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The bar exams were hard, but I felt fairly confident after I finished them. The very next day I took a flight to San Fran for Roberta’s baby shower. I stayed within the feminine milieu of the shower to avoid Owen, and it worked surprisingly well. I barely saw him at all.

The event itself was held at Owen’s parent’s sprawling house in Marin. The large sun parlor had been decorated with balloons and streamers. The bannisters were hung with lots of little baby booties. There were about thirty women, roughly equally split between Owen’s relatives and Roberta’s friends. I knew a few of her friends and chatted with them.

We had soft drinks, cake, and exclaimed appropriately as Roberta opened the shower gifts. There was wine and beer for the guests, but I sat with Roberta most of the time and did not partake. On the drive back to Owen and Roberta’s apartment on Nob Hill, I suggested a walk on the Embarcadero. Roberta took the detour with her usual grace and parked. We walked along the piers hand in hand. I thought through a dozen ways to bring up what I had in mind, and finally discarded the idea of a roundabout approach.

“Roberta,” I began. “In this context, maybe, I should say Bobbie.”

She stiffened immediately.

“I contacted Jack,” I continued. “I want to meet Brigette. But I won’t do it behind your back.”

She did not respond, just kept walking, then sat down at the first bench we came to. I sat down as well and put an arm around her. She leaned her head on my shoulder, and in a seeming role reversal, I felt the older one. We sat in silence for a while, looking at the passing cyclists and inline skaters, then out at the bridge over the bay.

“All these years,” she said in a voice so low that I had to strain to hear her over the background noise. “All these years, I’ve lived a lie. I’ve been the princess, spoiled and pampered, held up as such a paragon. The pretty sister, the smart sister, the successful sister. But I’ve been concealing the ugliness inside, and it’s been eating away at me. I’m relieved I can finally drop the mask with you, Johanna, and let you see what a repulsive person I really am.”

“Don’t say that, Roberta –”

“Let me say my piece, Johanna. Nothing can excuse what I did, but I want to tell you the truth. You, especially. Jack already knows.”

“Go on, then.”

“All those years ago when Brigette was born, she bonded with me on my breast, she clung to me, a little bundle with a fuzz of soft baby hair. I can still feel her here.” She put her arms out as though cuddling an infant. “Her smell and taste, all her senses and imprinting were full of me, nothing but me. But I hardened my heart and gave her up. That’s the monster in me.”

Her eyes slowly filled, big tears formed, then slowly slipped down her cheeks. Two precious pearls that hung on her jawline before dripping to the ground.

“Jack had all these cockamamie ideas about how we could keep her, how he would take her with him to base after base, army daycare in every family station. But he was special forces, was always being deployed at a moment’s notice, it could never have worked.”

“No,” I said, nodding.

“There were more than two hundred applicants for her at the adoption agency, Jack and I narrowed down them down to about a dozen couples that we interviewed. We both got a really good feeling about the couple that we selected. The day we gave her to them, I couldn’t look at her. In the months that followed, I wanted her to bond with her new mother. I didn’t want to confuse her with my smell, the milk welling from my breasts, so I stayed away. Weeks became months, and months became years. The longer I stayed away, the harder became to go to see her, the more difficult the explanations for my absence.”

She sniffled, took a tissue from her purse, and blew her nose daintily. Roberta was always elegant, even in her most mundane actions.

“Jack went to see her, regular as clockwork. Her adoptive parents were very good about visitation, always accommodating, encouraging even. They never came between Brigette and Jack. As she got older, he took her hiking, camping, fishing, even hunting. Jack’s like Dad in so many ways, he takes care of people.”

“He’s a sheepdog,” I murmured, but I don’t think Roberta heard me.

“Sometimes I think I live for the times Jack calls me after his visits. I pepper him with questions, I want to know everything! How is she feeling, what is she studying, is she making friends, is she happy?”

“I know,” I said. “Jack told me.”

She put a hand on my arm, and we were both quiet for a while. I listened to the seagulls mewing, and then a passing powerboat filled the air with sound.

“Go see my daughter, your niece,” Roberta whispered. “Tell her, …, tell her she has every right to hate me. But also tell her, …” Her shoulders shook in my arms. “… that I love her with all my heart. That my dearest wish is for her to be happy. That if she will give me permission, …, I would love to visit her. But I will completely understand if she wants nothing to do with me.”

“I’ll tell her,” I said. “If she’ll see me.”

“She has no reason to hate you, Johanna. You’re the good sister.”

Roberta drove me back to the airport the next day and kissed me at airport security.

“I wish you’d take the California bar and get a job here, Johanna,” she said. “We’re orphans now, we only have each other.”

*

When I got back to New York, my running regimen became an even bigger part of my life. Jerry and I were in the final few weeks of training before Boston. I was always tempted to go harder, but Jerry kept me in check with his personal trainer’s discipline.

“Stick to the training plan,” he said. “Marathon training is all about teaching your body to accept a steady diet of pain. There’s no point in pushing for faster speeds now – you’ve got what you’ve got. You just want to make sure you don’t hit the wall on the day.”

A group from the club had rented a large van and a block of rooms in a nice bed and breakfast not far from Hopkinton. Jerry and I joined the group, paid our dues and went to the pickup point early on Sunday. There were twelve of us in the fifteen-seat van, so with our bags it was a bit crowded.

We got to Hopkinton around lunch time, picked up our keys at the bed and breakfast, and went to the athlete’s village in Hopkinton High School. After getting our registration materials, we had lunch together before separating to do our pre-race shakedown runs. Jerry and I ran an easy five kilometers together.

