the ice formations meant they were close. Another thirty minutes of walking and they arrived at the flat snowfield amid the rising rock and ice. On a mountain like Everest, Camp One and even Camp Two might include some Base Camp comforts: a mess tent, an outhouse. Since Yama Parvat had never been climbed, the accommodations were nothing more than bare ground at higher altitude.

Evelyn stepped aside, allowing the others to trickle beyond her. Phil and Danielle stopped too, reminding Evelyn that she wasn’t alone on the mountain.

“What are we doing tomorrow?” Danielle asked.

“I imagine we’ll wake up early and push to Camp Three, then descend to Base Camp. I’ll have to talk to Andrew, see what he thinks of the summit window.” She paused. “Unless you would want to break off and climb on our own.”

Phil and Danielle exchanged a look. “You heard the consensus this morning,” Phil said. “Everyone thinks that larger groups are the best decision.”

“Is this because of—”

“No,” Evelyn said, cutting Danielle off because she knew what question was coming. “No, I just thought I’d check.”

“It’s up to you, Evelyn,” Phil said, though she suspected he was only placating her.

“We’ll stick with Andrew. Unless our schedules don’t align. See you at dinner?”

She stayed still for a moment, watching her teammates disperse to find campsites, before crossing the snowfield in search of Andrew. She found him talking to a few of his teammates, but he broke off when he saw her.

“Hey. Just wanted to check logistics. What are you thinking about the summit window?”

Andrew considered her question for a moment, running a hand through his short beard. Finally, he shrugged. “I don’t really know. Within the next week or ten days, maybe.” He paused, as if he didn’t want to continue. “Look. The avalanche last night wasn’t a good sign. If conditions are getting too warm, that might happen more frequently. We didn’t want to freeze our asses off by coming too early in the season, but I’m worried that we’ll overstay our welcome. So, if we have a day of good weather soon, I say we go for it.”

Evelyn nodded. “Thanks. That’s what I wanted to hear.”

“I’m not worried about you, Evelyn. But I don’t want anyone else to get in over their head.”

They parted ways. Evelyn headed across the snowfield to scout for a tent site, wanting to get as much quiet sleep as possible. The higher the altitude, the more difficult it was to sleep—in the death zone, above twenty-six thousand feet, she often felt like she was fighting for air while unconscious. She didn’t know yet if her team would use oxygen for the summit of Yama Parvat. There were plenty of oxygen bottles stashed at Base Camp, which the guides would carry to higher elevations if the teams decided. So far, no one had climbed high enough to require extra air.

She set about pitching her tent, using the light from her headlamp to navigate the poles and stakes. She had received a new tent from her sponsor for this trip, although it was the same model as her old tent, which had survived several expeditions before wearing thin to the point of ripping on Lhotse. She had watched the small hole grow larger with each day, until she finally squeezed into a teammate’s tent above Camp Three. She kept the battered tent in a box under her bed back home. She tried not to think of what was—or wasn’t—waiting for her back in New York.

“Is this spot taken?”

She looked up to see Lowell, wading through the darkness. She smiled and shook her head. “All yours. I’m happy to see you.”

“I’m glad to see you too. I was stuck at the ass end of the climbing train all afternoon. I get it, I’m big and slow. But talk about a depressing view, all of us climbing uphill like a bunch of ants. I much prefer being up front.”

“Well, then I can’t complain.” She set about removing her sleeping pad and bag from her backpack and unrolling them into the tent. “Although I don’t know how you can call any view on this mountain depressing. It’s not commercialized like some of the others.”

“That’s true. But a hundred years ago, there’d be one small team trying to reach the peak, not five all going for it at once.”

“And that team would have all died from frostbite or been wiped out by an avalanche.” She paused. “Was that too soon?”

He shrugged. “It’s reality. Wojciech seems to be handling it, though.” He finished arranging his belongings inside the tent and stepped back. “Gives me more to write about, anyway.”

“The way this expedition is going, you’ll have enough for a book when we’re done.”

“Maybe.” He gazed at her for a moment, then indicated his tent. “Want to sit for a minute?”

Evelyn nodded, thankful for the invitation to rest her tired legs. She paused to take off her boots as she entered and then sat back in her familiar position on the sleeping pad, across from Lowell on his sleeping bag. She glanced at his backpack, the top of which was open, overflowing with notebooks.

“How are the interviews coming?” she asked.

Lowell shook his head, a wry smile crossing his lips. “Some people here sure are cagey. Like your sister. I cornered her for five minutes the other day, and she gave one-word answers to all my questions.” He looked at Evelyn and frowned. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have brought her up.”

