A Blind Spot for Boys (10 page)

Peanut butter slathered on bread or handfuls of trail mix would have been called a gourmet lunch on one of my family’s hikes. But here, our amazing porters had prepared hot quinoa soup by the time Grace and I caught up to everyone. I saw Hank shake his head impatiently: “Finally.” Embarrassed, I cast a quick glance at Grace, who looked chastened until Ruben threw his arm around her shoulders.

“Good job,” he boomed loudly, then gestured to me. “Shana, can you take our picture? My mom needs to see what she’s missing.”

I could have hugged Ruben right then, and was only too happy to take a series of other shots: Ruben helping Grace with her backpack, Ruben leading her to a chair-shaped boulder,
Ruben calling it a throne. Perfect timing, too. Grace’s body drooped in desperate need of a rest. She gratefully accepted a cup of soup from me and absently rubbed her knee.

Mom was sitting alone, tense, her usual expression these days. When I settled next to her, she cast an annoyed glance at my father, who sat by himself at a distance. Neither of them had spoken more than a few words to each other this morning, and neither appeared grateful that we were on this once-in-a-lifetime family trip now—the word “family” felt like a joke. Grace looked happier than they did, hands wrapped around her cup for warmth.

“He’s going to kill himself on this trail,” Mom said, her words sharp.

“Mom, he can still see.”
Sort of.

“It’s not even that. He’s intent on proving to Hank that he can keep up the pace. No, not even keep up.
Set
the pace. I just don’t understand him.”

I averted my gaze from Mom’s tight frown and focused on my soup. But then I heard a snippet of Spanish, the voice familiar. My head shot up to find Quattro crouching down to chat with the porters. Our porters. How had I missed him, wearing that unfortunate orange Polarfleece jacket? Another few phrases of Spanish wound their way to me, and even though I couldn’t understand Quattro’s words, I knew the tone: teasing. The porters burst into laughter.

“What’s Quattro doing here?” I hissed at Mom, nodding over at him. The last thing I wanted was another encounter with him. First, the guy sprinted from me. Then, there was the
parental factor. Who knew what Dad might do or say within Quattro’s earshot? And you could never be too sure whether Mom might spring some kind of
sine qua non
lecture on him.

“Oh, he’s still here?” She winked at me. “Take a guess.”

“Mom.”

“His group was already here when we arrived. Hank wasn’t kidding. All the guys on that Andean Trek looked like Navy SEALs.” She fanned herself. “Oh, boy, I think I’m giving myself a hot flash.”

“Mom, I know this is going to be a shock for you, but there are some things mothers should never share with their kids.”

“What? All I’m saying is that if I were a romance novelist, I would be on that trek.”

“Mom.”

“For
research
purposes. Anyway, looks like they pushed on ahead.”

“Don’t sound so disappointed,” I told her as I spooned another mouthful of quinoa soup.

“Well, I better go see about your dad,” Mom said, straightening like she was venturing into the lion’s den.

As I cleaned off my cup, I caught Grace sneaking onto the trail, as if to get a head start or make a break for freedom. Either way, I grabbed my backpack and started after her, telling myself that my leaving had nothing to do with dodging Quattro. Nope, this had everything to do with my job. What I hadn’t counted on was Grace asking for privacy when I caught up to her.

“But—” I started to protest.

She raised a finger. “Remember what we talked about?”

So I fell back, giving her enough space for alone time but still remaining in view in case anything happened. One by one, the rest of the Dreamwalkers passed me, Dad nodding at me with a “Great job, kiddo,” and Mom grinning at me. Even more humbling, our porters sprinted around first me, then Grace, on the steps despite being weighed down with so many bundles that only their legs were visible from behind.

“Talk about in shape,” a familiar voice called up to me. “Those guys are humbling, huh?”

I spun around, my eyes focusing on Quattro as he ambled up the steps toward me, acting like he had never done his ninja disappearing trick into the elevator early this morning. Way back in Seattle and again in Sacsayhuamán, he had told me that he was on a Girl Moratorium, but a small part of me had dismissed that as a throwaway line you tell people for one and only one purpose: to win them over. It was no different from Ginny to her Chef Boy:
Whoa! You’re into blowtorching food, too?

“Where’s your dad?” I asked now, more gruffly than I intended.

“Probably trying to find cell phone service up ahead,” said Quattro.

“How come you aren’t with your group?”

