by Ruthie Knox
—
It only took a few minutes to get Rosemary to the airport.
Kal pulled up beside the curb and left the car idling. He opened the trunk and removed Rosemary’s luggage while she hugged his mother and said goodbye.
His mother got into the front passenger seat and sat looking through the windshield, her posture erect, her eyes averted from whatever it was Rosemary and Kal needed to say to each other.
Kal didn’t know what to say.
His mother hadn’t killed his father. She didn’t feel responsible for his death because she wasn’t responsible. It sounded like high-altitude pulmonary edema was responsible, combined with Merlin being an asshole.
It sounded like his mother climbed Everest over and over because she wanted to.
Because it made her feel good.
Rosemary was getting on a plane and flying out of his life because she had her own mountains to climb. She had her own reasons, her own things that made her feel good, and she didn’t need Kal for any of it.
None of them did.
This new understanding brought such relief, and such grief, he didn’t know what to do with it. And it didn’t matter. The time had come to see Rosemary off regardless of his messed-up psyche.
He set her bag down. “Thanks for getting me home,” he said.
“Thanks for getting me to my kid.” She put her hand on his arm and looked right in his eyes, doing her princess thing, her three seconds of complete attention and sincere gratitude. He didn’t think anymore she’d learned it in princess school. He thought maybe it was just Rosemary being Rosemary. Paying attention to people. Caring. “Thanks for helping me.” She swallowed. “Thanks for everything.”
He would miss her face. He would miss seeing her when he woke up in the morning, spending time with her, hearing what she thought about things. Kal was no Buddhist, but he had enough of a basic grasp of chains of causation to understand that the fact that he’d invited Rosemary into his life, promised to help her with her book, and taken her home to meet his mom meant that for reasons he couldn’t begin to understand, this was what he wanted. Every action he’d taken since Everest had been leading him to this moment, the chain of causation a gigantic arrow pointing Kal toward the obvious reason why a man would upend his life for a woman, invite her into its messiest corners, want to tell her everything even when he couldn’t quite bring himself to, want her to stick around, want her in his bed, want to buy her coffee.
Probably he loved her. And if he loved her, it was because he wanted to.
He didn’t regret it. She was worth loving.
What he didn’t understand was why he also wanted, apparently, the consequence of falling in love with Rosemary, which was losing her.
This was what losing her looked like and felt like: the two of them standing on a sidewalk in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, breathing in exhaust fumes that didn’t do anything to help with the raw ache at the back of his throat.
What was the point of falling in love with a woman who was always going to leave him? What kind of fucking karmic suffering bullshit was that?
She put her hand on his face and brought him back into his body. He kissed her. She tasted like strong black tea. She tasted like everything he wanted. Kal held her tight, breathing against her neck, and almost told her, Stay.
But one man had done that to Rosemary already. Kept her close, kept her home, turned her into wallpaper because it felt so good just having her in his corner. Kal wasn’t going to be the second guy to make that mistake.
He kissed the top of her head. “Fly safe. Let me know when you get in.”
“It’ll be late. The middle of the night.”
“That’s okay. I’m not doing anything that can’t be interrupted.”
She pressed her lips against his one more time. Then she picked up her bag and walked down the sidewalk and through the doors. She receded into the crowd.
Gone.
Chapter 21
His mother pointed to a road sign. “Pull over there.”
“What for?”
“Because I said to.”
The traffic around the airport was light. Kal dutifully flipped on the blinkers and moved into the turn lane. He followed the signs to the cellphone lot and pulled into a space. “You want me to leave the engine running?”
“You’re not very bright.”
He turned off the car. They listened to the engine tick for a few seconds. “Can I ask you something?”
She nodded.
“It’s about the chain of causation thing. You know, where you do something, and all your actions are interrelated and interdependent, so you’re causing your own suffering. How do you not do that? I mean, how do you understand why you’re making yourself suffer so you can stop?”
His mother looked irritated. Maybe he wasn’t saying it right. It was hard to remember Buddhist doctrine over the agonizing black hole in his chest where Rosemary had been. A little tough to breathe, too, around the panicked second-guessing of every decision he’d made since he met her, and also every decision he’d made in his entire life.
Kal focused on the feel of the steering wheel under his hands. The new-car smell hadn’t faded. He breathed it in as his mother unzipped her purse and extracted a tube of mints. When she offered him one, he took it and crunched it up between his teeth.
The lot was nearly empty. He didn’t know where they were headed next, but that was fine, because nothing mattered beyond his own epic idiocy.
“I don’t know what happened to you,” his mother said.
“Yeah, me either.”
She shot him a quelling look.
“Sorry.”
“You used to see people. I thought it was because your spirit was so big, it filled your body, and it gave you this gift. I used to worry Merlin would hurt you, make your spirit smaller. Then there would be room for doubt and other bad things. Then you would lose your gift.”
She fell silent. Kal knew he was supposed to say something, preferably something respectful, but he actually had no idea what she was talking about. Had that been some kind of stealth-Buddhist answer to his question, or had she ignored his question completely?
“Can you be more specific?”
