Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

January 2018, Yorkville, New York

Evelyn Wright turned off the stove and set aside the pot of water that had just reached a boil. Her appetite, as usual, deserted her as suddenly as it had arrived. The bubbles dissipated as the water cooled and Evelyn left the kitchen, turning off the light behind her.

She found herself in her bedroom, at her desk, which was where she spent most of her time. Her workspace was neat, governed by a precise system of organization that only she knew the rules behind. When Evelyn was deep in a case, Miles would sometimes find a stray document on the coffee table and tread lightly into the room, placing the paper gingerly on the edge of the desk, because he knew, by attempting to file the document himself, he would wreck the entire system.

She didn’t want to work, not at 9:00 p.m. on a Saturday, but there was a mechanical process to her labor. Her hands found the edges of her laptop; her fingers lifted the screen and she squinted against the sudden light. She had a habit of leaving most of the lights in the apartment off, remaining in darkness whenever she could, which she knew was not good for her vision. And yet, it felt necessary to live in darkness when the overwhelming noise and color of Yorkville confronted her each morning as she left the building. She still wasn’t used to the city even after living there for six years. She still craved, daily, the relative solitude of the ski town where she had grown up. In New York she couldn’t escape to a grove of aspen trees whenever the world became overwhelming, which was why, almost weekly now, she asked Miles when they could move upstate. He would smile and say, “When my art becomes something passive instead of active.” She didn’t quite understand what that meant, but she had enough of an idea. Often, he spent his days trekking up and down the streets of the city, stopping by galleries and small museums, trying to sell his collection. A year or so ago they’d thought he’d made it, after the inclusion of three of his pieces in an exhibit at a prestigious gallery. But his art had fallen by the wayside again, forgotten by the general public. His agent had moved on to other clients, leaving Miles alone to champion his art.

She admired that he hadn’t given up, but sometimes she wished that he would take the mural-painting jobs he was occasionally offered, or seek a teaching position. She could picture him in front of a classroom of students, his charming smile putting them at ease as he shared his unique use of light and color. He could teach landscape painting, curate another generation of artists who translated the wilderness to a canvas.

But he would never go for it. He wanted recognition for his artistic prowess, not for beautifying a city or mentoring the next great painter. And deep down, Evelyn couldn’t blame him. If she possessed such a singular capability, to render a moment of the natural world into eternity, she wouldn’t want to waste it either. She just hoped he wasn’t an artist who only achieved recognition late in life, or after death. He deserved it now.

She pushed aside her thoughts of Miles. Her current case was a complicated one, familial homicide with a defendant who seemed nonchalant about murdering his father. Not in self-defense—he’d completed the act in the middle of the night, while his father was asleep. And now he’d gone silent, refusing to provide any context for his actions.

Evelyn felt a kind of abstract despair as she read and reread the facts of the case. When she’d announced that she was going to study criminal law, Sophie had laughed in her face, then said, “Oh, you’re serious?” After that, it was a never-ending barrage of questions— why do you care so much about other people, what about the planet, you said you would study environmental law . Evelyn could not recall saying that—Sophie had a habit of projecting her own assumptions onto Evelyn, that Evelyn would behave, in any situation, exactly as Sophie did. Which had never been true.

Her mother, on the other hand, had been proud, which should have been all the approval Evelyn needed. But sometimes, lying awake at night, she thought of her father, conjuring the few fuzzy features that she still remembered: his dark hair, his deep voice, his rough hands that lifted her onto his shoulders, where she could see the entire world. Would he be proud? She didn’t know him well enough to say. And after all he was dead, had died from cirrhosis five years after he had left, which had been three years after Sophie was born. Evelyn was six when her father disappeared without a trace, her mother offering only vague explanations. He didn’t fit into this life anymore. In early adulthood Evelyn gathered that he left because he was overwhelmed by two young children. If Sophie had never been born, perhaps he would have stayed. Evelyn was manageable, even as a child, capable of containing herself. Sophie had been a whirlwind.

Evelyn exhaled and realized her gaze had drifted to the wall as her mind spiraled back to the past. She opened a Word file and began typing. A moment later, her phone rang, and she looked at it with surprise. Miles rarely called, and it was late for her mother to reach out. The name James Haverford was displayed on the screen. Her friend, a fellow mountaineer. She set aside the stack of papers, rerouting her attention once again.

“Hello, James?”

“Evelyn! How are you?”

“Good, good,” she replied, sinking further into her chair. “What’s got you calling at this hour?”