We all reconvened for dinner at an Italian restaurant. Everyone had their pre-race jitters, some were just better at concealing it than others. I had no particular goal in mind other than to finish without ‘hitting the wall’, so I was calmer than most. I listened to the stories of the more experienced runners, for some of them had run Boston over twenty times. I filed away items of information that I deemed important.

We checked out of the bed and breakfast on Marathon Monday morning, drove to Hopkinton and parked the van. We wished each other best of luck and separated to go to our start corrals. I was in the 3:30 corral with two others, a thirtysomething woman and a fortysomething man. We exchanged inane running chatter as we stretched in the corral, waiting for the gun.

The gun went off, and we began moving in slow motion. The huge mass of runners, corral after corral, created a traffic jam on the narrow road. It took quite a while to just get to the start line! I was pleased that my chip would record when I crossed the start and not penalize me for all the time it took to get there.

My memory of the race itself falls into four phases. The first phase was from the start out of Hopkinton to about the seven-mile mark. Once the jam of runners opened up, I was jogging easily, maintaining a strong pace with relatively little effort. But I had filed away the nugget of advice from the more experienced Boston runners that the first seven miles or so is predominantly downhill, and to hold back a bit. I knew I could go faster, but I did not, allowing dozens of runners to pass me on both sides. This was difficult, as I had to tamp down my competitive instinct. I hoped my restraint would pay off later in the race.

The second phase started at Waverly street in Framingham, where the course flattened out. This phase was one of “maintenance”, with a focus on not slowing down from the good pace I had from the first downhill phase. The goal was the maintain form and strength and arrive at the third and hardest phase in the best possible condition. I began to feel the effort and my heartrate correspondingly rose, slowly and steadily. This phase had a cheery ending as we ran through the Wellesley College campus, where dozens of pretty girls screamed encouragement at us. Every now and then a girl would run out and kiss a runner on the cheek. I had scrawled Dad’s nickname for me on my race number in big letters – SKIPPER. I smiled and blew kisses as the Wellesley girls screamed, “Go, Skipper, go!”

The downhill from Wellesley led into the third phase, the legendary and infamous Newton hills. They began about mile sixteen and culminated with Heartbreak Hill that topped out at mile twenty-one. I felt good at the start of the first climb and found that just by maintaining my pace, I was overhauling runners. Obviously, with the more than 25,000 runners in the race, it was impossible to tell whether these were the same runners who had run by me at the beginning. Nonetheless, it felt good to be passing a lot of people on every hill, rather than being passed. To be honest, the infamous Heartbreak Hill did not feel that hard to me. Halfway up, I shifted up a gear and ran harder, allowing my heartrate to climb toward the red zone. I got to the top and felt elation, for I knew it was downhill all the way to the finish.

The fourth and final phase was the run from the top of Heartbreak through Brookline and into downtown. I found my elation was rather premature, for the downhill was much more punishing on my tired quads than I expected. I struggled to maintain my position the field, and not lose ground. I told myself that this was the hardest part of the marathon, that I had to fight through the pain. I kept reminding myself that the finish was not far now. The miles went by much slower and I eagerly looked for each fresh mile marker. Then as we got on Commonwealth avenue, I was lifted by the cheers of the hundreds of Boston University students lining the route.

A stocky guy in a US Marine T-shirt went by me. The back of his T-shirt was emblazoned with ‘One more mile, oorah!’ I fell in behind him, taking pace. Just having him set the pace made it a lot easier, and the pain receded from my conscious. We got to Kenmore Square together and as we passed Fenway I came up beside him. Our eyes met, he smiled, and I said, “Oorah!”

“It’s not that hard, is it?” he said, giving me a cheery smile.

“Not sitting behind you, it isn’t,” I replied.

“Just over a mile now,” he said. “Let’s hit it!”

I gave him a thumbs up, and picked up the pace. I felt the hammering in my thighs, but I wasn’t going to give up on him now. We turned and thundered up the small rise on Hereford Street and I could smell the finish. We hit the left turn into Boylston Street, the marine looked at me, and I saw the lines in his face. He was older than I thought at first, in his forties, maybe even his fifties.

“Go, girl!” he ground out. “Don’t wait for me!”

I gave him the best salute I could manage, and sprinted away down Boylston to the finish. I only dimly registered the huge finish line timer. I later found out my official time was 3:21 and change, a couple minutes faster than my qualifying marathon.

Jerry was waiting for me at the finish, but I ignored him. I turned around, bent over with my hands on my thighs, and looked at the finishers continuing to stream over the line. The marine came home and I enveloped him in a hug. I held him tight for longer than I should have.

“Thanks, nurse,” he said. He gave me another smile after I released him. “I’m all better now.”

“I didn’t mean to be presumptuous,” I said. “But my dad was a marine. Thanks for leading me home.”

“He’d have been proud of you,” he said, catching the past tense and the wistfulness in my expression.

*

As I expected, Jerry was upset about my interacting with the unknown marine and ignoring him. He wouldn’t talk to me as we walked through the cooldown area, collected our medals and got our finisher pictures taken. He wouldn’t take a picture with me.

Draped in our finish line heat sheets, we picked up our bags. The marathon management had transported them from the start. It was over seventy degrees F, so we didn’t really need the heat sheets.

“I had a terrible race in the heat, 3:10,” was the first thing Jerry said to me. “But I’m really horny right now. Give me a blowjob.”

He pointed to a narrow alley.

I didn’t want to, but I wasn’t sure how to refuse, so I said, “Sure.”

We went into the alley, used our heat sheets to create a makeshift tent and I went down on my knees before him. I recalled his lesson and swallowed him. I held his hips with my hands and just used my lips and tongue on his shaft. All the while, I sucked on him strongly each time he thrust into my mouth.

I must have got it right because he did not last long. I disengaged as he began to cum and let him spew his load on to the street.