“I want to walk with you.”

That single statement burrowed into me further than I liked, secreting into the soft places in my heart that I thought I had barricaded successfully. No more boy drama; no more boyfriend trauma, I reminded myself. But I could lash myself with a thousand memories of breakups past, remind myself that I’d
instituted a Boy Moratorium for good reason, and still, my pulse sped in response to Quattro’s answer.

“I’m not sure you could keep up,” I told him now, lifting my eyebrow. As I’ve coached Ginny, a little challenge every now and again is good for a guy.

Just as I knew they would, his eyes glinted. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. My job’s to walk with Grace, and I bet you couldn’t go this slow without going crazy.”

“I don’t think speed is the point of the Inca Trail.”

He was right, and that was the whole problem. Just one more confirmation that where this guy was concerned, it was much better to draw a distinct boundary line, clear and stark: You on this side, me on the other.

Even so, I found myself telling him, “I wish my dad got that. I’m worried about him.”

“I bet,” Quattro said sympathetically.

That understanding unleashed a flood of pent-up confessions. I couldn’t stop myself if I tried: “He’s going blind, but he needs to be Mr. He-Man, I Own This Trail! It’s like his whole entire personality has changed. I don’t even recognize him. Or my mom. My mom! I still can’t believe that she cashed out their retirement account to make this trip happen. I mean, who are these people?”

Instead of changing the subject, Quattro said, “I think it’s cool that your family would actually do something like this—pick up and go. Your parents are just getting adjusted.”

I mounted the steps faster. “But what if this is the new normal? Dad’s perpetual grouchiness?”

“Well, he’s going blind.… That’s huge. Who wouldn’t be angry about that?”

What Quattro was telling me was all true, but that wasn’t the point. He wasn’t supposed to
empathize
with me. He was supposed to say one or two perfunctory words, clear his throat uncomfortably, change the subject, and then flee at the first chance from high-maintenance, mentally unhinged me.

“But what if my mom can’t stand it anymore?” I found myself wailing. “You know, she’s totally used to Dad doing almost everything manly man around the house. If it requires the toolbox, it’s Dad’s job. If it needs a ladder, it’s Dad’s job.”

“They’ll figure it out.”

“And then what if their relationship totally falls apart and they get divorced? My best friend Reb—”

“The one waiting to rescue you at Oddfellows?”

I shot a look over my shoulder, then blushed. “Yeah, about that…”

“I get it, but you can trust me.”

I wanted to! That unexpected thought almost made me lose my footing as I continued up the steps without looking where I was going.

“Careful!” he called just as I righted myself. Then he prompted, “So Reb? Is she the one who’s coming to Machu Picchu, too?”

I stopped and frowned at him. How the heck did he know about Reb’s travel plans? But then I had a vague recollection of mentioning her Machu Picchu trip to him just to keep one of our first conversations flowing.

“My memory can scare people,” Quattro admitted with a self-conscious shrug.

“I like it,” I told him, then flushed, feeling vulnerable, as if I’d just admitted that I couldn’t stop thinking about him. Quickly, I began walking again and commented over my shoulder, “So Reb was supposed to be on this trip. Stesha is her grandmother.”

“No kidding.”

“Yeah, but she insisted that I take her spot. Anyhow, Reb thought she had the perfect happy-happy, all-American family, too. And then, boom! Her dad’s splitting because he’s having an affair. And I like my family! I like my family exactly the way it is. Was. The way it was.”

I hadn’t realized that I had stopped again, that my hands were on my hips, that Quattro was watching me with sympathy as he closed the gap between us. I should have ended my rant then, but it was as if my fears had their first taste of freedom and refused to be imprisoned for a moment longer. Why—why?—did I find myself babbling about how my parents had done everything they could so I could live the life I want?

“And Dad totally gave up his dream to be a photographer. He should have been one! For
National Geographic
.” I would have shaken my camera at high heaven, but I was trembling too much to retrieve it from my pocket. “So how fair would it be for me to be a photographer? I mean, wouldn’t that be rubbing it into my dad’s face that, hello, you’ll never get a chance to live your dream. But look at me: I’m going for it, thanks to your support?”

“It’s what your dad would want. Plus, Beethoven was deaf, and he composed music.”

“But a photographer needs to see.”

“Monet painted his most famous pictures when he had cataracts.”

