“Can we make it?”
“Possibly, possibly not. Two weeks is a long time.”
“We’re a little protected here, but we’re too hidden; is that what you’re thinking? That this feels safe, but wouldn’t we be better off up there?” I ask, gesturing up the mountain.
“Yes, you’re right. But getting up there will be tough. Do you think you’re up for it? It’s a nasty climb.”
“I want to live,” I say weirdly. Oh my God, I must seem like a total freak to him. I look away and around our little room. He must sense my awkwardness because he squeezes my arm in friend-like way.
“I can see that.”
I nod, having been more honest with Paul than perhaps any person on earth. I think back on all my sessions with the Old Doctor, and I know I never told him that I out and out wanted to hit the switch. When I tried to do it before coming to the institution, I really wanted to succeed. I can see myself for a second, standing in the bathroom two nights ago, with destiny in my palm. I would never have hoped for a plane crash, and it saddens me more that others died, but I am so grateful for the second chance.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“About?”
“The head-you know, the jokes. It wasn’t funny. I didn’t think it was; I just didn’t know what else to do. I say stupid things when I’m nervous.”
I rub one of his hands and then just hold it. In my heart, I believe this is the real Paul. Underneath those man-made veneers is a boy with a big heart who is afraid to be who he is. But why? I wonder. This is going to be okay, I think. Everything is going to be okay.
Chapter 20
I wake from a deep, dreamless sleep. I am tired but alert and rejuvenated. “The sleep of the just,” my grandfather used to say to me. At home, I was known for my sleeping prowess, able to leap past a whole day in a single nap. But I never felt well rested, just depressed and sluggish and empty.
There is light poking through a crack in the door. My body is exhausted, but the little speckle of light pulls at me. I reach back to touch Paul, but I realize he is not there. For a moment I panic, and the thought that he has abandoned me makes my heart rate speed up. I quickly twist and turn around our tiny compartment. It takes me all of one-point-three seconds to survey the airplane bathroom-aka our survival bunker: toilet, check; sink, check; supplies, check; Paul, no check.
Then I see a note propped up against a wool hat carefully positioned between the back wall and the latrine. The bottom of the note is slotted into the folded cuff of the hat so it acts like an old-fashioned letter stand. Written in black ink and typical male chicken scratch, the note is on a little piece of torn paper. The stock of the paper is heavy and lightly textured, like from a diary or an expensive, old-fashioned notebook.
I pick it up and read.
Solis-Off to survey-Stay put-will come back 4 u. P
Beneath the hat, I spy a corner of the little black book Paul had tucked into the lining of his jacket during yesterday’s scavenger hunt. A flicker of memory zips through my brain and I recall the slightly pained look on his face as he stared at it momentarily. I pick it up, and even though every instinct in my body tells me not to open it, not to pry, not to violate his privacy or something sacred to him… I succumb. He looked so pained by it, I rationalize, perhaps I could help him. I am, I tell myself, experienced in the art of psychology. Just a peek inside, distill a little info, and then a diagnosis, perhaps followed by a cure? Anyway, I should know more about him, I reason. He could be anyone.
I feel the cover with my hand first. The black leather is smooth and worn. I open it up and look inside. There’s a name carved into the inside of the leather cover, but it’s been scratched out. I can still make it out: Will Hart. For Paul is etched in blue ink below.
Lying inside is a photo of Paul and, I assume, Will. They look like twins, but Will is obviously Paul’s senior by a year or so. The picture was taken from inside a hospital room and Will is in a blue hospital gown. Paul’s face is long and sad and beaten, but there’s stoicism there as well. I turn it over, and on the upper-right-hand corner of the photo, Will’s eighteenth birthday is written.
All the pages in the diary are blank and pressed in a way that suggests the pages have never been turned. I fan through trying to find any signs of writing, but there’s nothing.
In the back, I find a letter written on what my grandfather would have called onionskin paper. It is thin and practically see-through. Back in the day before email and texting, people used this stuff to save money on overseas letters. Did this stuff even exist anymore?
I open the letter and read.
Paul,
I asked Dad to give you this after I died. I can’t believe I’m dead. I can’t believe I just wrote that. I bet you can’t believe you just read it. I wish I had something to say to you, Paul, like in the movies. The dead guy always has something to say. But I’m drawing blanks. I’m glad we always got along. We were different, but we were always brothers. I know Dad’s an idiot in a brilliant idiot way. He doesn’t get it. I know. I’ve heard you say that a million times. You know what he’s said to me a million times? Paul doesn’t understand, he’s a rock head. Well, you are both fucking rock heads. Do it for Johnny, Paul. You know what I mean. Do it for me. Be Dad’s friend for me. I love you, little man.
Bye,
Will p.s. Got you last.
Bang, bang. My heart races.
“Are you decent?”
I tuck the letter in and close the book and place it back exactly as I found it. I lay my head down, as if his knocking and voice woke me.
“Yes, sorry. Enter.”
Paul pushes the door in and then pushes it shut, stepping gently beside my head.
“Sleep is good, but we only have the light for so long. Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“Up the mountain to the plateau-where we can be seen. It isn’t snowing anymore-the weather broke. It’s our best chance.”
“No. I can’t.”
I probably can’t climb up a mountain, but what’s really soul-crushing at the moment is I can’t just do things without a plan. One day we were making a nest and now he wants to climb a mountain. I feel that old sense of paralysis that’s plagued me for years seep into my heart. Just don’t move, Jane. If you don’t move, nothing will happen, and that’s better than something unexpected happening.
“You can. You will, unless you want to die alone in a bathroom.”
He shuts the door and the tiny echo reverberates a kind of loneliness that’s just as terrifying as climbing a mountain.
The ungrateful hardass has returned.
“Wait!” I shout. “Give me a minute and I’ll be outside.”
I get myself together, glancing briefly at the mirror. It ain’t pretty, but hey, there isn’t much competition up here.
Paul stands with rope and climbing stuff around his shoulders. With his sunglasses and gear, he looks a little like a warrior set for battle.
“Let’s talk about this for a second,” I suggest.
“I’m not wasting time talking about this. Let’s go. We’ll die down here if we don’t. They won’t find us until the spring.”
“I thought you said two or three weeks?”
“Look.” He points up. “The plane landed on a ledge deep in a steep valley in a thick forest of trees. They’ll never spot us down here, and if they can’t spot us, they won’t send a climber blindly into a vast, roadless tundra. We have to be seen.”
“But now?”
“Good weather up this high is the anomaly, Jane. This might be our only chance for a week or more.”
“Are there no other choices?”
He shakes his head and turns toward a slope that rises a couple hundred yards behind the plane. It doesn’t look quite as steep as the rest of the valley for about one hundred feet or so, but then it gets really steep near the top and inverts for about ten feet. It’s those last ten feet that make my stomach twist into knots.