Clear to Lift (8 page)

“One of the best. He's here to give a demonstration on the effectiveness of using an air-scenting dog for avalanche search. And this guy's incredible. He's found avalanche victims buried as deep as fifteen feet!” Will turns and gives him another pet. “Yep, you rock the rescue mojo, don't you, buddy?”

Mojo drops to all fours and gives a little bark.

“There you are!” Will says.

Jack approaches, holding an orange unit identical to Will's.

“Did you get it?” Jack asks.

“I did.”

“That was four hundred yards,” Jack says.

“Sweet,” Will says. “That's actually pretty close to what I was showing.”

“Hey, Will!” Boomer shouts from about ten yards away. He leans on his shovel, chest heaving, sweat dripping down the sides of his face. A red face that glows brighter than his flight suit—tough to outglow a rescue-orange flight suit—which he insisted on wearing, even though everyone else changed into ski pants. “Are we good then? I think you've proved your point on the difficulty with shoveling.”

“Yes, sir, you're good!”

We return to the group, Mojo bounding in front of us, his bright red vest a beacon against the white. Will then continues his training, including a demonstration by Mojo, who, in a blinding turn of speed, accurately locates Will's buried ski glove in about twenty seconds.

Through it all, I wonder if transceiver training raises your awareness altogether, about any number of things. For example, if you had asked me at any given moment where Will stood, I could have told you. Behind me, ten feet. To my left, twenty feet. Upslope five yards.

On the flight home, I try to remember if I was able to do that with anyone else. Did I know where Boomer was without looking? Actually, I did. But that's a
big
presence! I laugh to myself as we transition from the high mountains to flat desert, from swirling snow to steadfast sage, from animated winter to sedate brown reality.

 

8

I struggle to extricate myself from the covers when I hear the ringing. In a groggy stupor, I finally free one hand and reach for the phone.

“Hello?” I say, my voice crackly.

“Ali?” Rich says. “Did I wake you up?”

“No … no. I just closed my eyes for a second.”

I glance at the clock. Eight thirty p.m. I didn't realize I'd fallen asleep.

“So how are you?” he asks.

“Good, good.” I push myself up. “It was a, uh, long day. But now I'm good. Yeah.”

“Did you get my message about the office?”

“I did. That's … wow, yeah, that's great news.”

I made it a point to listen to Rich's message before I dropped, exhausted, into bed after avalanche training. He's still riding high after his recent promotion.

“So yeah, I moved into my new office today. We're talkin' tenth floor, a sweet view of the harbor…”

Maybe it's that I'm still a little foggy, just waking up and all, but as Rich goes into detail about his promotion and new office, my visions of San Diego Harbor begin to morph, the twinkle lights transforming into pine trees, the bay into a glacial lake, skyscrapers to mountain peaks.

“… my feet are up on the ottoman now.”

“What…?” I say.

“You know, an ottoman. The thing you put your feet on when you watch TV.”

“I know, but what about it again?”

“The leather sectional and ottoman I ordered came in. They delivered them to the condo this afternoon, and they are
sweet
.”

“Oh … okay.”

“Uh, Ali? Is something wrong?”

“No, no. Everything's great. Just a little tired, that's all.”

“Well, what'd you do today?”

I breathe in deeply, sinking a bit into the protection of the covers. “We went to the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center. I learned how to use an avalanche transceiver.”

“So how was it?”

“It was good. I learned a lot about skiers in the back country, why it's important to have avalanche-rescue skills, how to find victims…”

“You know, I don't get it. Why would someone put themself in a situation like that in the first place?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like why would you need to go into the back country to ski, when you have a perfectly good ski resort right there? It's patrolled, it's safe, you don't have to worry about avalanches, you've got food, a warm lodge. I just don't get it.”

“Um … yeah. I don't know. I guess you're right.”

“So you never told me about the rescue you had a couple days ago. You said it was a tricky one.”

Ah … Thank you, Rich. Thank you!