“Yeah, but photographers need to
see
.” I was panting, wild eyed. A sight to behold, I’m sure. “You should see the pictures he used to make, not take, but make. I never got it until this trip. All the hours waiting for the right moment to tell a story.”

What was I doing? This wasn’t emotional flooding but a thirty-foot, crushing tsunami. No one—and I mean no one—wants to experience the ruins of anyone’s family this up close and in person.

“Shana,” Quattro said softly. I could tell he was going to reach for me, touch me. I backed up, my heels hitting the next step. I stared down at my scuffed hiking boots, embarrassed about losing control. And then he wrapped his arms around me, which was awkward given my backpack, but I didn’t care. I tipped into his chest, resting my head on his shoulder. How long had it been since I had felt safe?

“Why do you always have to wear orange?” I sniffled.

Quattro laughed, then after a moment pulled away to open his water bottle and urged, “Drink.”

As I tipped my head back, I wondered whether Dad was taking care of Mom now. Or were they walking alone?

“Sorry,” I mumbled. Without looking at him, I whispered, “It’s just not
fair
.”

“I don’t think life’s about being fair.” After a moment, Quattro added, “If it was, my mom would still be here.”

I jerked my head up to study Quattro, really study him. There was a hollowing in his face, which made him look vulnerable. But instead of meeting my eye, he stared hard at the wispy trees. “She was killed in a car accident.”

I cleared my throat. “I’m so sorry, Quattro.”

“It happened.”

“When?”

“A couple of years ago. Two. You’d never know it from the way Dad acts like this shadow of himself. He wasn’t ever like your dad, rock climbing, skiing in the backcountry, and all that. But Dad… he used to be pretty adventurous. He’d get out there.” But now, as if he was the one who had revealed too much, Quattro changed the subject when the overhead clouds released a light drizzle. He held his hand out to feel the raindrops. “Hopefully, it won’t pour.”

“Otherwise Ruben’s going to break out the ark.”

“Remember what the Flood was supposed to do, though?”

“Kill everyone?” I said.

“Be a fresh start.”

C
onsidering how tired I was from trekking at altitude, I should have fallen asleep instantly, but snippets of my conversation with Quattro kept replaying in my head that night. Grace wasn’t the only mourner on the Inca Trail; if Quattro looked haunted by his mother’s death, then his father had one foot planted squarely in the otherworld. The next morning, I woke groggily to a conversation I didn’t understand and raucous laughter that I did. Our porters.

Did they think it was odd that tourists from around the world paid good money to look for ruins hidden deep in the jungle? I was wondering that myself after unzipping the tent to find grim skies and mud from last night’s deluge. There was nothing to do but retrieve the ugly paramilitary rain gear from my backpack. I sighed as I yanked the rain pants on and half-hoped that I wouldn’t bump into Quattro on the trail today. My hair already felt lank
from a day of sweating without bathing. Why hadn’t I packed even one measly tube of lip gloss? And had I really dumped all my messy emotions on him yesterday? I groaned.

“You don’t look that bad,” Dad said. When he gazed at me as affectionately as he had the year Mom dressed me as a bedbug for Halloween, I knew the rain gear was worse than I imagined. “Here,” he said, “I’ll take your picture.”

As if
, I was about to retort until I remembered the campfire last night. All of us were stretched out before the heat of the flames when Hank had suggested that we trade cameras to check out what everyone else had shot.

“These are all blurry,” Hank had said, holding up the camera I recognized as my splurge purchase. I tried to stop him from asking whose it was by reaching for it.

Dad said flatly, “It’s mine.”

“I bet a little Photoshop will fix them,” Helen said kindly after a damning silence.

Until that moment, I hadn’t understood what Dad’s loss of vision was going to be like for him. He wasn’t just losing his vision; he was losing a part of himself. Wherever he went, he wouldn’t be Gregor or the twins’ father or even the pest control guy but the guy with the bad luck. The blind guy.

Now, as if Dad were remembering last night, too, he said abruptly, “No, never mind. Let’s get breakfast.”

Over quinoa sweetened with raisins, Ruben revealed the plan for the day. The morning’s trek up to Dead Woman’s Pass would be divided into three ninety-minute segments. Helen slumped and shut her eyes wearily, already exhausted.

“We’ll take ten breaks, each a couple of minutes long,” Stesha said cheerfully. How she had managed to look adorable in pink socks that peeked out from under her rain pants, I don’t know. I pretty much doubled as an overstuffed sausage squeezed into a casing of nylon.