“Oh,” he said, as if just realizing the time difference. James lived in Colorado, where it was currently a more reasonable time for a phone call. “I can never remember that you’re off in the city now. Even after all these years.”

Evelyn smiled to herself and waited for him to go on, his gruff voice a welcome escape from the dark cave of her bedroom.

“You may have heard the news already,” he continued, “but I’m trying to stay ahead of the curve. I’ve been given notice that Nepal is granting permits to climb Yama Parvat.”

Evelyn sat up now, rapt. She listened as James explained the situation. She knew about the mountain—a giant in the Annapurna range, off-limits to climbers because some religious residents of Nepal believed it was home to Yama, a deity of death. The physical challenge of conquering a peak stood in opposition to those spiritual beliefs, or other sacred significance. She registered her own surprise at the idea of climbers suddenly being welcomed to Yama Parvat’s slopes.

The mountain had largely been ignored until thirteen years ago, when geographers had resurveyed the mountain and found the peak to be just above eight thousand meters, which led some of the most prominent climbers in the world to petition the Nepal government for permits. There were only fourteen other mountains above eight thousand meters in the world, including Everest, Annapurna I, and K2, all situated in the Himalayan and Karakoram ranges in Asia. To summit an eight-thousand-meter mountain is to enter the death zone, an altitude so high that there is not enough oxygen to sustain human life. That exact allure, the possibility of a brand-new brush with death, captured the imaginations of thousands.

But Nepal wouldn’t budge. So, Yama Parvat remained an unattainable trophy for the mountaineering community. Evelyn had been only fifteen at the time the mountain was resurveyed, invested enough in climbing to read the news, but not experienced enough to truly understand. As she grew older and learned more, she came to see Yama Parvat for what it was: the last great question, a towering challenge that would grant worldwide recognition to whoever claimed it. She scoured online forums and joined debates about which routes to take and if it would be possible to climb the mountain undetected. But in those thirteen long years, Nepal had maintained its stance. There were other mountains like Yama Parvat, smaller, but off-limits, protected for their sacred nature. By extension, the local populations were also protected. The Sherpa guides who assisted foreign climbers up the mountains of the Himalayas were often underpaid, especially considering the difficult physical labor and incredible dangers they faced.

While he talked, she searched for Yama Parvat on her laptop, but there were no new articles.

“Why hasn’t it been announced?” she asked when James paused.

“I don’t know all the details. Some agreement between Nepal, the native communities, and the major climbing organizations. I heard local companies want to scout the mountain for future treks or even commercial expeditions. So we’ll work with Sherpa guides who are more familiar with the area. Anyway, once the permits are set, there will be an official announcement. And then all hell will break loose.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “I’m surprised no one has leaked the news yet. Anyway, I’ll get to the point. There’s a spot on the American team for you, if you want it. Me, Phil, and Danielle.”

Evelyn let out a weighted breath. “Huh. Exclusive.” The offer excited her, even as she wondered what had changed—why the sacred mountain had now been deemed acceptable to climb. Money, she guessed. Expeditions and tourism required a lot of cash.

“Yeah, well.” James cleared his throat. “There are thirty other people I could invite, but I don’t trust every person I’ve ever climbed with. This is an unprecedented situation for all of us. I can’t look at a list and say, ‘hey, Bill and Bob did a first ascent of an eight-thousander two years ago.’ You know? And so I followed my instincts. I’ve climbed with Phil and Danielle for years, and I know they can also hold their own. You’ve made almost every summit attempt on an eight-thousander so far. That’s no small thing.”

Almost. The word made Evelyn wince. Last year, James had invited her to climb Lhotse with a few other American mountaineers—Phil and Danielle included—and she hadn’t made the summit. She had turned around one thousand feet from the top, exhausted and disoriented. For weeks back home she had wondered, If Sophie was with me, would I have made it?

But James must not be worried about that attempt if he was inviting her again, on an even more important expedition. She swallowed her wounded pride. “I’ll come,” she said. “Thank you.” Exhilaration coursed through her body at the thought of returning to Nepal, on an even grander stage. Yama Parvat might not be the tallest mountain, but it still towered above most in the world, and it was unclimbed. As the idea sank in, Evelyn’s heart sped up. She had to stop herself from getting up and running outside and declaring to the world that she’d been invited on the climb of a lifetime.

“Excellent!” James’s voice brought her back to reality. “Nothing is set in stone yet, but I expect we’ll arrive in Nepal in late March and be on the mountain in early April. I’ll send you the details I have so far.” He paused. “Could I get you out to Colorado in a few weeks to start training?”

