He’d blown Brian off in the worst way.
“They want you to write about Everest,” his mother said.
What else? The mountain, the avalanche, the tourist economy, the fragile ecosystem, the future, the way out. Kal watched his sister working. There was a beige stain on the breast pocket of her uniform shirt, the residue of some diner’s meal.
He should take over her shift. Give her the weekend off so she could Snapchat with friends or do homework, whatever it was Sangmu wanted to be doing with her life.
He needed to take a look at the books for the restaurant and the grocery store. Make sure his brothers hadn’t screwed anything up while he was away.
“There’s no shortage of people to write about Everest,” he said.
“They called you.”
“I probably wasn’t first on their list, and I’m sure I’m not last either.”
“You’ll call him back.” She made this a statement of fact, impossible to evade.
“Sure.” He’d call to tell them he wasn’t interested. Throw them Rosemary’s name, if they needed a writer.
His mother’s eyes narrowed. “Where’d you get those clothes?”
“Bought them in Kathmandu.”
“What happened to your clothes?”
“Somebody stole them out of my hotel room in Lukla.”
“They steal only your clothes, nothing else?”
“No, they got all my gear, too, and my phone.”
“They take your credit card, money?”
“Yeah.”
“How’d you get home with no clothes and no money?”
“I was taking care of somebody. A climber I was with on the mountain who needed help. She spotted me the money.”
“She buy you those clothes?”
He nodded.
“Who is she?”
“Rosemary Chamberlain.”
Kal kept his eyes on his bowl and waited, pushing rice into his mouth, focusing on the familiar smell of the soup, the bustle of the restaurant, the sounds of customers mixing with the voice of his sister, the colors and scents that meant family and home, and had for almost sixteen years.
They had an apartment above the restaurant, with enough bedrooms that no one had to share. His brothers lived on their own and ran the grocery store, more or less. When his mom opened the store it was just Nepalese and Tibetan dry and canned goods, but she’d expanded it over the years to add fresh produce, a bakery, and grab-and-go meals off the restaurant menu.
They’d built something here, his mom and him, his brothers and sisters, the relatives she’d helped come over from Nepal. It had taken sweat and tears and blood, but they’d made a safe place where before there’d been only his father’s mercurial moods and ever-changing plans. He would disappear and reappear without warning, violent and belittling, chaotic.
Only two kinds of people climbed Everest: megalomaniacs and the walking wounded. His father had been a megalomaniac. His mother, the victim.
She climbed Everest every couple years like it was her penance, and she and Kal didn’t talk about it. That was their deal—they worked together for the family, gave each other space, and kept their secrets. She didn’t give interviews. He didn’t ask her what had happened that day at Base Camp, when he’d made his father angry and unleashed him onto his mother, and she didn’t volunteer the details.
It wasn’t like his mom to get involved in his business. He couldn’t remember the last time she’d tried to make him do something that wasn’t about what would be good for the family.