“Do you remember when you told me if I was born a boy, I would have married a white woman instead of a white man?”
“No.”
“You were eleven, twelve, maybe. You said I would have moved to New York. You said I would have gone to business school, become one of those finance people on the Upper East Side, a CEO or something.”
“I don’t remember.”
“I was a mother with four kids, an immigrant, bad English, Merlin hit me, I had nothing. But you said I should be rich and powerful. You said I only wasn’t because I was born Sherpa and a girl.”
Kal shrugged. “You’re my mom.”
“Not every child sees his mother. Sangmu, she wanted me to praise her drawings and buy her toys, then I’m a good mother.”
“Yeah, but that’s just Sangmu.”
“That’s what I mean. You see Sangmu. You see me. You see people. You argued with Merlin, told him you were going to end climbing on Everest, because you wanted more for Sherpa people than to chase money pouring down the side of a mountain.”
“Look where that got me.”
“Yes. Look where it got you. This far from a master’s degree”—she pinched her fingers in the air—“and job offers calling on the phone.” Her mouth was stern. Angry with him. “You went to the courtroom, swore on the Bible to tell the truth. You told them what your father did. You told them I was a good mother, and I could take care of you and your brothers and sister. I never said to you, thank you. I never said, you helped me. I never said, I don’t think I could have survived without you. I never said, I couldn’t have climbed the mountain without you. I never said, you’re a good boy, Kalden.”
“You said the last thing.” There were tears in his eyes. It was too much, his life upended in one afterno
on, his mom—who wasn’t responsible for Merlin’s death—thanking him for helping her survive. It wasn’t their deal, all this sharing of information and feelings. He couldn’t take on any more feelings. He already had too many.
She folded her hands on top of her purse. “I should have told you what happened. I knew I should tell you. But you always saw me, I thought you’d understand without my having to tell you. I made a mistake.”
“You could have told me anytime.”
“How do you tell your son when you can’t tell yourself? I was supposed to say, ‘I didn’t kill Merlin.’ But in my heart, I killed him a thousand times. I wished him dead.”
“Nobody could blame you for that.”
“You could blame me,” she said. “He was your father.”
Kal watched gulls land and pick over the gravel, looking for french fries or other bits of castoff treasure. He’d thought there were only two kinds of people who climbed Everest: megalomaniacs and the walking wounded. He’d put his father in the first category. He’d invented the second for his mother.
It wasn’t fair that he never asked her why she climbed the mountain.
It wasn’t fair that he’d stopped thinking of her as a person and started thinking of her as a raw wound who needed his protection.
“I don’t blame you,” he said finally.
“I know.”
“I just want to do something that makes a difference.”
“You already do that.”
Kal didn’t know. He didn’t know anything, except he shouldn’t have let Rosemary go. He should have tried to make her stay. Or begged her to take him with her. “I don’t even know why I want her so bad,” he blurted.
Then his mother was laughing at him.
“Knock it off,” he said, when she didn’t stop. “Have another mint or something.”
She extracted one from her bag, her shoulders shaking, faced lined with amusement.
“Seriously.”
“No one knows why their heart wants what it wants.” She popped the mint into her mouth. “I can’t tell you that.”
“I didn’t think you could.”
“All I can tell you is that woman won’t hurt you, not like Merlin hurt me. You’ll have trouble. Everyone does. But you won’t go through what you went through with your father again.”
“I wasn’t worried I would.”
But maybe he had been, a little, in the back of his mind. Maybe he’d believed the more serious things got with Rosemary, the more likely she would become a source of extraordinary pain. As though love mostly meant letting someone hurt you.
That wasn’t right.
“So there’s nothing to worry about,” his mother said. “Be with her. Make me some grandbabies.”
“You’re getting ahead of yourself there.”
“I had five children, and I don’t have any grandbabies. It’s very annoying. Your brothers are never going to figure out how to marry a woman unless you show them first. They’re not smart like you.”
This was unfair to Tenzing and Tashi, but it was flattering to him, so Kal let it slide.
“You don’t have to take care of me, Kalden.” She took one hand off her purse and put it on top of his knee. “By the time Patricia is Sangmu’s age, I’ll be ready to retire. Patricia can run the businesses.”
“She might not want to.”
“If she doesn’t want to, we’ll sell them. They’ll be worth plenty by then. I think I’ll enjoy being famous from this book Rosemary will write, and the movie Beatrice will want to make when she reads it. I’m going to insist on a percentage of royalties and subrights.”
“You sound like a Hollywood agent.”
“You think you’re the only one who can work Google?”
Kal rolled his eyes. His mom gave him a pat and took her hand away. “Men and boys are never good at work anyway,” she said. “They’re too easily overwhelmed by all of their big feelings.”
“You’re being kind of sexist.”
“There’s no such thing as sexist against a man. Men have all the power.”
“Sure. Can I ask you something? Why’d you want to come to Wisconsin?”
“I read about Nancy on the Internet. I thought we’d have things to talk about. I was right.” His mother glanced at him. “Also, I wanted Rosemary to meet Jigme before I told her my story, so she could hear both stories at the same time. For you, I wanted more time with her, to keep her from getting on the airplane.”