She bit her lip, unable to answer him. Her eyes drifted to the neat stacks of paper on her desk. When she’d climbed Lhotse, she’d had to leave her old firm. “No way,” her boss had said. “I can’t let you disappear for three months.” That afternoon, she’d handed in her letter of resignation.

Evelyn liked her current firm much more, though. The other lawyers were pleasant, and her boss was nice—she seemed to understand Evelyn’s passion, had sat and listened to Evelyn’s stories of mountaineering on her first day of work. She didn’t want to leave. But she’d found that few firms were willing to hire a lawyer who would reliably vanish for several months of the year to Nepal or China or Pakistan, unreachable except at Base Camp, and sometimes not even then. “You should be a schoolteacher,” Miles had told her once. “Summers off.” She had laughed because the idea of her teaching children—of any age—was absurd. Now, she longed for a job that only expected her presence for part of the year.

“I’ll try,” she said to James. “I can’t promise anything. But I’ll start training here.” Her eyes wandered to her gym bag, pushed halfway under the bed. She hadn’t been to the gym in a few weeks, too busy with work. Her daily walks to the coffee shop and the corner store weren’t exactly keeping her in mountaineering shape.

“I trust you,” James said. “Look, just do what you can. I do want us to at least have a couple of weekends together. Can you manage that?”

“Of course,” she replied, although she doubted her ability to even do that, because here she was, working on the weekend, before James’s call had interrupted.

“Great. Listen, I won’t keep you any longer, but I can’t tell you how glad I am that you’re on board. I think we have a really solid chance of making the summit. Like I said, I’ll shoot you an email with what logistical details I have so far.”

“Wait,” Evelyn said, surprised by her own voice, as if her heart knew to ask the question before her brain. “The other teams, do you know who they are? Is there a chance...” She trailed off, cleared her throat. “Will Sophie be there?”

James didn’t answer for a moment, then exhaled. “Truthfully, I don’t know. She won’t be on the American team, obviously, not for lack of ability but because...look, I didn’t want to cause any tension. You’ve climbed a big mountain more recently than she has.”

“I’m not offended on her behalf.”

“Of course,” James said quickly. “I’ll be honest, Evelyn, it would be a dream to have both of you on my team. But I know that’s not possible.” He paused. “I don’t think a Swiss team is applying for a permit. I’ve heard whispers that George Bennett is putting together a multinational team, but nothing concrete.”

“It’s okay. I was just wondering. I don’t care if she’s there.” Evelyn paused. “We just haven’t been in touch.”

“Families are tough,” James said, and she could tell he wanted the conversation to end. She said goodbye and set down her phone, sitting in the darkness once again. The case files seemed even less appealing now. On Monday she would march into her boss’s office and ask for a sabbatical. She had only been working at the firm for seven months and expected to hear a “no.” But she had to try.

Evelyn heard the front door open and lifted her head to check the clock: 11:32 p.m. She had lost track of time, buried in her work, and now her vision swam when she looked anywhere that wasn’t a page full of words. She didn’t call Miles’s name, but listened to his footsteps, the sound of his keys hitting the counter, his hand pushing open their bedroom door. He stopped.

“Look at you,” he said. “A creature of the darkness.”

She smiled. One of her favorite things about Miles was the way he adapted to her way of living, never asking her to turn on a light. He would go to the farthest room if he wanted the warmth of a lamp, but in Evelyn’s presence, he submitted to the darkness, let it come over them like a blanket. He didn’t need to always see her, and for that she was grateful.

Now, as the low light of her laptop screen glowed against her face, it was Miles whom she struggled to see. “I have news,” she said.

He listened from the doorway as she explained the opportunity to climb Yama Parvat. How she would probably be gone for most of the spring and early summer, but how it was worth it, for the chance of a first ascent. He listened, and when she was done speaking, he remained silent for a while, thinking. Calculated as ever.

“Will Sophie be there?”

Evelyn blinked. She hadn’t expected the question, at least not until after some form of congratulations. “I don’t know. It’s not like I called her up to ask.”

He lifted his hands just a bit, defensively, and took a seat on the bed, turning to face her. “So, a climb like this—it’s big. Weeks of training, months on the mountain. What about work? You have a job. An important one.”

She stared at him, perplexed by the lack of support. “I’m going to ask for a sabbatical.”

“I can’t imagine they’ll give you one, right? You haven’t been there long enough.”

She watched him carefully. “I know.”

He covered his face with his hands for a moment. “Evelyn. We need your income right now. I’ve got no money to spare.”

