Summer by the Sea
Page 34
Ivy took off her shades, leaned over and kissed the beer stein. “Bye, Daddy. Fly into eternity, okay? But don’t forget how much you were loved here on earth. I’ll keep you safe in my heart.” She started to cry. “I thought I’d used up all my tears, but I guess not. I’ll always shed a tear for you, Daddy.”
Adam waggled his gloved fingers in front of the camera. “Yo, Dad. You were the best. I couldn’t have asked for anything more. Except for more time with you. Later, dude.”
Each one of them had known a different Trevor Bellamy. Mason could only wish the father he’d known was the one who had inspired Ivy’s tenderness and loyalty or Adam’s hero worship. Mason knew another side to their father, but he would never be the one to shatter his siblings’ memories.
Adam pushed through the warning gate and started down the mountain, the camera on his helmet rolling.
Ivy waited, then followed at a safe distance behind. Thanks to Adam, the cautious one of the three, each of them wore gear equipped with beacons and avalanche air bags, designed to detonate automatically in the event of a slide.
Their mother had been wearing one the day of the incident. Their father had not.
Adam skied with competence and control, navigating the steep slope with ease and carving a sinuous curve in the untouched powder. Ivy followed gracefully, turning his S-curves into a double helix pattern.
The lightest of breezes stirred the icy air. Mason decided he had worked too hard to climb the damned mountain only to take the conservative route down. Always the most reckless of the three, he decided to take the slope the way his father probably had, with joyous abandon.
“Here goes,” he said to the clear, empty air, and he thumbed open the lid of the beer stein. The cold air must have weakened the pottery, because a shard broke loose, cutting through his glove and slicing into his thumb. Ouch. He ignored the cut and focused on the task at hand.
Did any essence of their father remain? Was Trevor Bellamy’s spirit somehow trapped within the humble-looking detritus, waiting to be set free on the mountaintop?
He had lived his life. Left a legacy of secrets behind. He’d paid the ultimate price for his freedom, leaving his burden on someone else’s shoulders—Mason’s.
“Godspeed, Dad,” he said. With his ski poles in one hand and the beer stein in the other, he raised his arm high and plunged down the steep slope. The ashes created a cloud in his wake, rising on an updraft of wind and dispersing across the face of Trevor’s beloved, deadly mountain. The things we love most can kill us. Mason might have heard the saying somewhere. Or he had just made it up.
The faster Mason went, the less he was bothered by something so inconvenient as a thought. That was the beauty of skiing in dangerous places. Filled with the thrill of the ride, he was only vaguely aware of Adam pointing the camera at him. He couldn’t resist showing off, making a trail in a fresh expanse of untouched powder, like a snake slithering down the mountain. Spotting a rugged granite cliff, perfectly formed and perfectly covered for jumping, he raced toward it, aimed his skis straight down the fall line and launched himself off the edge. For several seconds, he was airborne, the wind flapping through his parka, turning him momentarily into a human kite. The steep pitch of the landing raced up to meet him with breathtaking speed. He wobbled on contact but didn’t wipe out, managing to come out of the landing with the mug still held aloft.
He gave a short laugh and brayed the Olympics theme song at the top of his lungs. Then, as the slope flattened and his speed naturally slowed, he realized Ivy was waving her arms frantically.
Now what?
He raced toward them and saw that Adam had his mobile phone out.
“What’s up?” he asked. “Was my epic run not pretty enough? Or are you posting a Tweet about it already?”
Despite the chill air, Ivy’s face was pale. “It’s Mom.”
“On the phone? Tell her I said hi.”
“No, dipshit, something’s happened to Mom.”
Copyright © 2015 by Susan Wiggs
ISBN-13: 9781460382196
Summer by the Sea
Copyright © 2004 by Susan Wiggs
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