MONDAY, MAY 3, 1999
Horns blare as vehicles blast by me over double-yellow lines. I risk a glance at the angry faces of the drivers but grip the wheel. Ten and two. Ten and two. Focus. Concentrate. Why are they going so fast? Don’t they know? Don’t they know we all hang by a thread? More blaring. My gaze darts to the rear-view mirror and I sob, “I can’t go any faster!” I just can’t. The highway speed limit is 80 kilometres an hour and my speedometer reads 60.
I am going home to Whistler. Halfway there, I stop by Kevin and Vicki’s place in Squamish to pick up Jim’s pack that Keith and Graeme have brought back from Alaska. Kevin and I sit against a log in the sun eating sandwiches.
“I went through Jim’s pack and pulled out the food so it wouldn’t go bad. Hope you don’t mind,” Kevin informs me. He adds, “Yup, actually this cheese came from his pack. Didn’t think there was any point in wasting it.” The food lodges in my throat. I swallow hard to get it down, as if I’m swallowing a part of Jim, a part that I will never be able to get back. But Kevin’s pragmatism grounds me in the real world, the world in which Jim is dead.
Kevin and Vicki convoy with me the rest of the way home to Whistler.
I stride through our front door and am halfway up our stairs before I realize that Jim is not coming down to greet me with a hug. Grief sucks out my energy like a vacuum and I crumple. I reach my hand up to the solid cool wall. “How the hell am I going to live without you, Jim?”
The memorial service is in two days. There will be a slideshow about Jim’s life and a display of his accomplishments. I have returned home to gather memories, to look through the binders and binders of slides, to put Jim’s life in a box.
Vicki finds the large colour proofs of the two books Jim wrote, and her eyes light up. “I’d love to make a display of these, Sue. What do you think?”
What do I think? I want to keep everything remotely attached to Jim locked away forever so that I don’t lose anything else in my life.
“That would be fine, but please bring them back,” I reply.
I rifle through boxes in the garage and find the five by seven photograph of Jim dressed in a suit, tie and polished shoes. He shakes the Governor General’s hand and accepts a medal. The Meritorious Service Medal recognizes individuals who have performed an exceptional deed or an activity that brought honour to their community or to Canada. Memories swim through my brain and I float away.
One evening, almost a year after Jim returned from K2, he received an official-looking envelope in the mail. He gawked at me with wide eyes. I feigned innocence.
“Wow! I’ve won the Governor General’s Meritorious Service Medal!” Jim exploded.
“Really?”
He leaned forward and guffawed like a child not able to contain his enthusiasm. “The ceremony is in Quebec City!”
“I love Quebec City!”
He sucked in a breath and stopped. “You knew.”
“Yes. I nominated you and Dan.”
That September, Jim and I travelled to Quebec City with Dan’s wife Patti and her son Ryan. The trees radiated deep burnt reds, oranges and yellows so that entire hillsides glowed. We walked the cobbled streets and stopped to admire the work of artists.
Patti accepted Dan’s award posthumously. Jim grinned and received his medal for being the first Canadian to summit K2. I was proud.
I lay the photo on the pile to take to Vancouver and turn my attention to the slides. Kevin hunches over the light table, sorting the square pieces as if figuring out a jigsaw puzzle. More than 20 years of Jim’s adventures: Alaska, South America, Africa, India, Nepal and North America. Ice climbing, skiing, mountaineering, climbing, sailing … the memories dance like fireflies. Which ones to choose? I peer at the raft crashing through the vertical waves of the Karnali River in Nepal and I remember that I almost lost Jim before, four years earlier.
I jerk my head up at the sound of the doorbell. My eyes refocus and I hear Kevin breathing beside me.
“I’ll get it.” I need a break.
“Hi, Keith, hey, Julia.” I hug them and Keith smiles at me, but his eyes stay sad. Julia joins the others in the office to look at slides, but Keith lags behind and turns to me in the dark hallway.
“I brought these for you.” He holds up a gold chain, spinning on the end of which is a gold ring. I put my hand out instinctively, but when the cool of the metal hits my flesh I cover my mouth with my other hand and pitch forward as if I am going to throw up.
“Oh, God.”