“No, it’s okay. That’s funny. It sounds like her.” Evelyn allowed herself to smile as she lied to him. It didn’t sound like friendly, easygoing Sophie at all, who used to ham it up whenever she was interviewed for an article. Sophie must be under enormous stress after George’s health issue—or she no longer wanted to be in the public eye.

“Yeah, but hearing about her upsets you,” Lowell replied. “I can tell.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “We actually spoke the other day. It’s not like we’re friends again, but we had a full conversation for the first time in years.”

“Oh yeah? That’s great. So then, what’s bothering you?”

The phone call with Miles flashed through Evelyn’s mind. “Nothing important. It’s just stressful, you know, standing in for James. Not that I’m doing anything but following Andrew’s lead.”

“Hey, if I remember correctly, you led us up here this afternoon. I didn’t see Andrew holding your hand.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” She shrugged. “It’s just not how I envisioned this trip going.”

“I think that’s true for everyone.”

Lowell’s radio buzzed, a brief burst of static, and he reached down to fiddle with it. Evelyn watched him for a moment, no other distractions to draw her attention away. It was another windless night on Yama Parvat.

“I’ll miss you,” she said, surprising herself even though it was true.

He looked up. “What, did you just have a premonition about my death?”

“No, I meant...when this is all over.”

She couldn’t tell if he was smiling. “We’ll see each other on another mountain, I’m sure.”

Momentary courage pulsed in Evelyn’s chest. The mounting dread of going back to New York, of continuing the fight with Miles, of finding another job in a career she wasn’t sure she wanted was too much. She didn’t even know if she had Miles to return to. It dawned on her that she had nothing left to lose. “What if we didn’t have to wait that long? What if we got dinner together, in Kathmandu, before we fly home?”

He regarded her for a moment before replying. “Like a date?”

“Maybe.” Yes, if she spoke to Miles again before she flew home and they decided to break up.

Lowell exhaled and looked down at his hands. “That’s sweet of you, Evelyn. But I don’t think my wife would like that very much.”

Evelyn blinked. “Wait. You’re married ? You’ve never mentioned a wife.”

“You’re right. I don’t talk about her much. But that’s not for a lack of love. I don’t wear my ring because, god, can you imagine losing your wedding ring in the Himalayas? I’d never hear the end of it. Not to mention the swollen fingers. But I do keep it with me.” He reached for his down jacket, folded nearby, and fumbled through one of the interior pockets. Evelyn watched in silence. “Here,” he said, producing the wedding band. “My wife doesn’t know. She thinks I leave it with a friend each time. But I can’t imagine dying without having this close to me.” He stopped, as if remembering why he was showing the ring in the first place. “I’m sorry. Maybe my desire for friendship came off differently than I intended.”

“That’s an understatement.” She shifted, uncomfortable, and looked down as images from their last couple of weeks together inundated her brain. “Why’d you spend so much time with me? Let me sleep over?” Indignation surged through her, stemming, she knew, from the embarrassment of rejection. From this small, desperate attempt to explore something new.

Lowell’s expression softened. “You seemed like you needed a friend. Especially after we talked about Sophie. And then you had to deal with James’s injury. It’s a lot to take on alone. I didn’t want you to feel like you had no one to talk to.”

“You took pity on me,” Evelyn said. She leaned back, away from Lowell, drumming her fingers on the sleeping pad. “God. This always happens. I let someone in and then realize I liked them for all the wrong reasons. Even Miles. I don’t understand how things turned out.” Her words dissolved into a laugh as the absurdity of the situation struck her. The events of the last three years had led her to here, a practical stranger’s tent, twenty-one thousand feet in the air. She’d wasted thousands of dollars on law school in return for disillusionment and uncertainty. She’d ruined her sister’s marriage, to say nothing of their relationship. She’d put her mother in an impossible situation. And Miles—it wasn’t her fault entirely, but she hadn’t seen him for who he really was. A narcissist, taking advantage of others who offered something that he wanted, or at least what he believed would improve his own life. And she’d believed that he truly cared about her. How stupid she’d been.

“Who is Miles?” Lowell asked.

Had she never mentioned him either? Evelyn shook her head. “No one.”

Lowell cleared his throat. “In the past, when I’ve been unsatisfied by my relationships, I’ve reexamined and found that I was the common denominator. Maybe you’re doing something to alienate—”

“I’m plenty aware of just what a wonderful person I’ve been recently,” Evelyn replied. She crawled to the door—an undignified exit, how fitting for the situation—and glanced at Lowell. “I’ll see you around.”