“Is that my problem?” she replied, and immediately felt a tinge of regret. He was right, but she couldn’t resist the urge to argue her position. “The expedition will almost certainly be completely sponsored. I won’t have to pay a dime. We can afford rent until the end of the lease.”

“And then what?”

“We’ll get out of the city. Forever.”

“Which is what you want, not me.” He shook his head. “You’ll be without a paycheck for months. I’ve told you, you can’t have it both ways. If you want a nontraditional lifestyle, you need a nontraditional job.”

She stayed quiet, admonished. She couldn’t argue with him, not when he spoke from experience. Miles’s two passions, painting and white-water kayaking, funded each other—he would win a slalom competition and use the money to support a few months of painting. Then, when a painting or two sold, he would take time to train for his next competition. In his eyes it was a circular, balanced life. But it was not without instability. Evelyn craved the opposite, something to come back to after the mountains. She closed her eyes.

“Evelyn,” he said, softer. “I won’t tell you not to go. The opportunity isn’t lost on me. But when you return, we need a plan. A way of keeping our heads above water. Because soon enough, we’ll drown.”

She looked at him, surprised by their role reversal. Usually, she was the more practical one, grounded in finances and logistics, while Miles drifted through life, content to take each day as it came. He woke up every morning as a blank slate; she a full to-do list, with highlights and scratch marks and Wite-Out.

She nodded, confirming that she knew their bank accounts would be dry at the end of summer. His expression didn’t change, but something passed through his eyes, some small stirring. “Come here,” he said, and she did, letting him wrap his arms around her. He smelled like cinnamon, the distinctly crisp January air, and a hint of cigarette smoke. Not his, she knew he didn’t smoke, but no doubt he’d walked through clouds of it on the streets. “Congratulations,” he murmured into her hair. “A first ascent. I know how much that would mean to you.”

Evelyn wondered how he knew when she couldn’t put it into words herself. I’ll miss him this summer , she decided, because she knew she had a choice—to disappear into the wild mountains and forget the last two years of her life, or to remember.

She would not forget.

The first night in Colorado, Evelyn thought of Miles.

He had ridden in the cab to the airport with her, kissed her on the cheek after he unloaded her suitcase. He’d told her to call him, as often as she could. She’d searched his face for a sign that he understood the magnitude of her returning back home but found only indifference, or perhaps acceptance was more accurate. He didn’t seem to share the near-constant guilt Evelyn struggled with, the past intertwining with the present constantly in her thoughts, no separation between the man she loved and the worst thing she’d ever done.

She was spending the first night at her childhood home, which in retrospect was not the best idea for someone wanting to escape the past. Standing in the living room, she still felt the burning absence of the three framed photos from Sophie’s wedding: one that included the extended family, one of just Sophie and their mother, and—worst of all to think about—the one of Sophie and Miles, kissing, at the end of their wedding ceremony. The physical removal of them had changed little—when she glanced at the mantel above the fireplace, Evelyn still saw her sister, beaming in white, resting her head on their mother’s shoulder. It always struck Evelyn how young Sophie looked in that photo. In a different dress, she could have been sixteen, headed off to prom. Five years made little difference—her sister had been young, still was young. And now she was in a different country, living a life that Evelyn could not begin to imagine. How strange it had all turned out.

A kettle whistled in the kitchen. Evelyn winced at the sharp sound but couldn’t tear her gaze from the mantel. A different photo had been placed there, in a simple wooden frame—Sophie at age eight, on skis, her dark blond hair dusted with snow, grinning up at the camera. There was an unspoken rule about always having an equal number of pictures of each child displayed in the house. There were solo images of Evelyn, too—rock climbing, law school graduation, at Camp Four on Lhotse, the night before her failed summit attempt. It surprised her that the photo was of Sophie at such a young age. She turned away and came face-to-face with her mother.

“Oh,” she said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to surprise you.”

“You didn’t,” Evelyn said, thankful for the diversion. She accepted the mug of steaming liquid.

“Tea. Chamomile. It was all I had, sorry. You probably won’t have trouble sleeping with the time difference.”

Evelyn resisted the urge to shrug and took a sip of the tea. “Maybe. I have enough on my mind to keep me awake for days.”

They regarded each other for a moment. Evelyn thought she looked tired. Her hair was in a ponytail, but stray pieces framed the top of her head like a frazzled halo. She had stopped dyeing it, Evelyn noticed, the shade now muddy brown like a river with silver strands like fish flashing through the water. There were more lines on her face, on her forehead, and around the corners of her eyes. She looked more than tired, Evelyn realized. She looked old. The last twenty-odd years of serving as the sole provider for her family had worn her down.