“You didn’t swallow my cum juice!” he complained. “I’ve made a mess of my tights.”

“We’ve got to change anyway,” I said.

Half an hour later we were changed, and in the shuttle back to Hopkinton.

I was quiet in the van on the ride back to New York, listening to everyone recount their marathon experiences in great detail. Jerry had a lot to say, but nothing to me. When others asked me I said, “I’m pleased with how I did” and left it at that.

*

Shortly after we got back from Boston, I got a text from Jack out of the blue with Brigette’s phone number and address. He added a line at the bottom of the text – Would you like me to come with you?

I’ll be fine, I texted back. But I’d love to see you.

Still out of the country. I’ll text you when I get back.

I was curious about what Jack did for a living, but he’d never been forthcoming, so I assumed he did not want to be asked about it.

I called Brigette in early May, a few weeks after the marathon. I hoped to catch her soon after she finished her final exams. She did not pick up and rather than leave her a voicemail, I sent her text.

Brigette, I got your contacts from Jack Halvorsen. I hope you will call me back.

My phone rang within the hour.

“Who is this?” The voice was surprisingly like Roberta’s.

“Brigette, my name is Johanna von Eschenbach. Please don’t hang up on me.”

“What do you want?”

“I would like to meet you.”

“I don’t want anything to do with the von Eschenbachs.”

“Please, Brigette …”

“Why do you want to see me? I don’t need you now.”

“Of course, you don’t need me, Brigette. But I need you.”

“Then where have you been all these years?”

“I only recently learned about you. I’m contacting you as soon as I could.”

“Your sister hasn’t bothered to contact me. What’s up with you?”

“I can’t speak for your mother –”

“She’s not my mother! I have a mother, the one who brought me up.”

“I’m sorry, Brigette, really I am. Please give me a chance. I’m in New York, I’ll come up to Boston whenever you want.”

“I’m leaving for a camping trip to New Hampshire tomorrow, I’ll be gone for about a week. Call me after I get back.”

“Who are you going with?”

“By myself,” she said, sounding a bit defensive. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

“Okay.”

I hung up and paced my small apartment for half an hour. She sounded very unfriendly, but I thought I heard a subtext that was much less belligerent. On a whim, I rapidly packed my backpack for a multi-day camping trip, went to the Chinatown bus terminal, and bought a ticket to Boston.

I went to her address in Cambridge. It was a modest house about a mile from Harvard Square, one of those cut up into multiple student apartments. It was past midnight, so I called her rather than ringing the doorbell.

“What you do want, Johanna?” Again, the harsh tone, with the undercurrent of – what? I could not be sure.

“I’d like to come on your camping trip with you.”

“You can’t. I’m leaving first thing in the morning.”

“I’m here,” I said. “Downstairs.”

“What?”

That got to her.

“Please let me in.” She did not respond immediately, so I went on. “I understand if you don’t want me in your house. I have all my camping stuff, I can find a place to bed down for the night and come back first thing in the morning.”

“The cops don’t like people setting up camp in Cambridge parks,” she said. “You better come in.”

I heard her steps on the creaky stairs. She opened the front door, and stood by to let me into the foyer. I entered and we looked at each other, taking stock.

My first impression was shock, for she looked a lot more like me than Roberta. If anyone were to describe the two of us, they would have used the exact same words. She wasn’t a doppelganger or anything, but every observable feature was the same. We were almost exactly the same height and build, same dark hair and dark eyes, the same expression, held ourselves the same way, both pleasant looking, but not beauties.

I could see that she was trying very hard to give me a furious look, but it kept slipping to reveal hints of the smile lurking behind it. Her eyes could not lie and they welcomed me. Just as there had been instant positive chemistry between Jack and me, I now felt the same with his daughter. It was exactly the opposite of my interactions with my brother-in-law Owen.

She turned and climbed the creaky stairs without saying anything and I followed her. The upstairs hallway had numerous numbered doors, each to one of the apartments. She produced a key and opened the door to one. It was small studio with a single bed by the window. Her backpack was ready and propped against a wall. There were snowshoes and crampons hanging on it, and a nice pair of downhill skis leaning next to it.

I unslung my backpack and put it by hers. I saw her glance approvingly at the snowshoes hanging on my pack.

“I’ve been planning this trip for almost a year. I’m going to hike the Presidentials, it’s about a twenty-mile point-to-point. I’m going to be moving pretty fast, if you can’t keep up, I won’t wait for you.” She saw me looking at the skis questioningly. “When I get back to the car, I’ve making the short drive and skiing Tuckerman’s. The conditions are ideal right now.”

Tuckerman’s Ravine! That legendary run, the steepest in the East, maybe in whole country!

“You wouldn’t have some old skis I could use, would you?” I asked.

“My old pair are in the closet,” she replied, jerking her thumb. “They’re the ones I used through middle school and high school. They’re pretty beat up, and the boots are a bit small for me now.”

“Can I take a look?”

“Be my guest,” she said.

I pulled the skis out of the closet. They were short, just 165s, had numerous scours, and the edges were chipped. The boots were a cheap, rear-entry model. I tried them on, and they were a bit tight for me as well.

“Looks like we’re the same size in boots,” I said.

“You want to ride those down Tuckerman’s? They haven’t been sharpened in years.”

“Better than nothing,” I said.

Brigette woke me while it was still dark and gave me coffee and a muffin. Then we piled everything into her ancient Volvo and were rolling before first light. She drove us north out of the city.

The first bit of the drive was a bit tense. I kept trying to initiate a conversation about harmless topics like the weather and she answered with grunts or monosyllables. Shortly after we crossed the New Hampshire state line, she suddenly turned to me and said, “You’re nothing like I expected at all.”

“What did you expect?” I asked.