“Oh, man, I didn’t want to upset you,” Keith turns away and then turns back. There is nowhere for him to go.
“Thank you for bringing them,” I manage to say, and I slip the chain over my neck so that Jim’s wedding ring nestles near my heart.
Keith fidgets. “You know it wasn’t the first time that Jim walked close to the line.”
“Yeah, I know.” I had walked there with him. But Jim always came home. He promised he would. He had “too much to live for.” Our love was special and he would never jeopardize it. I trusted him. I lived by this truth.
I had to.
Jim’s true lover, the one he wooed and caressed, was the line between life and death. Each time he came safely home after stepping so close to that line, a life force surged inside of him. He always acknowledged his luck but at the same time grew more and more confident that perhaps he would escape the basic rules of life.
Jim said that driving the mountain highway was the most dangerous thing he did. Our society tolerates the risk of driving because it is part of daily life and because it serves a purpose. Mountaineering is harder to justify.
Keith and I move upstairs and I change the subject. “What did you guys talk about on the trip?”
“The last night in our tent, we talked about spirituality. You know, whether or not we believe in God, what it means to us to be spiritual. When it came to Jim’s turn, he mimicked wielding a light sabre, sound effects and all. ‘Use the force Luke.’ We all laughed.”
“Did Jim say anything about the book he was reading?” I finger my bottom lip.
“Oh yeah, I saw him reading it, Fatherhood, the one by that comedian. He seemed to enjoy it. He laughed quite a bit and read a few passages to us.”
I sigh. I was the driving force behind us having a child, and I thought maybe the pressure was too much for Jim. He wasn’t able to focus properly. He’d made a mistake because he worried about having a baby …
“What about in the morning, when you woke up?”
“You know, Jim shot upright in his sleeping bag when he first woke up and grabbed for his journal. He scribbled something.”
I rustle through Jim’s pack to find the journal. Keith peers over my shoulder as I read, “Wash sleeping bag.” We laugh.
The doorbell rings again and I hustle down the stairs. When I see Scott through the glass, he bows his head. I catch a glimpse of his dark brown eyes.
“Hi.”
“Hi. Um, I just didn’t feel like being alone.” He shrugs.
“Come on in. Keith and Julia and Kevin and Vicki are here. You’re welcome to hang out.” I open the door wider.
His tall frame floats past me into the room as if he is hollow. Jim was a fellow guide, and his death ignites a fear: they are all mortal.
My eyes sting from squinting at slides. I choose photos of me and Jim together: under a waterfall in Nepal, on top of Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa, faces shining in the sun heli-skiing near Whistler, arms wrapped around one another at my parents’ place, slow dancing at our wedding … so many photos, so many trips. I want to bronze all of these memories, solidify them so that they cannot fade.
That afternoon, I beg the local photo lab to enlarge and frame half a dozen images for Jim’s service. Rush job.
When darkness comes and everyone has gone home, I curl up in bed and snuggle Jim’s black and red toque under my cheek like a security blanket. He was wearing it when he fell. It touched him after I did. The acrid smell of Jim’s fear lingers in the soft fleece, and it does not feel like a lifeline. It smells like death. Connor’s words echo, “Auntie Sue, isn’t it lonely in that king-sized bed now?”
That night I hear a noise.
I creep downstairs and follow the glow of light that seeps through the cracks around the guest bedroom door. I steady myself on the wall to listen. A shuffling sound … then another noise … yes, there it is, a familiar sigh. My feet slide forward as if I am on a tightrope. Step by step I make my way down the hallway, brushing my hand along the wall for balance. I hold my breath, ease the door open, squint into the light and strain to see long before the door is out of the way. I spy two wheels, an armrest and the broad curve of a well-muscled back. The rest of the body rummages in the closet. I catch my breath loudly because I recognize his back. And then his blond head comes into view and I know for certain. It is Jim! He isn’t dead! He is just hurt!
“Hey!” He laughs.
“Oh!” I hug him, crying and laughing. Then, with superhuman strength, I lug him in his wheelchair upstairs to our bedroom, and we giggle about how we are going to fool around.
When I wake up, I slide my hand over the space beside me. The sheets are cold.
I get into the car and drive back to Vancouver, to Jim’s funeral.