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CHAPTER NINETEEN

“I
GOT
FOUR
dollars and ten dollars!” Jayson flapped his donations envelope, swishing it right out of the hand of the woman who was collecting the money before the hike. “I want to learn to ski but Ben says stopping’s hard and I already don’t stop very good on my bicycle. My bicycle’s name is New Navy.”

The treasurer, an assistant coach who’d been on the ski team twenty-some years ago when Ben also was, captured the envelope. “Four hundred ten dollars, Jayson. That’s so good. We’re very grateful for your support.” She beamed at him. “Maybe you could be a manager for the team. Would you like that?”

He nodded enthusiastically. Stepping away, he pulled on the Tim McGuffey Memorial Ride T-shirt she’d given him. Kate straightened the long sleeves of his fleece pullover, then tugged the T-shirt down in the back. “Don’t you look handsome? Ben will be so jealous.”

“No, I won’t.” Ben’s watch cap was the same color of red as the T-shirts they all wore. He took another hat out of his pocket and put it on Jayson. “We look just alike. We’re both handsome. Kate’s really lucky we’re letting her walk with us.” He tossed her a red cap, too, one with a bright white ball on its top.

She pulled it over her ears, rolled her eyes and stepped between them. “Come on, you two.”

Ben was startled at how many people were participating in the “ride.” Colby and his son were riding the fat bikes Dylan didn’t like. Dan and Penny’s kids all rode with studded tires. Debby and her friends and many others were jogging. Maggie Hylton-Wise was walking and so were her children and grandchildren. She looked happy. Maeve was with her, elegant in her red T-shirt and the pearls Tim had given her on their last anniversary. Her yearning for his father was so deep Ben thought he could feel it in his own heart. But then he realized it was his own longing he felt.

“Pop would be so—” he tried to say to Patrick. But he couldn’t finish. Kate’s hand captured his and held on. His older brother smiled, though his blue eyes grieved with him.

“Blessed.” Dylan spoke from Patrick’s other side. “He would feel so blessed.”

Patrick’s eyebrow rose. “Our brother’s not dumb today. Sometimes, but not today.”

“Well, you know.” Ben squeezed Kate’s hand and tried to look modest. “I’ve been working with him.”

The day warmed as they walked. “I can’t believe how many college kids are doing this.” Ben smiled at a girl as she jogged past, remembering when he’d seen her last. “You doing okay?” he asked in a low voice when she turned back to greet him. She still had the same boyfriend, he noticed. He hoped he’d grown up some.

“Better.” She smiled. “Thanks for being so nice to me. It made something horrible more bearable.”

“Good.” He nodded a short greeting to the boyfriend. “The next time will be the right one.”

“I know.” She waved beyond him, at Jayson and Kate, and moved on, hand in hand with her boyfriend.

“I didn’t realize I’d seen so many people at the hospital this summer, but I think all the ones I did see are here.” Ben chuckled, pointing toward the couple whose grandchildren Kate had babysat in the lounge one night. He had feared the woman wouldn’t survive the heart attack that had brought her to the emergency room, but she’d survived, had surgery and thrived.

Kate exchanged hellos with Marce, who was walking just ahead of them with Nick. “So many changes these past months.” Then Kate grabbed Jayson’s arm. “Stay on the trail. If you start sliding down the side of the mountain, you’ll end up in Tierney’s Creek and someone will have to fish you out next spring.”

Jayson laughed, delighted. “You’re goofy, Kate.” But he didn’t shake off her containing hand and he didn’t get too close to the edge of the trail.

They walked on, talking and laughing. The riders and the joggers widened the gap between themselves and the walkers. When the trail curved sharply, it was as though the walkers were alone. The trail was slippery under their feet, and Ben hurried ahead a few times when someone fell. There were no injuries, however.

As they progressed, he and Kate and Jayson fell farther behind. Jayson was growing tired. He didn’t complain, but his gait grew slower and clumsier. Ben hadn’t won every race he’d ever entered, but this would be the first one in which he’d come in last. Being with Kate, he didn’t think he minded at all.

But it felt funny—peculiar funny—as they walked. As though something was happening.