“Are you really that woman’s sister?”

“Yes,” I said, assuming she meant Roberta. “She’s a very loving person.”

“That’s what Jack keeps telling me,” she said.

“You call him Jack?”

“Well, I already have a mom and a dad. They’re the only parents I’ve ever known. Jack just parachutes into my life every now and then, spends a few days, a couple weeks at most. And then he’s gone again, God knows where.”

“He was in the army,” I ventured.

“Oh, I’m sure he’s still up to something. He says he’s in international sales. But he’s always vague about what he does, where he’s been, where he’s going.”

I digested that tidbit, and let it pass. After a few miles, I tried again.

“Jack must tell you about your mother, …, I mean, my sister.”

“He’s always making excuses for her. But she’ll never be my mom. I want nothing to do with her.”

It began to drizzle, and Brigette put the wipers on. The blades were old. They squeaked and streaked the windshield. It began to get fogged up in spite of the wipers and she put on the blower to clear it. The car rapidly got as hot as an oven.

“The trouble with old cars,” I joked.

“This was Mom’s,” she responded. “She had it for twenty years, but didn’t put a lot of miles on it.”

“Sounds like my mom,” I said. “She had a Mercedes that she drove throughout my life. It was the only car she ever had, I think. It was already old when I was born.”

“Does she still have it?”

“Mom died last year. We sold the car.”

“I’m sorry. About your mom, not the car.”

“She was your grandmother. You would have loved her.”

“Well, that woman kept me from seeing her.”

“What’s the extended forecast?” I asked, quickly changing the subject.

“Mix of sun, sleet, snow,” she replied. “We’ll park at the southern end and take the shuttle to the northern trailhead. My friend did it last year, he recommended doing it north to south. That’s the traditional direction.”

“We’re going to do the whole of the Presidential traverse?” I asked.

“I didn’t ask you to come,” she said. “You can just camp out at the southern end and wait for me.”

“It’ll be safer if we stay together. I won’t slow you down.”

She shrugged.

We got to the parking lot, she found a spot for the car, and we unloaded our gear. It was a gray, miserable day. The drizzle had turned to sleet as Brigette predicted. I double socked my feet and laced my boots up tight to give my ankles as much support as possible. We both layered up in the car: base layer, inner layer, mid layer, outer fleece, topped off by a wind and waterproof shell. Her clothing and equipment were newer and more expensive than mine.

We got the shuttle to the Appalachia Trailhead and set off straightaway. I let her lead the way and set the pace. From the topo map, I knew that we were starting at just over 1,000 feet above sea level and that the hardest part of the hike was this first bit. It went straight up to Mount Madison at 5,367 feet in less than five miles.

It was even steeper than I expected and she seemed to be trying to burn me out. Every now and then she glanced over her shoulder, and when she saw I was right there, raised her pace a bit. I was working hard, but my Boston Marathon conditioning stood me in good stead. We got to Snyder Brook waterfalls just over two miles from the start and over 3,000 feet above sea level and she called a short halt. We ate granola bars and drank energy drink.

“You’ve hiked before,” she said.

“A bit,” I said.

“This is the hardest part,” she said. “We’ll push on to the summit of Mount Madison.”

The trail had been getting increasingly snowy as we climbed, so we donned our snowshoes before continuing. She led on, and I followed again. There were frequent patches of ice so I was glad for my snowshoes’ metal teeth. The snow was also deeper in places, and the shoes kept us from sinking. But it was slow going. It was harder for her since she was breaking trail.

“You want me to lead for a while?” I panted after a mile.

“No, I’m fine,” she huffed, and kept pushing on.

A half a mile further up, I asked again. This time she stood aside and let me move by her. I led the rest of the way up to the Madison summit, which was another mile uphill.

We took our second break there. In spite of the gray day, the view was spectacular, an alpine vista. I took several pictures with my phone before asking Brigette if I could take pictures of her. She nodded, and hammed for me. I also took a few selfies of the two of us. She was stiff as I put my arm around her shoulders to take them.

Approaching the Madison summit, the reason for this hike’s name became clear. The trail became a clear ridge path with drop-offs on both sides. We had crossed the tree line, so there was nothing around us but scrub, rock, snow, and ice. All of this combined to create maximum, sustained exposure. I’d been on ridge paths before, and above the tree line before, but this combination was a new experience for me.

The winds on the exposed ridge were quite severe, and we had to talk loudly to each other to be heard. I cinched my hood tighter, but the wind still whistled in my ears. Brigette led the way down from the Madison summit to the saddle and then pushed hard up the steep grade to Mount Adams. Toward the top, we were both bent over, using our hands to clamber up the slope that was at the limit between scrambling and outright climbing. I knew that I had ropes and carabiners in my pack, should the need arise.

The Adams summit was even windier and we could not hear each other without shouting. Brigette wordlessly pointed onward to the downhill trail, and I took the lead. The cloud cover was now too thick to see much and we did not take any more pictures.

The temperature dropped and the cold sleet turned thicker with bits of hail. I led the way down to the next saddle and turned uphill again without stopping. I kept checking over my shoulder per the standard procedure, and saw her determined expression. We’re so alike, I thought for the umpteenth time.

 I continued leading up to the summit of Mount Jefferson. The weather continued to deteriorate. The temperature kept falling, the windy kept rising, and the sleet grew heavier. It now stung every exposed patch of skin. We both had our goggles on, but they kept misting. I had to keep wiping the lenses with the squeegee on the thumb of my ski glove.

We did not stop at the Mount Jefferson summit. Brigette took over leading and scrambled downhill fast and rather dangerously to the next saddle. We found a bit of a lee here and took a brief stop to eat and drink again.

“We should camp soon and wait out the weather,” I said.