I sit up straight, very much awake now.

“It was. The most difficult one yet…” The story comes gushing out in one impossibly long run-on sentence. Good lord, have I breathed?

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he says. “Back up. So this was where again?”

“Mount Morrison.”

“And the guys were doing what? Climbing a wall of ice?”

“Yeah, they were in the Death Couloir—”

“The
Death
Couloir?”

“Yeah, and they—”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously what?”

“They were climbing something called the Death Couloir,” he states flatly.

“Well … yeah. It's just a nickname. The real name is Mendenhall Couloir. Anyway, they…”

And I find myself repeating much of what I've already said. Although, the air seems a bit strained this time. Maybe it's that I don't hear any “uh-huhs” or words of acknowledgment in the background like the first time.

“Rich, are you there?”

“I'm here.”

My shoulders relax. “I don't know why, but it feels better telling someone.” I realize I haven't spoken about the Mount Morrison rescue with
anyone
yet, not in detail like this. It's like all that pent-up tension I felt right after the rescue has blessedly been released. “Thanks for listening.”

I wait for a response. And wait.

“Rich…?”

“Yeah.”

“I said, thanks. You know, for listening.”

“I know.… But it sort of pisses me off, Ali.”

“What…?” I ask, my breath stolen.

“I mean, you're risking your life here. What you did was incredible—super, ridiculously incredible—but my fiancée is risking her life for guys who are climbing a mountain and for what? To get to the top? Like what's the point? When you guys do air evacs for car-accident victims, I get it. When you pick up one of your pilots who's had to eject, I get it. But most of the time, it's wackos like this who ski out of bounds, climb up rock, ice, whatever—up
death
couloirs—and for what? Early death wish, what?”

“Uh … I don't … I don't know.”

Familiar faces flit through my vision. The members of our aircrew, the Mono County SAR Team, the climbers we've plucked from cliffs, the hikers we've found who were lost in the forest, and the injured back country skiers we've rescued from deep ravines. In all of them, under the folds of their well-worn jackets and gloves, harnesses and hats, I've seen a spark, a brightness, a curiosity about life and the next horizon.

And for every one of these faces, I see Rich's friends at the anniversary party, cocktails in hand, dressed in custom-tailored suits, discussing so-and-so conglomerate's latest acquisition, or capitalizing on such-and-such short sale. Deep conversations on the merits of Cadillac versus Lexus. Men and women on top of the world, who sit at computers, and with a few well-timed keystrokes, move markets.

The members of the SAR team aren't on top of the world. They're in it. Of it.

“Ali? Ali, are you there?”

“What?”

“I thought we got cut off,” he says. “But anyway, you get what I mean. I just want you back in one piece. I worry about you, you know?”

I flush with an unexpected warmth. “You do?”

“Of course I do. I love you, remember?”

My heart swells. “Thanks. I think I just needed to hear that.”

“So, seventeen days, right?”

“Yeah. I can't wait.”

“Me either. So you're okay then? I mean, you were pretty spun-up this morning, and with the rescue you described, I can see why. But are you good now?”

“Yeah, that was just … I don't know what that was,” I say, the last word stretched out of proportion by the yawn I can't stifle. “But I'm good now. I'm talking to you, and it's good.”

“You sound exhausted. Maybe I should let you get back to bed.”

“No, really. I'm”—
yawn
—“good.”

“I think we should say good night, Ali,” he says with a light laugh. “You need your beauty sleep.”

“Okay, maybe so. But Rich, I love you. I want you to know that, okay?”

“Love you, too, Ali. Talk soon.”

I hit
END
and lean back heavily against the headboard, our conversation turning in my head, niggling … something. Maybe it's not our conversation at all.
You still haven't called your mom or Celia.
That's probably it. I sit up. Cider time.

*   *   *

“Hello?” my mom says, answering out of breath.

“Mom? Did you just run to the phone?”

