In January 2002 my year is up and it is time to return to Trek. I move back into my parents’ suite in Vancouver and resume the routine of driving back to Whistler every weekend. When Scott is not guiding or scouting locations for Eco-Challenge, we spend time together. I am excited to see him but feel relieved when I am once again on my own. Before he leaves for a three-week trip to Jordan, we meet for dinner. I chat about school, the kids, Habby. Scott strokes his glass. My words begin to run together.
“Is something wrong?”
Scott takes a gulp of his wine and breathes out, “I don’t want to have a baby.”
I grit my teeth and look past him. No, don’t leave me. I will do anything. Just don’t leave me. The old Sue, the person I know and love, who loved Jim, hangs by a thread. Scott is my hope of resurrecting the past, of reversing Jim’s death, of keeping Sue alive. I bring fear to my relationship with Scott: my fear of accepting Jim’s death and of losing myself. I will believe anything to calm this fear.
While Scott is away in Jordan, we e-mail and talk on the phone. He knows I will not accept a relationship where my partner does not want to have a child.
“We love each other. Love is the most important thing. There must be a way for us to be together.” I encourage Scott to believe, too. He wants to be my knight in shining armour.
Scott and I continue to see each other. That summer, we plan an overnight mountaineering trip to climb the highest peak in the Whistler area, Wedge Mountain. As I sweat under my load and lean into the steep trail, Scott comments, “It’s good to see that my girl can carry a heavy pack and keep a good pace.” I flush with pride. In less than three hours, we cover the 11 kilometres and 1200 metres of elevation gain to reach the opaque turquoise waters of glacier-fed Wedgemount Lake. We set up the tent on a bed of pebbles ground smooth by the glacial ice, and the peak of Wedge towers above us.
The alarm rings at 1:30 a.m. and I feel for my headlamp in the dark. I dress without unzipping my sleeping bag but the cold air sneaks in and my teeth chatter.
Scott cocks his ear. “What’s that?” Boots crunch past on the frozen ground outside of our tent. “I can’t believe they got up this early!” Scott laments, referring to the other climbing party camped farther down the lake. “Let’s go! Hurry.”
“Okay.” I fumble with my gloves and try to keep a straight face. Scott is even more competitive than I am.
I stomp down hard to get the teeth of my crampons to bite the glacier. Crystals shatter under my weight, echoing through the amphitheatre of snow, rock and ice. Crunch, crunch, crunch. The odd clink of metal dangling from my harness bounces into the black. The higher we get, the thicker the darkness feels. It envelops me like cotton wool and I fall into a meditative step.
By the time we step over the chasm where the glacier ice has pulled away from the rock of the mountain, the sun has warmed my fingers and toes. The other climbing party has taken a different route, and we reach the summit ridge well in front of them. “Yahoo!” Scott looks at the figures below us and then at the summit peak.
Scott packs down steps in the snow as he makes his way up the sharp ridge. I look down to my left at the steep snow slope and decide to keep my eyes focused straight ahead. I stretch my stride to follow Scott’s long-legged prints until we are on bare rock, 50 metres from the summit. Scott steps aside and motions for me to go ahead. He follows silently and I wonder if he contemplates our route down.
At the cairn marking the top, I turn 360°.
“You can see Mount Baker!”
“Yup,” Scott reclines on the rocks, squinting in the sun.
I kneel down in front of him. “It’s beautiful.”
His eyes well up. “Yes. This is where I was going to ask you to marry me.”
“Wow,” I swallow, take his hand, and then add, “so are you still going to ask me?” Scott laughs and pulls me to him and kisses me.
“Yes,” he says. “Will you marry me, Sue?”
“Yes, I will.”
When I tell my parents they hug me. Glenda cries. People are happy to hear the news. I am getting on with my life. I am better. But none of my friends really know Scott. He’s not around much. Jim’s younger brother Kevin and I climb one of the neighbourhood peaks one day. As we plunge into the deep snow, revelling in the meditative nature of our repetitive task, our senses tingling and alive, Kevin turns to me and says, “I’m happy for you with Scott. He’s a good guy. I support you. But you know, some people are saying you’re dishonouring Jim’s memory by being with another mountain guide.”
“Oh.” I don’t know what else to say. I feel enough guilt about carrying on without Jim.
I launch into my new fantasy.
Scott will leave for Fiji before I return from my trip to Africa with the Alzheimer Society team, so we will not see each other for three months. Scott suggests I come to Fiji in September. I arrange a 10-day leave from Trek, but my gut feels uneasy because I am committing to Scott. When he picks me up at the airport in Fiji after three months of not seeing each other, I relax into his strong arms and breathe in his familiar smell. We sail, surf, hike and horseback ride in this stunning country. Only one of his colleagues congratulates me on our engagement and his friends seem quiet. Something feels wrong.