“It’s not that bad,” she replied. “Jack and I pushed on through much worse weather last year in Maine.”

“How far do you plan to go today?”

“We’ll spend the night in the Lake of the Cloud hut, just past Mount Washington.”

“You want to climb Mount Washington in this?” I asked, gesturing around. “It’s over two miles to the summit. I don’t think we can make it over the top before dark.”

“We can make it,” she said, confidently. “It’s less sustained steepness than we’ve done already. We’ll just have to push hard.”

“The visibility –” I began.

“I’ve got a headlamp.”

“So do I, but –”

“Listen, I didn’t ask you to come. And I warned you about slowing me down. You can camp if you want, I’m pushing on.”

“We’ll stay together,” I said, resigned. “That’s the first rule in the wilderness.”

She led on and I could see she was trying to raise the pace. The wind was strong enough to make every step along the ridge path treacherous. I wanted to tell her to concentrate on making each step secure rather than on speed, but I knew she wouldn’t listen. She was dead set on her goal. I did not have an altimeter, but I knew from my memory of reading the topo map on the shuttle that this entire section of the trail never dipped below 5,000 feet.

We summited Mount Clay at just over 5,500 feet, and she turned to me. I could see that she was tired, it showed on her face and especially in her eyes. Wordlessly, I passed her and took the lead heading down the short descent to the last high saddle before the climb to Mount Washington, the high point of the traverse at almost 6,300 feet. The winds grew ever higher, visibility was down to a few feet, and the sleet was unrelenting. We were in the clouds now, I could feel the clammy moisture that invaded even the best clothing.

Then the entire environment was lit up in a searing flash of pure light. Almost simultaneously, there was a crash so loud that it almost shattered my eardrums. Lightning and thunder! I knew we were about to be hit by a mountain squall. I’d been in one with Dad years ago, but as always with him, his presence had kept panic at bay.

Now it was up to me and I tried desperately to remember his exact sequence of commands.

“We need to get below the tree line now!” I bawled at Brigette above the roaring wind. As if to emphasize my words, there was another blinding flash of lightning and tumultuous crash of thunder, near simultaneous again. The strong smell of ozone induced by the nearness of the lightning strike stung my nostrils. “The next strike could fry us! If the wind doesn’t blow us off the ridge first!”

She turned to retrace our steps downhill, but I held her arm.

“That’s not fast enough!” I shouted as loud as I could. “Just follow me!”

I stepped off the edge of the ridge, exactly as I had with Dad all those years ago, and let gravity take me crashing downward. I hoped and prayed Brigette would follow. My headlamp gave me a few feet of light, and all I could see was the next step in front of me. I buried the teeth of my snowshoes in any patches of ice or snow that I could see. The mountainside opened up in front of me in slow motion. I was looking for two things – the tree line and a cliff drop off – hoping that the tree line would come first.

Dimly though the mist, I saw the outlines of black. At first, I could not be sure whether it was the trees or an abyss. Three more steps and I was sure – trees! I had never been so happy to see trees before. I got into their shelter, a mix of evergreen firs and bare maples, and kept pounding downward for another hundred yards. Then I used the trunks and branches to slow my headlong progress.

I leaned on a rock and looked back uphill. Brigette was about half a minute behind me. She saw me, slowed herself, and leaned forward with her hands on her knees, breathing hard.

“You’re crazy,” she said.

“Better than dead,” I replied.

She cracked a smile.

“What now?”

I pointed to the heavy flakes of snow that were whirling about us.

“Snow squall,” I said. “There’s going to be a whiteout in a few minutes. We need to hunker down. How soon can you get the tent up?”

“A couple minutes.”

“Let’s see if we can find a sheltered lee.”

We traversed the steep hillside more slowly now, for the immediate danger had passed. Lightning continued to flash, but it was far above us now, and separated by a few seconds from the thunder that followed.

We were in luck. We found a shallow depression in the mountainside, almost deep enough to be called a cave.

Brigette went to work putting up the tent. I gathered twigs and sticks and built a fire. We warmed ourselves over it for about ten minutes before I stamped it out. Then we crawled into the tiny tent together.

“We need to retain the body heat we got from the fire,” Brigette said. “Get in my sleeping bag with me, it’s pretty capacious.”

“Alright.”

We stripped off our outer layers and got in together in our tights and base layer T-shirts. She zipped up the bag. I put my arms around her and after a moment, she put her arms around me. She splayed her legs around my waist. We held each other and listened to one another’s steady heartbeat.

Holding her so close, I felt her body, smelt her skin. I felt the swells of her breasts, the hardness of her stiff nipples poking through the thin fabric of her sports bra and T-shirt. I even felt her pussy through our panties and tights, mashed against my haunch. Yet, I felt no sexual stimulation. It was as though my memories of female lovers were disconnected from my current existence. She snuggled against me comfortably, like a big baby.

“Your heart is a like a drum,” she whispered, after a few minutes. “So slow and steady.”

“I’m a runner,” I said. “I’ve always run.”

“What did you run last?”

“I ran Boston last month.”

“You might have told me.”

“You didn’t ask. What do you do?”

“Swim team, fencing, rowing,” she said. “I’ve skied since I was little.”

We lay together for a while, listening to the whistling wind.

“I’m glad you came,” she said. “How did you know what to do?”

“I was in a mountain snow squall once before. With my dad out west. I just did what he did.”

“My grandfather,” she said.

“Yes.”

“He was a marine, wasn’t he? Jack told me.”

“Yes.”

She was silent for a while, then her fingers brushed my cheeks.

“You’re crying,” she said.

“I always cry when I think about Dad. Especially now, when he just saved our lives.”

“I understand,” she said, gently.