It was a nice day. Too nice. He looked around, uneasy with the warming temperature. Snow fell from the trees with swishing noises. Ice cracked as it melted. The hike required almost no exertion. The incline wasn’t steep and they were walking at Jayson’s pace, but even the lightweight fleece pullover Ben wore under his T-shirt was almost too much. Looking over at Kate, he saw that she’d pushed her sleeves up. She was looking around, too.

Ahead of them, Dan and Penny slowed and turned back, Dan’s cell phone lifted to his ear. Patrick and Dylan, who’d been ahead with the joggers, were backtracking. Running. Ben’s heartbeat accelerated. He wanted to tell his brothers to slow down before they got hurt; instead, he caught Kate’s hand in his, urging her to hurry. They needed to go faster, to at least keep up with the other walkers as they began to head back down the slope.

Something was happening.

He knew immediately what the sound was, the
whump
that signaled a collapse in the mountainside snow. He’d heard it before, had skied above it or very fast below it, able to escape the tumbling, pounding snow using the avoidance tactics he’d started learning the first time he put on skis. It was a sluff avalanche. Not a big one—he could tell that. It wouldn’t even make the news.

But it was coming right at them.

* * *

“C
OME
ON
, K
ATY
.
Hurry
!”

Even in the complete terror that had taken over her senses, she knew
Come on, Katy
was never a good thing to hear. Trouble always followed.

“Jayson, let’s go, honey. We have to hustle. Everyone else is way ahead of us. See?” She pulled at his arm, hating it because she knew she was frightening him.

Ben’s hand released hers and she jerked her head around. The snow was coming hard and fast. Had it already caught him? Was he buried in it?

No, no—he’d gone to Jayson’s other side and put his arm around the boy’s waist, his hand grasping Kate’s arm. “Look, Jayson,” he said, his breath coming hard. “There are Dylan and Patrick.”

“What’s that sound?” Jayson’s head turned from one of them to the other. “Where’s Debby?”

“Debby’s fine.” She hoped she was telling the truth. Debby had been with the joggers far ahead of them. “Turn, Jayson. It’s time to turn the corner like you’re on New Navy. You’re not going to fall. Turn now! Lean in and hang on to Ben.”

Somewhere in her mind, in a dark, still place behind the fear, she knew the powder was coming fast and hard and relentless. She’d been on the mountain before when snow had broken loose and plunged through the trees. No one had ever been hurt that she remembered, though Ben had come close more than once.

A scream came shatteringly to her ears, and she wondered if she’d been the one who cried out. Jayson’s arm was jerked from hers. Pain radiated from her shoulder all the way to the tips of her fingers, and she wondered if it hurt him, too. “Turn, Jayson,” she cried. “Just turn. You’ll be fine. Don’t forget to hold your hand up high for the turn. That’s right.”

She’d always heard about life flashing before a person’s eyes when traumatic things happened. She didn’t think there was time for all thirty-seven years, but it was amazing how slowly the world seemed to be turning. Despite horrible pain in her arm, she shoved Jayson away from the roar of the snow. Hearing his complaint, she experienced a new terror because she wasn’t sure she’d pushed him the right way.

Where was Ben? She called his name, but the sound was lost in the rushing snow. She was shivering with cold, and wished she hadn’t pushed her sleeves up.

“Keep them safe.” She didn’t know if she prayed aloud or not. She didn’t truly think it mattered. “Keep them safe.”

Calm pushed aside the fear, although—once again in that dark, still place—she thought end-of-life serenity wasn’t necessarily reasonable or even sane. When the snow tossed her weightlessly off the path, she regretted intensely that she’d canceled the appointment she’d had earlier in the week to have her nails done. She also wished she’d had ice cream for dessert the night before.

She pushed her uninjured arm as high above her head as she could, realizing at the same time that her red cap was missing. Ben had just given it to her. She mourned its loss.

* * *

“Y
OU
’
RE
ALL
RIGHT
. You turned like Kate said. You were brave.” Ben hugged Jayson, then passed him off to Penny. “Keep him still, Pen. I don’t know if he’s hurt. As soon as someone comes around the bend, send them for the first-aid equipment.” Dan carried the necessities in his backpack and would have already called 911, but getting anyone up here was going to take some time even though medical personnel were at the trailhead. They would have to get around where the slide had effectively eliminated the trail.

