The Smile of an Angel

by Peggy Webb

  Jake had always marveled at how they accepted such loss as part of the price they paid for challenging the world’s toughest mountains. He used to wonder what he would do if it ever happened to him.

  “You’re just lucky, Jake.” That was what fellow climber and mountain guide Rufus Plummer had told him.

  And now, it seemed, his luck had run out.

  “No!” he shouted.

  The only reaction he got from his unflappable Sherpas was some rapid blinking and respectful stares.

  “We’ll organize a search party,” he told them. “Jamal and Rosalee are somewhere on this mountain, and we’re going to find them.”

  Or die trying.

  He didn’t say that. It was something all of them knew.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Emily and her mother had finally ditched their hula costumes in favor of pajamas. They were sprawled on the sofa with two big bowls of gingered pineapple sorbet Emily had picked up on the way home from the hospital.

  She was pleasantly tired, replete with delicious food, limp with laughter and all in all feeling good. Jake would be coming home soon, and then, except for her father, Emily’s life would be perfect.

  She flipped through the TV guide searching for a good late-night movie.

  “How about this?” she asked her mother. “Cyrano, with Jose Ferrer and Mala Powers? It won an Academy Award.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  Emily padded to the TV barefoot and switched it on. The late-night-news broadcast was playing. She popped the movie into the VCR and was getting ready to change channels when Tom Brokaw caught her attention.

  “Rosalee Edmunds, wife of renowned criminal attorney Ralph Edmunds of Atlanta disappeared in the Himalayan mountains yesterday, along with her Sherpa guide Jamal Tongay.”

  “That’s Jake’s guide.”

  Emily turned up the volume, then sat on the floor with her arms wrapped around herself.

  “Mrs. Edmunds was a member of the party Jake Bean led into K2, the world’s second-highest mountain. Bean and a team of Sherpas have gone back into the storm that overtook the giant mountain in an attempt to locate the missing pair.”

  Going into a storm in the mountains carried with it the grave risk of never coming back. Some of the world’s most renowned climbers had died that way.

  Emily started shaking all over and crying without sound. Tears streamed down her cheeks and pooled in the corners of her mouth. She tasted salt and bitter regret.

  She thought of all the beautiful things she’d wanted to say to Jake and hadn’t. She thought of the many ways she could have shown him she loved him, but didn’t.

  Why hadn’t she told him more often “I love you”? Why hadn’t she told him she wanted to be with him forever, no matter what? Why hadn’t she told him she thought he was the most wonderful man in the world and that she’d simply die without him?

  “Emily…” Her mother sat on the floor beside her, then draped an afghan over both of them. “I know, I know.”

  In the warm cocoon of wool they leaned their heads together and cried.

  At her mother’s insistence, Emily spent the night in Anne’s big bed. Mostly awake. What little sleep she got was fitful, so that when she got up early the next morning, she was so bleary-eyed she could barely see the controls on the TV.

  Rescue attempts in the Himalayans were on all the channels.

  “Today the search continues for two people lost on K2, the world’s second-highest mountain.” That from Channel Three. Channel Five was running photographs of the missing twosome, as well as a recent shot of Jake. “World-renowned climber and mountain guide” is what they called him.

  Channel Six out of Jackson, Mississippi, ran the same shots of Jake, plus some of “the best high-altitude filmmaker of our century, Michael Westmoreland, who lies in a coma. He was doing an IMAX film starring Jake Bean when…”

  A sound in the doorway made Emily turn. Her mother was standing there like a marble statue, staring at the television screen. Emily switched it off.

  “I’m sorry, Mom.”

  “There’s nothing for you to be sorry about. Michael is still news. He’ll be happy to hear that.”

  “Mom—”

  “Turn the TV back on. We need to know what’s happening with Jake.”

  Emily switched back to Channel Six. “No word has yet been heard from Jake Bean, who is leading the search party for Edmunds and the Sherpa guide.”