*

The snow squall only lasted an hour, but then it was nightfall. The winds stayed high, alternately screaming and moaning throughout the night. Morning came reluctantly, the sun turning the skies from black to a leaden gray. We stayed hunkered down in the tent till almost noon, ate our food, and drank melted snow that I boiled on the fire.

“We should continue,” Brigette said.

“Yeah.”

We layered up again. I buried the remnants of our fire and we laced up our backpacks. I broke out my ropes and led the way back up to the ridge path. It would have been a difficult scramble, but it was relatively straightforward climb. We made it up in two pitches.

“You climb as well,” she said, as I recoiled my ropes and stowed them in my pack.

“I climbed with Dad ever since I can remember. I climb like I ski – it doesn’t look pretty, but I get the job done.”

She led the way up to the Mount Washington summit. The overnight snow was deep and both of us were grateful for our snowshoes. It was slow going and it was mid-afternoon by the time we summited. The weather was only slightly better than the previous day. The famous winds atop of America’s windiest point were still in evidence, but at least it wasn’t sleeting. We took a couple of quick pictures before heading down the other side.

It was a relatively short descent to the Lake of the Cloud hut in the saddle below. We made a quick stop for a hot coffee from the volunteers there, thanking them profusely.

“Where were you last night?” one of them asked us.

“We camped down below the tree line,” Brigette responded.

“Smart move,” the volunteer responded. “It was nasty out yesterday.”

Psychologically, everything seemed easy now. It was predominantly downhill, interrupted by climbs to the summits of Mount Monroe, Mount Eisenhower, Mount Pierce, and finally Mount Jackson. After what we had done, these seemed easy.

Brigette let me lead the final descent from Jackson back down to the parking lot and the car.

We loaded out backpacks into the car, unlayered and threw our clothes in the back seat. We took a selfie in our T-shirts, tights, and hiking boots. Brigette suddenly clasped me in a hug and held on, burying her face in my shoulder.

“I only met you a couple days ago, Johanna,” she said. “But I feel like I’ve known you all my life.”

“Me too,” I responded.

*

We found a campsite, put up the tent, and I fell asleep as soon as I zipped up my sleeping bag. It still felt like the middle of the night when Brigette shook me awake. We drove to Pinkham Notch Visitor Center, arriving well before first light.

We packed and hefted our daypacks. Then we slung our skis and poles on our backs by our packs. Brigette wore ski touring boots and crampons and I wished I had some too. I made do with my hiking boots and snowshoes, hanging the old rear-entry ski boots I’d borrowed from her on my daypack.

We followed the Tuckerman Ravine trail for two and a half miles to the Caretaker Cabin at Hermit Lake Shelter. Even though it was still dark, we already saw several other skiers. Some skinned by us, others were hiking like us.

We got to the Caretaker Cabin at first light. The volunteers there were cheerful and happy to dispense what they knew about the conditions of the day.

“Low avalanche risk today, folks,” said one to the captive audience. “Good snow, not as icy as it can be. Conditions are especially good in the right gully now, though it will soften up by the afternoon in the exposed sun. The left gully still has pretty deep snow.”

As we were turning away, another volunteer came up to Brigette and me.

“Excuse me,” he said, pointing at the skis and boots hanging on my back. “Are you going to use those to ski from the top today?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Do you mind if I take a look at them?”

I handed them over. He carefully examined the skis, then ran a fingernail down the edges testing the sharpness. Next, he went over the ski boots.

“Have you skied Tuckerman’s before?” he asked.

“No.”

“These skis are blunt,” he said. “You’re going to have almost no edge coming down. The boots are beginner crap. I’d strongly advise against trying the ravine on this equipment.”

“It’s all I’ve got,” I said. “I’ll be fine. I can take care of myself.”

“I don’t think you realize what you’re trying to do here,” he said. “The headwall at the top is about 50 degrees. It’s like skiing off a cliff. This is probably the steepest skiable slope in the world.”

“Are you going to stop me?”

“Well, it’s your life,” he said. “I’m just warning you. If you want to kill yourself, go ahead.”

We continued onward and in short order were at the base of the ravine. I saw what the volunteer meant now, for the ravine walls rose around us, looking forbidding even from the bottom. I knew from long experience that everything would look twice as steep from the top.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Brigette asked. “You could wait for me to come down and then take my new skis.”

“I’ve come all this way to ski it with you, Brigette,” I said. “I’ve skied a lot of steep stuff. Not as steep as this, but I know what to do. Which slope were you planning to do?”

“Left Gully is the least crazy,” she said. “He said it has good snow and it’s in the shade. I was going to start with that one.”
“You want to do more than one run?”

“Let’s take it one run at a time.”

I sat down on the ground and pulled a flathead screwdriver out of my daypack. I put Brigette’s battered old skis on the ground in front of me and used the screwdriver to tighten down the bindings as tight as they would go.

“I don’t want these to release on me,” I said to her. “There’s going to be a lot of pressure on the bindings.”

She nodded.

Putting away the screwdriver, I pulled out two ice tools. Then I shouldered the daypack, skis, and boots.

“Ready,” I said, noting that she had her ice tools in her hands.

We got onto the slope and started climbing. There were several people ahead of us up the slope, and we saw several coming up behind us. The sun came over the ridge top, providing welcome brightness and warmth. It was a steady upslope of 45 degrees, and sometimes a bit steeper, but nothing that required ropes or pitches. I led the way up, glancing down through my feet at Brigette for time to time, pleased to see she was climbing easily.

I broke I a sweat after about fifteen minutes, and listened to my steady breathing. The teeth of my snowshoes bit nicely, though I would have preferred to have crampons like Brigette. We got to the ridgetop without incident.