“I fucked that up.”
“Yes.”
If he put the car in gear and sped back to the airport, could he catch Rosemary before she was gone for good? Or should he text her right now and tell her, Wait, don’t go, we need to talk?
“You think I should call her, or—”
Just then, his phone buzzed. Rosemary’s name on the screen. He swiped to the message.
Change of plans.
Any chance you’re still available to be my chauffeur?
Chapter 22
Every five seconds, the windshield wipers cleared a fine mist from the glass.
The road stretched out in front of them, four lanes of divided blacktop, a truck passing on the left, nothing to see anywhere but twilit farmland and the headlights illuminating mile markers, green exit signs, blue amenities.
Rosemary’s stomach rumbled. Hungry. Her eyes didn’t like the fading light, and her limbs felt heavy from too little exercise and too much caffeine.
Kal steered the car back toward Manitowoc. They had less to say to each other than she’d hoped they would.
She felt different than she’d thought she would.
“You want to get some dinner?” he asked.
“Maybe a little farther up the road.”
He nodded, and they drove on.
They’d dropped Yangchen off at Jigme’s house. There was a baby shower she’d decided she wanted to go to—a convenient baby shower that would keep her in Milwaukee and out of the way for the whole of the next day, keep Kal in Wisconsin with nothing to do but drive Rosemary back to her daughter.
They were alone in the car, Rosemary in the front passenger seat for the first time, with Kal beside her, his hands on the wheel.
She’d made it all the way to security before she understood that she simply couldn’t do it. She couldn’t leave things the way she had with Beatrice, leave the country with a vague idea that she’d get back to her daughter when she had the time and space.
She couldn’t leave Kal behind after everything they’d been through together with nothing more than a polite goodbye at the curb.
Rosemary had stepped out of the line to text him, her heart in her throat because maybe she’d taken too long to decide. Maybe he would ignore the text for an hour, two hours, until he was far enough down the road to say, Sorry, I don’t think it’s going to work out.
Twenty minutes later, she’d been in the car, Yangchen already dropped off, the front seat waiting for Rosemary, and an awkward bubble of silence between them that none of her attempts at conversation had managed to disturb.
It wasn’t that he’d withdrawn. He was right there. Now and then she caught him glancing at her, and he smiled every time. His eyes were warm. He was as relieved to have her beside him as she was to be here.
Only, neither of them seemed to know what to say.
They passed a sign for Port Washington, then another advertising nighttime dinner cruises for tourists.
Rosemary imagined being in a boat on the lake. Light spring rain, night air, water stretching out to the horizon.
Or they would keep driving and arrive in Manitowoc, find a hotel, find themselves trapped together in another anonymous room with a television and a bed and all their problems without solutions.
“Would you want to stop here?” she asked. “We could sign on for the dinner cruise if it’s running tonight. Get out on the water.”
“If you want to.”
“It might be different.” She wanted to do something different wi
th him. Go on a date. Eat a steak and prawns on a boat and try to imagine what they needed to do in order to never end up saying goodbye at an airport again.
“Sure.”
A few miles later, the rain had stopped. Kal signaled and followed the sign to the exit, turning left and then right, landing them in a gravel lot by the water, where they learned there was indeed a cruise, there were indeed tickets, they could indeed put themselves at a table with linens and crystal glasses on a boat, the land dropping away behind them.
They made small talk with the other diners at their table—a woman who sold life insurance and her friend who owned a nail salon, a pastor and his wife. Rosemary watched Kal eat French onion soup, learned he ordered his steak medium-rare, that he cut it into small bites and savored them, that he preferred still water to sparkling and didn’t like ice.
They had cheesecake with raspberry sauce, skipped the coffee, and walked out on the deck together. The night was windy, the boat too loud to make conversation pleasant. The other passengers stayed inside, where they could enjoy cocktails and live music.
Rosemary stood beside Kal with one hand on the wet railing, looking out over the choppy water toward the horizon.
“You ever watch Gilligan’s Island in England?” he asked.
“I’ve seen it.”
“I keep thinking, if that were ever going to happen to anybody, it would happen to us.”
“We’d end up castaways on a desert island together?”
He smiled. “First the avalanche, you know, and then we hit a rock and have to learn to live on coconuts.”
“Nothing to worry about but hatching rescue schemes that inevitably fail.”
“They never seemed to mind so much when they failed.”
“Of course not. It was always sunny and warm, and they didn’t have to wash their clothes or earn money.”
Kal turned his body toward hers. “Where do you think this is going?”
“Out and back?” she said lightly.
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m not sure. I’d like to think it’s going somewhere. I didn’t want to say goodbye. I kept thinking about the time we’d spent together, how it was to be with you the way we’ve been since Nepal—how much I enjoyed having you with me at the memorial service, and how lovely it was when you’d brought me coffee at Winston’s apartment, or when you asked Winston and Allie to clear out so I had room to breathe. How powerful and desirable I felt when we went dancing.”