“Everybody ready?” asked Ruben, reminding us that we had a strict schedule to keep if we wanted to make it to the next campsite at a reasonable hour. Naturally, Grace chose the exact moment of our departure to heed the call of biology.

“Oh, geez, she’s going to take a million years,” Dad complained, readjusting his backpack as he glowered at Grace’s receding back. He had a point; with all our layers, going to the bathroom was a long, multistep ordeal.

“You go on ahead,” I said quickly. “I’m walking with her anyway.”

“You’re not being paid to keep her company.”

“Actually, I am.”

“But you’re not a trained guide. If anything, Stesha should have hired you to be the trip photographer.” Shaking his head, Dad held the new camera out to me. “Here, take it, kiddo. I can’t see well enough to use it.”

I backed away, frowning. “Dad, it’s yours.”

“Look.” His tone may have been mild, but that word was scalding. He pushed the camera at me so I could see for myself that Hank was right. The image in the viewfinder was blurry, an impressionist’s rendering of the landscape. “It’s wasted on me.”

I was about to suggest that he just default to autofocus, but I knew better. Dad would rather leave the camera behind to be
ruined in the rain. Mom nodded at me, silently ordering me to take the camera already and stop making a scene. Everyone at the campsite was watching us. So reluctantly, I accepted the camera, no longer a friendly weight in my hand but a cold, heavy anchor, weighing us down to our reality. If Dad couldn’t take photographs, neither would I.

The rest of the day was nothing but one lesson in humility after another. As soon as I congratulated myself for being in excellent shape and managing the trek so well, the stone-paved path that the Incas had laid down five hundred years earlier turned into a waterslide. Stones that were already large and uneven now became slippery from the rain. I kept expecting to twist my ankle. I glared at the swirling rain clouds overhead. What next?

“Sorry,” Grace said as she stopped again, this time to wrestle her water bottle from her backpack.

After I drew the bottle out for her, I said, “What are you apologizing for? If anything, I should be apologizing for my dad. He’s not normally like this.”

Instead of answering, Grace studied a branch so gnarled it looked like a witch’s deformed finger. I wondered where her mind had taken her. Finally, she identified it: “Polylepis.”

“That’s so cool looking.” I started to pull out my camera only to remember my vow: I wasn’t taking photographs, not with my old camera, and definitely not with the new one.

“Survival does that, doesn’t it?” she mused.

“Warps us?”

“Shapes us.” She paused, letting the branch go so it sprang back. “You know, if my husband were standing here, I’d tell him that I was beginning to wonder whether he loved me.”

“Why?”

Grace swept off her wide-brimmed rain hat to wipe the sweat off her brow. “We loved to travel, Morris and I. But this”—she jabbed her hat accusingly down at the rain-slick stones—“this isn’t about travel anymore. This is beginning to feel like a
suicide
mission. I mean, I am going to
become
the Dead Woman’s Pass.”

The truth was, the Inca Trail wasn’t as romantic or fun and definitely not as bonding as I had imagined it would be. What had I been thinking? That we’d be the von Trapp family, trilling melodious harmonies as we skipped single file through majestic mountains? It wasn’t just Grace I worried about but Dad and his he-man pace to prove to Hank and everybody else that a twenty-year age gap and impending blindness meant nada when it came to his physical fitness. And then there was Quattro, who was disrupting my much-needed, much-wanted Boy Moratorium. I hadn’t seen him at all today, and I didn’t like missing him. Really missing him.

“Do you want to turn back?” I asked Grace, studying her intently. Less than halfway to Machu Picchu, now was the time to retreat if we were going to backtrack.

“Absolutely not,” she said, her mouth tightening. “I made a promise, and by God, I’m going to finish.”

But we still had the entire descent, never mind all the
elevation gain ahead of us. I needed to get my mind off the trek. So I asked, “How long were you married?”

“Fifty-two years.” She stretched backward and groaned.

“Fifty-two! The longest I’ve ever been with anyone is four months, and that was back in freshman year.”

“Up until today, that didn’t feel nearly long enough.” Grace raised her eyebrows. “You know, he refused to die in the hospital. So our sons transferred him back home. And our last kiss… oh, I’ll never forget that one! I leaned down to peck him on the lips. But he French-kissed me instead.”

“No, he didn’t!”

“French. Kissed!” She yelled the words as she spun around toward me. “He was sexy to the end!”

