The Wall by Jeff Long Page B

he thinks we can still be saved, even Annie, somehow. But my mind is made up.”
    “I know,” Hugh said.
    She glanced at him. “It’s that obvious?”
    “No.”
    “He doesn’t know.”
    “I know that, too. I can tell.”
    She took a sip of wine. “At first I blamed Lewis. Then I blamed myself. I thought it might be the big M, or boredom. All I can say is, we reached a fork in the road. I want to see the world, Hugh. I waited until the girls went off. Now it’s my turn. Do you understand? El Cap is useless.”
    “Then why bother coming to Yosemite at all?” he asked.
    “Because, Hugh. I’m tired of missed opportunities.”
    Hugh was stunned. She had come for him?
    He looked at her face, and this time he saw the desperation. She was holding his hand for dear life. She wanted to be rescued from her decision.
    He was tempted. She was beautiful. He was lonely. He could catch her hand and pull her to firm ground. They could be perfect together. It might even last.
    But there was El Cap.
    Quickly, before Rachel could speak to his desires or build more secrets between them, before she pulled him into her, he rejected her. He let go of her hands. He didn’t draw away, nor did she. But she let go, too.
    “Maybe I’m still shaking off the sand,” he murmured.
    Rachel didn’t even blink. Probably she had expected nothing from him. “This should be easy then,” she said.
    “What’s that?”
    “While you’re up there, slaying your dragons together, will you do me a favor?”
    Hugh knew what she was going to ask.
    “Make him understand,” she said.
    Lewis had made Hugh his messenger. Now she was making him hers, using Lewis’s very words. Hugh started to protest. “Rachel…”
    “You know what it’s like to lose a wife,” she said. “You’ll have the right words for him.”
    Abruptly, she released him. There was one more sip in her wineglass. “I should warn you,” she said, too cheerful, “it’s been a long day, and four is early. I’m going to look like holy crap in the morning.”
    Hugh started to stand to guide her to her husband’s room.
    She pressed his shoulder, making him sit. “Oh, Hugh,” she said, as if his chivalry was the silliest thing.

SIX
    Hugh stood outside the front lobby in the darkness. It was colder than he’d expected, near freezing. He could tell by the fog off the Merced River. It could seem like whole parishes of souls when that mist smoked up and marched across the meadows. Sometimes people got lost just getting back to their tents.
    He bent and hefted his rucksack, which contained next to nothing. The little pack was a vintage Mammut made of indestructible canvas and leather. He’d had it since high school, when he and Lewis had first started daring each other up the crags.
    He looked for the sky, and there were no stars, no moon, no sign of any rim. The night felt deep. He faced the bully line of trees crowded up against the asphalt. Behind him, the lobby was well lit and warm, with a Mr. Coffee machine in one corner. But that would be the end of him, Hugh knew. If he took one step away from this cold post, he’d be gone.
    Somewhere beyond the park’s boundaries there was bound to be a breakfast shop with a booth by a window. He could watch the sun come up. It had been decades since his last visit to SanFrancisco. Drive down the coast and he could lose himself in a thousand coves. Head north and he wouldn’t have to stop until the Arctic Sea. Why repeat himself on El Cap? He could take Rachel and go off into the world, armed with a Visa card and a map.
    He kept his back to the lobby. He passed his hand through the mist, opening and closing his fingers. By turns it was a young hand, then an old one.
    The parking lots were largely empty. It was another California October full of Armageddon. There’d been an earthquake along the coast, more fires, more floods. And terrorism weighed heavily on everyone he’d met since returning. They had been a traveling people,