I sit in the kitchen, a steaming mug—my cat-poster mug—of cider in hand. At least it's only nine p.m., not the middle of the night this time.

“Hi, honey. Yeah, I was in the backyard.”

Tending to the larkspur. She doesn't have to say it, but that's what she was doing. She keeps a veritable forest of the plant in the backyard. The flower petals, arranged in loose vertical groupings at the upper end of the main stalks, bloom in a wide spectrum of colors from white to pink to light plum, before delving into the deep lavenders and velvety blues that dominate the yard.

Never mind that it's dark now. She's got dozens of those little solar garden lights to illuminate whatever she's doing. And she's always doing
something
back there. Probably because this is my mom's one connection to her first husband, my biological father. The one who left us when she was twenty-four years old.

Getting her to talk about him has been a fruitless endeavor. “Nick is your father and that's the end of it” is how any conversation about my father usually ends. Nick Malone was a good stepfather—she called him father, I called him Nick—and a good husband, before he was hit by a drunk driver and killed five years ago. He sold insurance, provided us with a nice home and a steady paycheck. I never wanted for anything.

Only once, in an unintended slip, did I learn something about my real father. I was eleven, and Mom was adding another row of larkspur—a new hybrid that would bloom lavender with a midnight-blue center. I sat next to her in the dirt, watching closely, idly floating through another stress-free summer vacation. She mumbled it, almost like she was talking to herself. “Your father would love this new color. It's his favorite flower.…”

Later, I asked Nick about it. “I didn't know you liked larkspur.”

“What's a larkspur?” he responded.

And so, I observed. When Mom seemed melancholy, she would invariably wander out to the backyard, sit on the rod-iron bench that overlooked her garden, pull up her knees, and wrap her arms around them. I would watch her breathe deeply and close her eyes. In my child mind, I thought she just enjoyed sitting among the flowers. But my adult mind realizes she was sitting with my father.

Only recently, since Mom started seeing Dr. Grant, have I considered that maybe her depression has nothing to do with Nick, and everything to do with my biological father. After all, she sat with “him,” in the garden, all those years, well before Nick died. But she didn't seem as depressed then. Although, truth be told, she wasn't particularly happy, either. But it wasn't like now.

“Sorry I didn't call on Sunday,” I say.

“That's okay, honey. I have no shortage of people checking up on me.”

I can “hear” the roll of her eyes loud and clear.

“Hi, Ali!” Celia says in the background.

“Oh, good!” I say. “Tell Celia I want to talk with her after I get off with you.”

“Gonna gossip about me, huh?” Her question is lighthearted. Nice to hear that, actually.

“No, we aren't!” Celia calls. “Candice, why don't you put Ali on speaker, so we can all hear? No secrets that way.”

The background noise increases—hum of the refrigerator, whir of the heater—when my mom switches the phone to speaker.

“I'm trying to convince your mom to do Thanksgiving at the lodge this year,” Celia says. “What do you think? Could you make that work?”

“I think I have duty then,” I say. “But I'll see what I can do.”

“I don't know…,” Mom says, the trepidation oozing.

While I carry fond memories of our Thanksgiving get-togethers at the lodge, for my mom I don't think they were so pleasant. She never overtly said she didn't like going there, but when we did, she hunkered down inside, rarely leaving our cabin.

I do know she enjoyed our time with Grandpa Alther, but after he passed away, we stopped going. I was thirteen at the time. And in the years after, come the holidays, when we would normally pack up and make the drive to Walker Canyon, she seemed downright relieved she didn't have to do it. She was never a fan of the outdoors, so maybe that was it.

“Really, Candice, it would be nice,” Celia says. “I have some work to do there, anyway, and Roberto has asked for time off for the holidays. It'd be perfect.”

“Roberto should get the caretaker of the century award,” I say. “Seriously, when was the last time he had a vacation?”

“Exactly,” Celia says.

“I'll think about it,” my mom says. “But no promises.”