The Ascent(6)

“I told you,” I said, not knowing if I’d ever said these words to her or not, “I can’t do it anymore. It’s left me.”

“Are you so sure? When was the last time you even tried sculpting something?”

“Before the accident, I was sculpting every day in class—”

“I don’t mean at the college. I mean for real, in real life. Not something that takes you fifty minutes to mold out of clay. I’m talking about the kind of sculpting you used to do before I knew you. The work that made you happy and got your face on the cover of that magazine you’ve got framed …” She glanced at the empty square of wall beside the front door—the spot where a crooked little nail jutted erect, suddenly so obvious I was surprised she hadn’t noticed earlier. “Why did you take it down?”

“It accidentally fell and broke,” I said. This was only partially true.

Seemingly defeated, she flopped onto the sofa. She looked like she wanted to hit me. Instead, she shook her head, something like a coy smile teasing the corners of her mouth. She brought her hands up and rested her chin on them. A spray of freckles covered her arms.

“Let’s play,” I said, placing the bottle of Macallan on the floor. I started setting up the chessboard that sat on the coffee table between us.

“No.” Marta stood.

“What?”

“I’ve got a date.”

“No shit?”

“You always sound surprised.”

“I always am. Who is he?”

“He’s no one you know.”

“That’s not what I meant. What does he do?”

“He’s a bartender.”

“Maybe I do know him.”

“Ha. Seriously, he’s just a nice guy, nothing fantastic. But I’m not getting any younger.”

“So you’re thinking a bartender’s the way to go, huh?”

“Cool it. I’m watching my life tick by.” And for whatever reason, this statement caused something to turn over inside her—that much was evident by the change in her expression—and she cocked her hip and looked at me from beneath her brow. “What the hell possessed you to explore the cave on your own that day?”

In all this time, she’d never asked the question. Right now my answer was a long time coming. “Guess I was just looking for something,” I said, continuing to set up the chessboard. I would play by myself if I couldn’t convince Marta to stay.

“Looking for what?”

I shrugged. “Can’t answer that.”

“Can’t? Why not? Someone holding a gun to your head? Or is it some vast government secret?”

“The latter one sounds cool. Let’s go with that.”

“Christ, Tim. Sometimes you’re just goddamn impossible.”

I almost told her about Hannah right then—about how it was Hannah’s ghost that had helped me out of the cave and beckoned me toward the highway. I would have never found that highway on my own, and I surely would have died in that cave if not for Hannah.

But I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to discuss such things, because that story was connected to another story, a current story, and I didn’t want to tell that one at all. Given the physical and psychological stress my body had been under at the time of the accident, seeing Hannah’s ghost was easily explained away. Her image was a figment of my imagination, summoned from the depths of my memories to the forefront of my world while in a state of excruciating pain and the onset of hypothermia. I could have claimed to have been led from the cave by Elvis, and it could be blown off with a subtle grin and a wave of the hand. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was where the story led me—to the here and now—and how such claims were no longer dismissed as easily.

Because since the accident I’d seen Hannah in my apartment. Most recently, three nights ago, standing outside on the balcony …

“What’s wrong?” A furrow creased Marta’s brow. “You look frightened all of a sudden.”

My palms were sweating. I swallowed and my spit felt granulated, like sand. When I spoke, my voice cracked as if I were going through puberty all over again. “Guess I was just thinking back on the whole thing.”

“It must have been horrible. But it’s over now. You escaped. You’re alive.”

I cleared my throat. “Stay. Just for one game.”

“Stop it.” She came and kissed the top of my head. It was such a motherly act that I felt a pang of nostalgia for my childhood. “I have a date and I need to go. I’ll stop by and see you tomorrow, okay?”

“Unless you get lucky tonight. You know how sharp those bartenders can be. By the way, tell him I said hello, whoever he is.”

“You’re a regular riot. There’re fresh cold cuts in the fridge. Try to stay out of trouble.”

I winked.

She left.

2



WHEN NINE O’CLOCK ROLLED AROUND. I WAS STILL

thinking of Hannah. The apartment had grown cold and dark, and the air that came in through the balcony doors carried with it the gritty scent of the Chesapeake.

I sat in my wheelchair and watched the first hour of Rear Window until my memories got the better of me; I began to trick myself, believing I saw Hannah in the periphery of my vision. Once, as Jimmy Stewart looked out across his courtyard with a telephoto lens, I thought the face of the leotard-clad dancer in the opposite apartment bore Hannah’s face. This was stupid, of course … but I still reversed the DVD and paused it on that frame nonetheless.