Northern Lights

apart. I didn't expect what I saw then. I didn't expect what I saw on her face. She loved him. I never considered that. I never thought she did."
    "It doesn't seem like the best time for either one of you to be alone."
    "She won't be. I need to be. Give me a few days, Burke. You're going to have your hands full around here anyway. Few days, this will settle in some. Come out and see me. I'll fix you a meal, take you to bed."
    "Phones are back up. You could call me if you need anything."
    "Yeah, I could. I won't. Don't try to save me, chief." She slid her sunglasses on. "Just handle the details."
    She turned, pulled his head down to hers and indulged them both in a hot, seeking kiss. And drew back, patted his cheek with her gloved hand.
    "Just a few days," she repeated, then crossed to her plane.
    She didn't look back, but she knew he stood by the river, knew he watched her fly away. She blanked it out of her mind, all of it, and let herself soar over the tops of the trees, on the edge of the sky.
    It wasn't until she saw the drift of smoke from her own chimney and
    the silky bullets that were her dogs race across the snow toward the lake that she felt her throat slam shut on her.
    It wasn't until she saw the figure step out of her house, slowly follow the path of the dogs that she felt the tears well up in her eyes.
    Her hands began to shake so she had to fight to steady them and land. He was waiting for her, the man who'd stepped in as her father when her own had stepped away.
    She got out, struggled to keep her voice even. "Didn't think you were coming back for another day or two."
    "Something told me to come now." He studied her face. "Something's happened."
    "Yes." She nodded, bent to greet her delighted dogs. "Something happened."
    "Come inside and tell me."
    It wasn't until she was inside, in the warmth, when he'd brewed her tea and watered her dogs, when he listened without comment, that she broke down and wept.

 
     
     
     
    ELEVEN
     
     
     
     
     
     
    JOURNAL ENTRY . February 18, 1988
     
    I stood above the clouds. This, for me, is the defining moment of any climb. All the exhaustion, the pain, the sheer misery of the cold washes out of you, when you stand at the summit. You're reborn. In that innocence, there is no fear of death or of life. There is no anger, no sorrow, no history and no future. There is only the moment.
    You've done it. You lived.
    We danced on the virgin snow, nearly thirteen thousand feet above the ground with the sun beaming in our eyes and the wind playing our mad tune. Our shouts slammed and echoed against the sky, and our giddiness swirled into the rippling ocean of clouds.
    When Darth said we should jump, I nearly took the leap. What the hell. We were gods here.
    He meant it. It gave me a jolt—not quite fear—to realize he was serious. Let's jump. Let's fly! A little too much Dex in my buddy here. A little too much speed to pump him up for the fight to the finish.
    He actually grabbed my arm, daring me. I had to pull myself, and him, away from the edge. He cursed me for it, but he was laughing. We both were. Insanely.
    He said something a little weird, but it was the place for it, I'd say. Rambling bitching, with that bubbling laughter, about my luck. Bagged myself the sexiest woman in Lunacy and got to sit around pissing away the days while she did the work. Get to take off, free as I please, and not only bang a whore, not only hit it big in the backroom, but I'm standing on the top of the world just because I fucking wanted to.
    Now I won't even jump.
    Things are going to change, that's what he told me. Things are going to turn around. He's going to get a woman other men want, he's going to hit it big. He's going to live large.
    I let him stand and stew about it. It was too fine a moment for pettiness.
    I passed through insane joy into the peace—utter and complete. We're not gods here, but only men who've struggled their way to one more peak. I know a thousand things I've done might be insignificant. But not this. This marks me.
    We haven't conquered the mountain, but have joined with it.
    I think, because I've done this, I might be a better man. A better partner, a better father. I know some of Darth's ramblings are truth. I haven't earned all that I have, not the way I earned this moment. I know the desire to be more strikes me as I stand in the battering wind above a world full of pain and beauty, curtained now by the clouds that tempt me to dive through them, to