  “That’s not necessarily bad,” Anne said. “He’s too busy fighting the mountain to worry about radio contact. Do you want pancakes for breakfast?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “You need to eat, anyhow.” Her mother pulled out the skillet, then began stirring batter. Over her shoulder, she said, “You’ll probably hear good news by noon today. I’ll stay here with you.”

  “No, I don’t want you to do that. You need to be with Dad.”

  “You’re sure? I can call Jane or Clarice to go over there for a little while.”

  “What if this is the day Dad wakes up? You’d never forgive yourself for not being there. And I’d never forgive myself, either. No, Mom, you go ahead. I’ll be fine.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  She smiled for her mother’s benefit, but inside she felt like shattered glass.

  She also ate a few bites of pancake so her mother wouldn’t worry, then she glued herself to the TV to listen for news, any news at all, while her mother dressed, then left for the hospital.

  Emily must have dozed, for she jerked awake in time to hear the news reporter say, “There is no word yet from the Himalayan rescue party led by Jake Bean. Hope dims for the stranded climbers, as well as the members of the search party.”

  “Noooo!” Emily screamed, and the grandfather clock in the hall struck twelve, underscoring her distress.

  As she sat in the kitchen with her scream echoing through the house, she came to the startling realization that she was constitutionally unsuited to being a climber’s wife. Even a climber’s lover.

  How had her mother managed all those years? That was what Emily wanted to know, and that was what she’d ask as soon as Anne came home.

  Meanwhile she had the rest of the day to get through. The only way she figured she could do that was under anesthesia. The liquid kind.

  She selected a good chardonnay and was in the process of finding the corkscrew when all of a sudden she saw herself for what she was. A hypocrite.

  Here she was planning on getting skunk drunk because she was too chicken to face the possibility of losing Jake, when she’d been the one to encourage her mother to dance and laugh and go on with life while she faced the same frightening prospect. Losing Michael.

  She banged the cabinet door open and stowed the unopened bottle of wine.

  She remembered the first time her father ever got in trouble on a mountain. Emily had been six years old, and she’d never seen her mother cry so much. Constantly, it seemed. Hours on end.

  Until Grandmother Beaufort came over. She’d taken one look at Anne, put her hands on her hips and yelled, “Plant flowers! Bake a cake! Paint the library! Dammit, Anne, do anything except sit around feeling sorry for yourself. I brought you up better than that. The Beauforts face adversity with courage and grace.”

  Emily had never heard her grandmother use a byword. In fact, she and Hannah had been roundly lectured by her for calling Glennella Moody a “derned snob.” “If you can’t say something nice about somebody, don’t say anything at all,” she’d told them.

  So the day her grandmother had said dammit stuck in Emily’s mind as Important Lessons Number One, Two and Three. Stay busy, abstain from self-pity and keep your chin up.

  Emily washed her face, put on some shorts, then drove to the nursery and bought a carload of flowers. Never mind that it was August and hot as the hinges of hell. Never mind that the plants would all commit suicide within the next week or so.

  Tomorrow coul
d take care of itself. Today she was going to plant flowers.

  She was still in the garden when Anne drove up around sunset. Her mother stood for a while without saying anything, then finally she said, “I’ve always liked pansies.”

  “It’s a good thing, since you now have about two hundred.”

  Anne squatted beside her and draped an arm over her shoulders.

  “I see you took Mother’s advice.”

  “Yes.”

  “Sometimes I think she’s the wisest woman I know.” Anne took a clean handkerchief from her pocket and wiped the sweat and grime off Emily’s face. “What do you say we go in the house and make a tall pitcher of lemonade? Then I’ll tell you about my day.”

  “And I’ll tell you about mine.”

  Anne laughed. “I already know what you did with your day.”

  “Except for the hard part. Mom, I’ve done a lot of thinking. About my relationship with Jake. About what will happen if…when he comes home.”

  “I know. I know.”