“I spoke to Sophie the other day.”

Evelyn braced herself. Whenever the topic of Sophie arose, an argument was likely to follow. Sometimes her mother just liked to provide life updates, to filter back news of her sister’s life in Switzerland. But something in her expression told Evelyn that this information held more weight. She raised an eyebrow, urging her on.

“I’m guessing you don’t know this. She’s been invited to climb Yama Parvat. With Levi.”

Evelyn’s stomach dropped. She almost asked her mother to repeat herself. A cold surge of fear swept through her, raising the hair on her arms. Seeing Sophie at Thanksgiving two years ago had been bad enough. She couldn’t spend multiple months in isolation with her. “You...you’re sure?” she managed to stammer. “By who?”

“George Bennett, she said. The multinational team, they’re calling it. She’s excited. Ready to be back on a big mountain.”

Evelyn stared at the floor, letting her eyes trace patterns in the woodwork. “I didn’t know.” She felt sick with anxiety, her pulse moving uncomfortably fast. Even though the possibility of Sophie climbing had lingered in her mind since that first conversation with James, she hadn’t really believed it. Sophie had been out of the major mountaineering scene for years now. Why did George think she was capable of Yama Parvat?

“Maybe you should...well. Maybe you should put some thought into what you’ll say to her.”

“I can’t,” she started to say, and then stopped, looking up and squaring her shoulders. “I can’t spend energy worrying about her. The expedition is going to be incredibly difficult.” Maybe she could convince her mother, if not herself.

Her mother’s eyes widened for a moment, then she shook her head. “You’re a strong girl, Evelyn. You’ll be fine.” Girl. After everything, she was still a child. Her mother turned away, crossed the room to an armchair, and sat down, slowly, as if she were a much older woman. Silence permeated the room for a moment, and then she spoke. “I watched your sister wither away to nothing for a year in this house.” Evelyn opened her mouth to speak, but she held up her hand. “I don’t care what happened, or why. It’s in the past. I know that you and Miles are happy together. And Sophie is doing much better now. She might be open to—to hearing your side of the story when you’re together again.”

Evelyn shook her head. “I can’t. It would be too painful. For both of us.” She couldn’t meet her mother’s eyes. “I did something unforgivable. I know that. So why bother asking for forgiveness?”

To her surprise, her mother stood up. “Okay. That’s all I wanted to say. I should go to bed. I have an early morning tomorrow.” She paused. “I’ll leave breakfast for you. But I’ll be out before dawn. I’ll see you in a few days for dinner.” She smiled, and Evelyn knew it was a gift, a way of saying, We’ll leave the subject alone . For now, at least.

She said good-night and lingered in the living room until she finished her tea, replaying the short conversation in her mind. She realized that she had been anticipating another argument that ended in tears. Evelyn let out a breath and felt some of the tension leave her body. She placed her mug in the dishwasher and looked at her phone for a moment, scrolling through the texts from her teammates. She’d agreed to meet James and the others early the next morning, at James’s house, to discuss their plans for the next several weeks.

Her finger hovered over the button to turn her phone on silent, but she hesitated. Maybe her mother was right, and now was the time to reach out to Sophie, to bridge the chasm between them. They had dreamed of Yama Parvat for years. Without giving herself more time to think, she opened Sophie’s contact and typed a message.

Mom said you’ve been invited to Yama Parvat, too. Congratulations. Are you excited?

The message felt stilted, hollow, like something she would send to an acquaintance rather than someone who used to be her best friend. Evelyn told herself to forget it and hit Send. She’d reached out. That was all she could do for now.

Upstairs, in her childhood bedroom, she stood in the dark for a moment before turning on the light. She had seen it earlier that afternoon, when she’d dumped her luggage after arriving, but it struck her that the room was unchanged. She knew her mother did yoga in the living room, even though Evelyn had told her to feel free to turn the space into a home gym, a library—whatever she wanted. But the room remained exactly as it had when she’d walked out the door to attend Colorado College, cluttered with familiar furniture, posters torn from issues of National Geographic thumbtacked to the walls. Sophie, about to begin her sophomore year of high school, had cried when Evelyn left. Minutes before, she had held Evelyn’s hand and whispered, “You can do anything. Absolutely anything.” Now, Evelyn realized how true those words were— you can do anything —because apparently anything included having an affair with your sister’s husband.