Completely (New York 3)

“Don’t bother,” Yangchen said. “He doesn’t know. He’s lost them.” Near the altar, a group of men with shaved heads and burgundy robes

had gathered. “They’re starting.” Yangchen looked at Rosemary. “We’ll talk again later. Now, we find a place to sit.”

It wasn’t a request so much as a command. Rosemary wasn’t surprised when Kal followed it. She trailed in the family’s wake, found a seat on the floor, and listened to the lead monk as he began to speak words she couldn’t understand.

She closed her eyes. She felt energized, her grief now turbulently intermingled with curiosity, frustration, and gratitude.

She would certainly make time to speak with Yangchen Beckett again. Rosemary wanted to know more of her history, her story, what had driven her up the slope of Everest so many times.

And if she had a chance to dig deeper and figure out the meaning behind Kal’s expression and Yangchen’s flat statement that her son had lost his priorities—well, she wouldn’t pass up the chance to learn more about that either.

Yangchen Beckett was a very interesting woman. But Kal was an interesting man, and Rosemary met far fewer of the latter than the former.

Chapter 12

They stepped out into the fresh midday sunshine. The sprouting grass around the community center was greener than green, the trees budding. Springtime in New York.

Fingers interlocked, Kal stretched his arms above his head. His shirttails pulled loose from his slacks, but it felt so good to release the tension in his muscles, he stretched as long and as hard as he wanted before letting his arms drop and lazily shoving his shirt back where it belonged.

When he turned around, Rosemary had drifted across the lawn to speak with a woman in a pantsuit, accompanied by a cameraman. The camera sported the logo for a local TV station.

They’d been here last time, too, capturing film for a story on the Everest avalanche and the devastation of the earthquake. His sister had sent him a link with the film clip. Kal hadn’t watched it until months later, when he was back home and he could think about the Khumbu without getting sick to his stomach.

And you were there? the woman asked Rosemary. You were actually in the avalanche?

I was, Rosemary said. She glanced at him.

Kal shook his head. He didn’t want anything to do with this.

Rosemary turned back to the woman. I wasn’t in its path. I was high up the mountain, at Camp Three, preparing to push for the summit.

Were you in any danger?

They always asked that question, because that was the story they wanted. The Everest disaster story. Wasn’t it bad enough that people gambled with their lives on the mountain, and every single season, without fail, some of them lost? Wasn’t it bad enough that there were bodies up there, unrecoverable, frozen and unchanging, too high for even the vultures to get to them?

It wasn’t, though. It was never bad enough. It could always be worse, and the worse it got, the more interested the world became.

What galled Kal was that it wasn’t the kind of interest you could do anything with. Try getting the same reporter to cover an initiative to increase Sherpa guides’ pay and give them life insurance. Kal had. Nobody cared.

There’s always danger when you’re climbing a mountain like Everest, Rosemary said, but the avalanche didn’t affect us. We were lucky.

And what brings you here today?

I wanted to pay my respects to the people who were lost. It’s difficult when you’re involved in this sort of thing to adjust to the reality of being on the mountain one moment, halfway around the world the next. I thought it might help to come here to be with people who understand that.

Did it help you find peace?

It did.

What’s next for you? the reporter asked. Will you go back to Everest now that you’ve come so close to disaster there?

Rosemary smiled, her teeth white and even, her posture perfect. I have to. I’m part of a British team, all women, and we’re going to climb the highest mountain on every continent. They call them the Seven Summits. Everest was meant to be the first. We’ll have to regroup now and come back to it in the future. But definitely, yes. We’ll make it to the top of that peak.

Kal walked down the sidewalk to stand where he couldn’t hear her. He watched her finish the interview, the light playing through her hair, which hung over her shoulders and down her back, as straight and thick as the hair of one of the baby dolls Patricia used to get for her birthday or Christmas, zip-tied to a piece of pink cardboard behind thick plastic.

What the fuck was he doing?

What the fuck was he doing?