  “You do?”

  “Of course. Don’t you think I had the same reservations about marrying your father?”

  “You did?”

  “Absolutely. I’ll let you read some more of my old diary, if that will help, but first I want you to think about whether your love is strong enough to withstand this kind of challenge. You know he’ll keep going back to the mountain, and if you can’t handle it, you should back out now. Before the marriage.”

  “Jake hasn’t asked me to marry him.”

  “He will.”

  “He hasn’t even told me he loves me.”

  “Honey, don’t you know that the good men take a long time saying that? They don’t want to put anything in words until they are absolutely certain they won’t want to take it back.”

  They skirted around the pansies Emily had put in containers because she’d run out of room in the flower beds—pots and pots of them in every shade of purple, which was one of Emily’s favorite colors. And fortunately Anne’s, too.

  “How’s Dad?” she asked as soon as they were in the kitchen and she’d come back from washing her hands and face.

  “He’s still not awake, but I know Michael is in there somewhere. I can feel him. And as long as I can feel his spirit, I have hope.”

  Emily thought about Jake, vanished somewhere on that vast mountain.

  “There’s always hope,” she said.

  And there was. Oh, there was.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  December 19, 1966

  I’m supposed to marry Michael tomorrow, and all of a sudden I have cold feet. Mother says every bride-to-be gets them, but I don’t think she understands the extent of my fear. This is not ordinary jitters; this is a bone-chilling fear that I’m going to be marrying a man who is already married—to the mountains. It’s a gut-wrenching feeling that the minute I say “I do,” a horrible fate will befall him in some faraway land and I’ll be a widow before I’ve had time to put away the wedding gown.

  Here’s what happened: I was at the beauty salon getting my hair cut before the wedding, and Merlene had the television going ninety-to-nothing, which is what she always does because so many of her customers like to watch the game shows. I was sitting in the chair waiting my turn, thumbing through an out-of-date magazine with my mind only halfway occupied, when all of a sudden a news bulletin interrupted the game show.

  “Fifteen people are dead on Mount McKinley in the worst climbing accident of this century.”

  That’s what the television reporter said, and I made a complete fool of myself. Dropped the magazine in the middle of the floor and stood up with my hand over my mouth, holding back a scream.

  Michael was nowhere near a mountain. I knew that. And yet suddenly I had a vision of him lying dead in the snow on Mount McKinley. Frozen stiff. Every part of him, even his beautiful smile.

  Merlene came up to me and said, “Are you all right, hon?” and I nodded and told her I was fine. But the truth was, I was trembling so hard inside I thought I would break into pieces.

  I picked up the magazine and put it back in the rack, then headed for the door. Merlene caught up with me and said, “Where are you going, hon? I thought you wanted your hair cut.” And I said that I changed my mind.

  I had to see Michael. I had to touch him. I had to know that he was alive, that he was not buried under ice and snow. I had to hear him tell me that he would never die on top of a mountain.

  Somewhere between the beauty salon and the hotel where Michael was staying before the wedding, I regained my sanity.

  Of course, I couldn’t go to him in the state I was in. I had too much pride to present myself as some kind of hysterical woman. And so I went home, instead.

  That’s when Mother told me about bride-to-be jitters. That was before I told her everything, though, before I told her about the tragedy on McKinley.

  She just looked at me after I told her all that, and then she said, “Anne, nobody is ever guaranteed tomorrow. You can live your life in one of two ways: You can play it safe in the vain hope that you’ve avoided all possibility of tragedy and pain, or you can take the risks and let the angels take care of the rest. Now you tell me which one you’re going to do, because if you’re not going to marry Michael Westmoreland, I’m going to take that high-priced dress I bought for the reception back and get a refund.”

  “Well, of course, I’m going to marry Michael. Tomorrow.”

  That’s what I told her, and all of a sudden I knew it was true, and that it was right.