Patrick and Dylan had hauled Ben out of the snow with adrenaline-powered strength. Their faces were white, and Patrick’s hands were still trembling on his knees as he bent over, trying to catch his breath.

“Which way did she go?” Ben heard the panic in his voice but was powerless to control it. “I lost her. God help me, I lost her.”

Again.
He knew he was hurt. He could see his own blood, but the only pain he felt was the agony of losing Kate.

“There’s her hat.” Penny, her face as pale as Patrick’s and Dylan’s, pointed past the edge of the trail, twenty or so feet farther downhill. Tears streaked her face. “Dan?”

Dan was already headed that way, and Ben plunged after him. Pain rushed through his legs, nearly taking his breath away, but he ignored it and it nearly went away as he ran. “Kate!” he called. “Come on, Katy, where are you?”

“Don’t, Ben. She can’t answer.” Dylan caught up with him, and Ben thought he’d probably be grateful someday for the support of the arm around him.

They walked the area, spreading apart and looking for any sign that Kate was near. Others from the walk who had heard the avalanche backtracked and joined the search. “Please,” he whispered. “Please, God. Please, Pop. Where is she?”

Time was passing and there was precious little of it. The avalanche of sluff snow hadn’t been a wide one. But the space it had altered with its force seemed like acres. The minutes seemed like hours.

Oh, Kate. Please, Kate.

And then he saw it. A red sleeve with an iron-on picture of Pop’s black vest on it. A hand in a small black leather glove. Her other glove was red wool—she hadn’t been able to find the mate to either one. “There!” he yelled, pointing and running. If he was hurt, he didn’t feel it, though he nearly blacked out when he started scooping the snow away with his hands. He must have broken fingers, but he couldn’t think about that now. There was no time.

Her face was outside the snow, but she was unconscious. No one had a shovel, even Dan-the-always-prepared, but there were enough people and enough adrenaline that digging her out went quickly. Or Ben guessed it did. It felt like forever. His brothers were right there beside him. Penny slid down the hillside to where they were, crying in earnest now.

“Jayson,” Ben gasped, breathless with effort.

“With Marce and Nick.” She pushed between Dan and Patrick, scrabbling with both bare hands in the snow.

“Honey—” Dan tried to draw her away, his face a mask of concern, but she shook him off.

“This is my best friend in the world,” she said fiercely. “Would you let me stop you if it was Ben? Is she breathing, Ben? Is she breathing?”

“She is.” Though he’d had an hours-long instant of not knowing she was.

“What do you need?” It was an EMT’s voice from the trail, breathless. “Long backboard?”

“Yes.” Still digging, Ben called out instructions. “Bear with us, honey. Keep breathing.”
Wake up. Come on, Katy. Wake up.

And she did.

“I can move,” she said as they were placing her on the backboard. “Really.”

“That’s good.” Ben pressed his face to hers, willing her skin to warm. He kissed her forehead. Her cheeks. Her cold lips. “But don’t. Just this once, short woman, let me be the boss.”

* * *

N
O
ONE
HAD
to stay at the hospital, though Kate and Ben both received numerous bandages, prescriptions for pain medicine and orders to stay quiet for a few days. Jayson, whose aching arms had been wrapped with Ace bandages because he enjoyed it so much, had no actual injuries. He told everyone he had not been hurt because he turned when Kate told him to.

Debby was wracked with guilt because her brother had been in their care and she’d been a mile ahead having a great time. “He’s my responsibility,” she said, standing between the recliners in the lounge where Kate and Ben waited to leave the hospital. She wrung her hands.

“Which you never forget for even a minute.” Kate smiled at her. “I don’t have any little brothers. I really thank you for sharing yours. I love him so much.”

“And I
have
a little brother and I love Jayson, too. I also understand how much work being the older sibling is.” Ben’s sigh was both resigned and exaggerated. “I still can’t control Dylan.”

There had been so many gifts in this season of loss and discovery. Not the least of these—by far—was the boy in a red cap and bandaged arms, beaming at everyone who approached. Kate’s shoulder was back in place and immobilized and her pain held at bay with whatever the emergency room physician had given her. Comfortable in the recliner, with Ben close enough to touch, it was hard to find much to complain about.

The doctor’s next words interfered with her all’s-right-with-the-world thoughts. “I don’t want you home alone.”