We both laughed so hard, we couldn’t have taken another step if we tried.

“And then he sighed, the two most beautiful sighs in the world, like he was reliving our life together. You know, he always made me feel so beloved.” Grace’s eyes shimmered with tears.

Always beloved. That was so far from how Dom made me feel during the last weeks we were together, even before the breakup. Try nuisance. Try pest. Try anything but beloved.

“You must miss him,” I said softly.

“More than you know. Or maybe you do.”

“I thought I missed Dom—that was his name. But now I sort of wonder if I missed the idea of him more.”

“Why do you say that?”

I flushed. It was hard to admit the truth to myself, let alone to another person. But I had kept my heartbreak a secret for too
long. “He had a big presentation, and it must not have gone well. He didn’t get the funding he was expecting.”

“And he blamed you,” Grace guessed.

“Yeah! It was so unfair, because we hadn’t even seen each other for a week. And then before that, he was on vacation with his family.” I peered up at Grace on the step above mine. “How did you know?”

She shrugged. “At first was he charming? Complimenting everything about you?”

“Yeah,” I said, so astonished that the slight breeze could have knocked me off my feet. For our third date, I had asked Dom to join me for a long run, ending with a three-mile loop around Green Lake to his rental house. His roommates had been tossing around a football on the lawn. Thanks to my two older brothers, who had trained me well in all things sports, I’d intercepted the football and thrown it back in a beautiful spiral.

“Whoa, you found the perfect woman,” one of his roommates had said, tossing the football to me.

“Hands off,” Dom had said, knocking the football out of my reach. “This goddess is all mine.”

With her hands on her hips, Grace asked, “Did he tell you that no one had ever understood him the way you did? That he’d never been able to talk to anyone the way he could with you?”

“Yeah! How did you know?”

Grace’s lips pressed together. “And what happened after the first time you disagreed with him?”

“It was our fourth date,” I said, remembering the day clearly because I had kicked myself for a full five days afterward when
Dom didn’t answer a single one of my texts or calls. I knew I had blown it, but I couldn’t understand what I had done wrong. “He asked me what I thought about the website for his game. So I told him I didn’t think it was unique enough.”

“Let me guess. He took it as a personal insult that you criticized it, right?”

“How did you know?”

“And then after that,” said Grace, “I bet nothing you could do was right or good enough.”

I remembered how Dom’s criticism had begun to creep into our conversation, so subtly, I could never point it out to him:
You
really
don’t know about f-stops?
Whenever I bristled, he said I was being overly sensitive. I demanded, “Really, Grace, how do you know all this?”

“My daughter was married to a narcissist, and he just picked and picked and picked at her. She thought she was living in crazy town, but it was just him, diminishing her to make himself feel more important. Thank goodness they got divorced before they had kids. How long were you together with Dom?”

“Six weeks.”

“You should be grateful that you got out as soon as you did,” said Grace, drawing her hood over her head as the rain restarted.

After months of blaming myself for the breakup, the world might have spun off its axis, Grace’s answer was that startling. It was shocking to consider that even though Dom went to the right school, knew the right people, drove the right car, aspired to the right career, he may never have been my Mr. Right.

We walked in silence for such a long time that Grace misread my quiet. Without warning, she spun around to apologize. “I’m sorry, honey! Did I offend you?”

“No!” I told her emphatically. “I think this might be the first time that I’ve thought straight about the whole thing. I mean, I was so wrong about Dom, what if I find out that my next guy is a narcissist, too?” I grimaced. “Maybe I should just go solo forever.”

“You can’t shy away from love just because you’re scared and—” Grace stopped suddenly with a sharp intake of breath.

“Grace! You okay?”

“Okay, I get it!” She called up to the sky. “Girls, I get it.”

“What?” I looked heavenward, too, as if the answer were written up in the clouds.

“I’m such a hypocrite!” Grace tapped her heart, then nodded firmly as if making a pact with herself and her Wednesday Walkers. “I’m telling you to get out there and love when I’ve been Chicken Little myself: He’s older than I am, and I don’t want to be widowed twice!”

“Well, that’s scary!”

“But no more being afraid. Especially when you finally meet the right guy who’s worth the risk,” she said, and nodded in the direction of the trail.

“What—” I started to ask even as I followed her gaze up the trail to Quattro, who was loping nimbly down the long flight of hand-carved stairs toward us.