  I love him so much that I’d rather have only a few months with him, a few days, a few hours, than a lifetime with anyone else.

  To play it safe would consign me to a half-life, a sort of tranquilized existence where the door is shut to great joy, as well as great pain.

  To take the risks will be to embrace joy and pain equally, but through it all to know that I am living my life fully and passionately, to know that my soul and spirit are alive and well and that my heart is rising on wings of eagles.

  And so tomorrow I will stand before the JP with my beloved where we will exchange the vows we’ve written. None of this “in sickness and health” bit, “till death do us part,” which is so dour and Puritan-sounding. No, we will pledge to enter into a union that honors the spirit and respects the soul. Our love is true and strong and enduring, and we will pledge to nurture it and to keep the flame always burning.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The storm on the mountain was nothing compared to the phalanx of reporters waiting at the base of Dapsang. When Jake saw them he momentarily considered trying to slip through the crowd unnoticed, but that would be the coward’s way out.

  He was responsible for what had happened on that mountain, and he would face the music.

  “There he is!” a veteran reporter on the front lines shouted, then raced to Jake. “Mr. Bean, can you tell us the condition of Rosalee Edmunds and Jamal Tongay?”

  It was the one question Jake had been dreading. Word had preceded the search party that the two had been found. Until Jake told exactly what had happened, everything else was speculative.

  “Considering how long she was exposed to the storm, Mrs. Edmunds is in good condition—thanks to Jamal Tongay. Right now she’s suffering from altitude sickness and dehydration, but she will recover and be perfectly fine.”

  “What about Tongay?”

  Pain sliced through Jake like a knife blade. When he’d found them, Jamal’s body had been literally covering and protecting Rosalee. And when he’d seen the condition of his most trusted climber, he’d cried, and the tears had frozen on his face.

  Jake would gladly have given everything he owned if he could turn back the clock and undo his decision. For it had been his decision that put Jamal at the mercy of the mountain. His and his alone.

  And for that he would always suffer. Not a day would go by that he wouldn’t remember that he was the one responsible for taking away Jamal’s first and greatest love,
as well as his livelihood.

  “Jamal Tongay will lose his right hand and his right leg. He sacrificed them for Rosalee Edmunds.”

  “Will he ever climb again?”

  “No.”

  “Can you tell me exactly what happened on that mountain?”

  How can you describe hell? That was Jake’s first thought. His second was, You don’t. You keep it inside where it belongs.

  “No,” he told the reporter, then turned to leave.

  “Mr. Bean…Mr. Bean…”

  The reporters raced after him like a pack of wolves. Jake turned around to face them, a tall angry man, his eyes reddened by blinding snow and lack of sleep, his face raw from exposure and his heart hurting.

  “I have no further comment.”

  Transfixed, Emily gripped the arms of her chair and leaned toward the television screen as if she might be able to get close enough to touch Jake.

  “He made it, he made it.”

  She kept whispering that over and over.

  “Yes, he did. How do you feel about everything now, Emily?”

  “What are you asking me, Mom?”

  “What happened on that mountain might never happen again. Jake could lead a charmed life and come back from every climb with nothing except great memories and a huge sense of accomplishment. But chances of that are slim.”

  “I know.”

  “Well, then…do you love him enough to suffer for him?”

  Her mother didn’t have to explain. Emily knew what she meant.

  Over the past two days Emily had not only suffered for herself, she’d suffered for Jake. She agonized for all she imagined he was going through both physically and emotionally. Although she’d been at Belle Rose in Vicksburg in one of the hottest summers on record, she’d lived in a frozen place, where bitter cold enveloped not only the body but the spirit.

  “Yes,” she said, and she meant it with all her heart.

  “Then you must go to him. You must be there when he comes home…to save him from himself.”

  “I know, I know.”

  “Guilt is going to eat him alive. Even worse this time, I think, than when Michael got caught in that avalanche. If you aren’t there, he might withdraw from you and never come back.”