Whenever I was on challenging terrain, I always liked to get over the headwall as soon as possible. “Commitment quiets the butterflies in your stomach,” as Dad used to say.

I quickly stowed my hiking boots in my daypack and lashed my snowshoes to its exterior. Then I put on the rear entry ski boots and cinched them as tight as they would go. In a way, I was glad they were a bit small, for that minimized the mobility of my feet. The boots were not particularly stiff and I wanted my feet as rigid as possible.

I snapped into the bindings, hefted my poles, and looked over at Brigette. She was still tightening down the buckles on her expensive ski boots.

“I’m going,” I said. “I’ll see you at the bottom.”

“Be careful, Johanna.”

I gave her a wave with a ski pole, and took a quick look over the headwall. It was like nothing I had ever skied in my life – it looked absolutely vertical. You can do this, I told myself.

My normal mode of skiing was to go straight over the headwall and find my edges on the slope. But my questionable equipment combined with the daunting steepness of the slope made me uncharacteristically cautious. I side slipped over the edge, trying to find my edges.

I immediately went into a slide, gaining speed with frightening rapidity. My edges were barely biting at all. I realized that I there was no possible way to stop or even slow down. Ski the slope, I told myself. Look, track, carve, your skis will go where your eyes go. I hopped a turn, and then another one, gaining confidence all the time. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw the rocks marking the edges of the gully to my right and left, whipping by. I saw the slope getting even steeper in front of me, and narrowing to a pinch point, after which it entered the slightly less steep, wider runout to the ravine floor.

I was going really fast now, almost completely out of control. I saw a couple of skiers in front of me and felt fear grip my throat, for I knew we would all hit the pinch point together. Being downhill of me, they had right of way. I desperately steered for the left of the slope, hoping they would carve away from me, or at least leave a narrow corridor for me to squeeze through.

The steepness of the slope meant that they were also going fast, and my closing speed was not high. The one closer to me, a guy in a lime green jacket, straightened out to avoid the other guy, and I realized that the pinch point was going to be very tight.

For an instant, I thought of jumping over the rocks on the left, but could not see a clear landing spot. I tried to make myself as thin as possible, but there was just not enough room. My skis barely made it past the encroaching rocks, but my elbow jogged his as I flew by.

“Hey!” he expostulated.

At the speed I was going, that slight nudge was enough to throw me off balance. I dug in my edges as hard as I could, but there was little traction and my momentum was far too great. I fell on to my side but managed to flip myself onto my butt. I raised my skis to avoid cartwheeling, and used my poles are rudders behind me to try to direct my slide.

I was in the wide runout now, but it was still about 40 degrees. I had fallen at high speed before, but this thin coating of snow on an ice sheet was quite unlike the deep Western powder of my memory. I felt like I was sliding forever and gaining speed rather than slowing down. There were rocky outcroppings dotted in the expanse of snow and hitting one of them at this speed was certain death. Then one of my skis hit a snowdrift and released. A moment later, a bush snagged my jacket sleeve and ripped it open from cuff to shoulder.

I saw more than ten skiers at the bottom of the ravine looking up at me. I finally and ignominiously came to a stop just a few feet away from them. I used my poles to stand up on my one remaining ski, bracing myself against the dizziness from the sudden stasis. Once they saw I was more or less unhurt, they began to titter.

The guy I had hit skied up less than a minute later.

“I’m glad I didn’t knock you down,” I said before he could say anything. “I’m sorry I hit you, it was all my fault, I was out of control.”

“Well, you certainly made it more difficult,” he said. “And you screwed up my rhythm and my run.”

A few minutes later, Brigette skied up and came to a nice, professional stop.

“You scared the hell out of me, Johanna,” she said. “When I saw you fall, I thought you were going to die.”

“To be honest, I thought that was a possibility,” I said. “I’m going to hike back up and get my other ski.”

It took me the best part of an hour to get the other ski and bring it back down again.

“I think I’ve had enough for the day,” said Brigette, when I had everything together again. “Let’s ski the Sherburne trail back to Pinkham Notch.”

The Sherburne trail was an anti-climax, an easy intermediate run through the trees. We skied side by side most of the way, chatting. I listened to Brigette describe her run.

“That was steeper and harder than anything I’ve ever skied before,” I said.

“You’ve got to try it again with proper skis,” Brigette said.

“Now that I’ve looked down over that headwall at the top, I don’t think I’ll ever have the courage to try it again.”

The trail took us right to the Pinkham Notch parking lot. We skied to the boundary marker before snapping out of our skis.

*

There was a surprise for us in the parking lot. Jack sat on the hood of Brigette’s car, drinking coffee from a disposable cup.

“How was it?” he asked, cheerfully.

“Fantastic!” said Brigette.

“You look like you’ve had a bit of an adventure, Johanna,” he said, taking in my ripped jacket.

“It was too hard for me, I came down on my butt,” I said, with a laugh. “What are you doing here?”

“Brigette texted me. I thought I’d come and make sure you both were okay.”

I looked at Brigette questioningly, but she said, “Let’s get something to eat, I’m starving. How’d you get here, Jack?”

“I hitched ride with a trucker up the interstate,” he said. “Managed to beg a ride with some skiers from there. Figured I’d drive back with you two.”

We made space in the car for Jack and all of us piled in. Brigette drove us to Interstate 93 and we pulled off at the first diner we found. We ordered, then talked as we ate.

“You’ve had an adventurous few days,” said Jack. “Brigette sent me some pretty detailed texts.”

“I always tell Jack what I’m up to,” said Brigette, coloring.

“A mountain squall is a pretty scary experience,” said Jack. “The whiteouts can come down in minutes, totally disorient you.”

“We just needed to get below the tree line,” I said. “Common sense.”

“Not many people could have done what you did, Johanna,” he said. “Thanks for taking care of my girl.”