He was quiet as she left. Evelyn straightened up outside, allowing the shock of cold air to pass through her. She took one step in the direction of her tent before she heard a loud banging—the dinner bell, someone hitting a pot and pan together. Tackling the next day on an empty stomach was a bad idea. So, she set off across the snowfield, quickly reaching Andrew’s tent, where he doled out the noodle cups and jerky from Mingma’s backpack.

“Set your alarm for 4:00,” he told each climber as they took their share.

Evelyn set the alarm on her watch for 3:45 a.m. She thought that Andrew would probably rise even earlier and make plenty of noise to wake up everyone still sleeping, and he might appreciate having backup. When she looked up, she noticed that Sophie stood a few feet away. It jarred her until she remembered her new reality, that now Sophie would always be present. She approached her sister.

“Hi, Sophie. How are you?”

Sophie flinched and Evelyn realized that she must have been zoned out, or at least hadn’t noticed Evelyn. She turned her head, regarding Evelyn for a moment before she replied. “I’ve been better.”

“Oh. Tough climb up?”

She shook her head. “This new situation is strange.” She looked so pointedly at Evelyn that there was no need to guess at what she meant. “You keep trying to talk to me. I don’t get it.”

“I just want...” Evelyn trailed off, unsure of how to proceed. “I don’t want to never speak again, Sophie. I thought maybe you wanted to be in each other’s lives again, too. Levi told me—”

“Leave him out of it,” Sophie replied, her voice sharp. “I don’t care what he said to you. He doesn’t fully understand the situation and never will.”

Evelyn blinked. Despite the wide-open space, she felt cornered. The others had drifted away, leaving Sophie and Evelyn alone in the darkness. She didn’t know how far their voices carried. “Okay. I’m sorry. I just don’t want us to go on not speaking forever.”

“Sure. To make yourself feel better. You should have thought about that before...” She trailed off and took a shaky breath. Evelyn stepped closer. To her surprise, there were tears in Sophie’s eyes. She lifted a hand to reach for her sister, without thinking, but Sophie stepped back, brushing away the tears before they froze on her cheeks. “I’m so tired of feeling angry.” She exhaled in a burst somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “I just don’t understand why you’re acting like Miles doesn’t exist. Why do you think that you can just gloss over him and pretend that everything is normal?”

“It’s not that...this isn’t about him, not entirely,” Evelyn said.

“Then why did you call him?”

“Because we’re still together. And while things have been better between us, I know he still cares about me. And because that’s what you do—you try. You try to work things out and you try to find a way forward instead of staying stuck in the past, constantly blaming other people for the state your life is in.” Evelyn’s cheeks burned, partly from shame and partly from anger. “Are you happy now? Knowing that it’s not working out the way I wanted?”

Sophie gave her a withering look. “I don’t care about him, or about your relationship. That’s not where my anger ever came from. It was a lot easier to accept that he was a horrible person than it was to accept the same about you. I knew Miles was never going to stay. He had one foot out the door after that first winter in Wyoming. But you lied to me and kept your relationship secret for almost a year. I would never have done something like that to you.”

Evelyn felt the sharp sting of tears in her eyes. She forced herself to breathe and keep looking at Sophie, even though the thin sliver of moon overhead, not yet a full quarter, darkened the features of her sister’s face. “Sophie,” Evelyn said, her voice strangled and raw, “are you ever going to be able to forgive me?”

Sophie regarded her for a moment, still and silent. She stayed quiet for so long that Evelyn wondered if Sophie had heard her, or if her words were lost to the mountain. But then Sophie spoke.

“I don’t know. I thought I could. But seeing you here—talking to you—it’s so painful.”

“There must be something—”

“Please, Evelyn.” Sophie cut her off. “Just leave me alone. This isn’t the right time. I’m so tired.”

Evelyn watched Sophie turn away and retreat to her tent with slow, shuffling footsteps. The snow seemed to muffle everything, not to mention the dark blanket of night that draped itself over the mountain. So that was it. Her last chance to reestablish a friendship with Sophie, lying ruined and broken in the snow. She might never speak to Sophie again.

Evelyn trudged back across the shadowy snowfield. Approaching her tent, she heard a strange sound and looked behind her. In the barren space close to the mountain’s edge, a pair of small black birds sparred, hopping close and away from each other and producing small, rippling calls. She watched in disbelief. She had seen the birds, choughs—or goraks, as the locals called them—many times before in the Himalayas, but never at nighttime and never at such high elevation. She watched for a moment longer, until the battle seemed to end. One bird lifted off in flight, swooping down into the nighttime. The other bird edged toward the cliff and seemed to debate its options before taking flight as well. She scanned the snowfield for signs of more goraks, but the mountain was deserted by all life. Except her. She retreated to her tent and did not sleep.