“She took more care of me than I did of her.”

Both Brigette and I felt much better after our large lunch. We were back at her place in Cambridge as darkness was falling. Jack had parked his car on her street.

“Will you stay the night?” Brigette asked, directing the question at both of us.

“I should probably get back to New York,” I said.

“I’ll drive you,” Jack volunteered. “I have some work there and also need to drop off my car.”

I gave Brigette a hug, and we got into an extended clinch. Neither of us wanted to let go. When we finally stepped apart, we looked at each other awkwardly, our expressions soft.

“I feel like I’ve found a sister,” she said.

“So do I.” I paused, mentally debated for a moment, but then plunged on. “My sister really wants to see you, Brigette.” I told her what Roberta had told me to tell her, baldly and factually, finishing with the bottom line: “If you don’t want to see her, she’ll understand.”

I expected Brigette to harden, but she didn’t. She put a hand on my arm.

“Tell her to text me. We can talk on the phone, at first.”

*

“You’re quite a healer, Johanna,” said Jack in the car on our way to New York.

“I love Roberta more than anyone in the world,” I said. “She’s all I have left.” I looked over at him, saw his jaw tighten, and went on. “Though now I’ve found you and Brigette.”

He did not respond verbally, but I was pleased to see that his jaw relaxed. He pulled up at my Jersey City apartment and helped me unload my gear.

“Where are you headed?” I asked.

“Hotel,” he said. “I have some work in the city tomorrow.”

“Why don’t you come upstairs?”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Saving you the price of a hotel,” I said.

He looked at me for a moment before responding, “Okay. You go upstairs, I’ll park the car and join you.”

By the time he came up, I had pulled out the fixings for dinner, and begun prepping in my tiny kitchenette. He looked over the tuna steaks, onions, garlic cloves, the selection of herbs and spices, and smiled.

“I thought we were having a takeout,” he said. “You’ve had a long day.”

“I can whip up the tuna steaks in half an hour.”

“Well, I’m here to help.”

He chopped and minced under my direction. Less than forty minutes later, we were eating the fish, accompanied by a cheap, but rather nice Muscadet. Jack put the wineglass up to the light appreciatively.

“This is good,” he said.

“$15,” I said. “You just have to know what to look for.”

“You know your wines.”

“I never thought of myself as someone who knows wines. But I guess I must have imbibed some knowledge from Mom over the years by osmosis.”

“And the tuna steak is delicious.”

“Thank you,” I said. “If the fish is good, it cooks itself. You just have to be careful not to ruin it.”

After dinner, we sat on the couch and streamed an action movie. I skooched over by him and put my arm around his broad shoulders as we watched it.

“All the time I was with Brigette, I felt this burden,” I said after the movie. “Like I was responsible for her. I had just found her, Roberta’s baby, and I didn’t want anything to happen to her.”

He grunted. It was a very masculine, comforting sound.

“When I saw you in the parking lot at Pinkham Notch, I felt that burden just slip away. You were there, you would take care of us.”

“I didn’t do anything,” he said. “You did everything.”

“I feel safe with you, Jack. Like I felt with Dad.
“Thank you, Johanna.”
“But you’re not my dad.”
“No, I’m not.”
I put my arms around him and held him tight. I held him till my nipples perked up and became obvious against him, hard nubs that indented his skin through our clothes. I rubbed myself against him, my mouth partly open, my eyes partly closed. I really wanted him to want me.
“You can’t have Roberta anymore,” I whispered. “She’s married and pregnant. But you can have me. Make love to me, Jack.”
“Listen, Johanna. Don’t make me into something I’m not. You’re looking for your dad, but I’m not him, I’m nothing like him. I wasn’t a good father to my children; I missed all their most important events.”

“I’m not looking for a dad.”
“I was a terrible husband to my wife, I cheated on her all the time.”

“You can have other women, I won’t care.”
“I’d care. Cheating on you would tear me up inside. But I know myself, I couldn’t stop.” He paused, looking conflicted. “And that’s not all.”
“What, then?”
“I’m fourteen years older than you, Johanna. Surely you see how like Brigette you are? With you in my arms now, all I can think about is her.”
“I’m not your daughter, Jack.”
“Please don’t keep tempting me, Johanna. I’m not that strong. Don’t spoil what we have.”

“What do we have, Jack?”

“I don’t know. All I know is that I don’t want you to be just another woman I have sex with.”

“You told me not to put you on a pedestal. Well, don’t do the same to me. I’m not some delicate virgin that you can break. I’ve had hard knocks. My heart is all bruises and bandages, but it can take more.”

“Tell me,” he said, gently.

Slowly, then with increasing fluency, I told him about Duane, ending with his ultimate betrayal on the dedication to his debut album.

“It really hurt, Jack, more so because I didn’t expect it to hurt.”

“That’s exactly what I mean,” he said. “I don’t want to do that to you, to betray you. But I know I would.”

“If you won’t make love to me, what do you want me to do?”

“Sing for me, Johanna.”

I got my acoustic guitar and strummed it. Looking at him, I sang “Goin’ to Carolina in my mind” by James Taylor. I replaced ‘Carolina’ with ‘Montana’ as I always used to do singing to Dad by the campfire.

I felt a wave of tiredness engulf me after I finished. I yawned and sank into his arms, dropping the guitar on the carpet. I was dimly aware that he picked me up and carried me to bed. I remember cuddling with him all night. It felt natural, intoxicating even. I was so happy to be in bed with him that I was sure he would see the radiance on my face.

When I woke up in the morning, he was gone, but I could still smell him in the sheets. I inhaled his scent and sighed. Any doubts I had were gone - I loved him. But I wasn’t sure what he felt about me.