Take Me Higher by Pamela Clare

Chapter 3

Megs walked upto Mitch’s bedside and took his hand, doing her best to process all that had happened. Six hours ago, she’d been afraid he would die before they reached a hospital. Now, he was stable in ICU after making it through surgery, and his doctors were hopeful.

Megs wanted to trust in their hope, but seeing Mitch like this took the heart out of her. He lay there, silent and still, a machine breathing for him. The head of his bed was elevated, electrodes on his chest, his body naked apart from the towel someone had placed over his privates. He had dressings on his collar bone and the incision in his abdomen, a subclavian line in his chest for IV meds and blood draws, and a pulse ox monitor on one finger. But what struck her hardest was the sight of his head. Wrapped in a white dressing, his skull was misshapen, the left side noticeably indented, an intracranial catheter rising from the bandages.

Jesus.

She fought a wave of dizziness, taking one deep breath after another, one hand gripping his bedrail.

When she’d come back to herself, she carefully kissed his cheek, afraid she might hurt him. “We always knew something terrible might happen, but I always thought it would happen to me.”

Why wasn’t it me?

She was the one who had always refused to accept limitations. Not that she’d been reckless—far from it. She knew the risks inherent to climbing, but she had always done her best to overcome them. Still, climbing at an elite level was inherently dangerous. There were so many variables—weather, conditions on the rock, gear, the actions of other climbers, wildlife. She and Mitch had been to enough funerals to know that even the most experienced rock jock could die.

A nurse stepped in. “Ms. Hill? There’s someone here for you. She said she’s a friend. Her name is Rain.”

“Can you send her in? I don’t want to leave him.”

The nurse nodded and returned a moment later with Rain Moffat, Joe’s wife and co-owner of Knockers.

Rain wheeled in a small suitcase, her long blond hair tied up in a messy bun, long sleeves hiding the tattoos of roses and skulls that covered her arms. She stopped when she saw Mitch, clearly doing her best to hide her shock. “How is he?”

Megs tried to act like her world hadn’t just fallen apart. “He’s not much of a conversationalist, I’m sad to say.”

“Oh, Megs.” Rain looked at her through eyes that saw everything. “You don’t have to be tough—not now, not with me.”

For the first time all day, Megs found herself blinking back tears. She couldn’t cry. She couldn’t. If she did, she’d shatter, and Mitch needed her in one piece.

She drew a deep breath, wiped her eyes. “The surgeon said we should be hopeful. It’s hard to see him like this and still feel hope.”

Rain wheeled the suitcase to the side of the room, walked over to Megs, and hugged her. “Then let us do the hoping for you. The whole town is praying for him.”

Megs wasn’t sure she believed in a god, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t grateful. If there was any chance… “Thank you.”

Rain stepped back, held up a paper sack Megs hadn’t noticed before. “I brought your favorite entrée from the pub. Hopefully, there’s a microwave you can use. I also brought you some clothes and personal stuff from home—toiletries, your laptop, power cables, chargers, reading glasses, the book on your nightstand. I figured you’d rather stay here than drive up and down the canyon.”

“Thanks so much. Yes. I’m going to stay here. They say this chair folds out. It doesn’t look particularly comfortable, but I’ve slept in worse places.”

“When you get sick of that, Joe got you a room at the Marriott across the street. He thought you could use it for naps and showers. The room is under his name to keep the press off your back. You don’t need to check in. I already did that. Here are your keycards. We don’t want you to worry about anything besides Mitch.”

Stunned, Megs took the keycards. She wasn’t used to being the one in need. All of this generosity left her feeling uneasy. But these were her friends, people she’d known most of her life. “Thank you, Rain. Please thank Joe for me. I don’t know what we would have done if he hadn’t gotten that chopper in the air. Mitch might not have survived. I hope I can repay your kindness.”

“Are you kidding? The two of you are kind of a big deal in Scarlet. You’re on the Town Council, and you both run the Team, which is a source of pride for us all. After everything you’ve both done to save the lives of neighbors and strangers alike, you’ve paid it forward. This is just karma coming back around.”

Megs swallowed—hard. “Thanks.”

“Is there anything else I can do?”

Megs was about to shake her head when she remembered. “The surgeon said that hearing the voices of loved ones can help coma patients recover. He suggested I record myself talking about shared experiences and then replay those recordings over earphones for Mitch to keep him stimulated.”

“What a great idea.”

“Mitch kept journals dating back to before we first met. They’re big, leather-bound volumes. You can find them in his office on shelves next to his desk. Could you bring me one of those, along with tapes and a cassette recorder or something?”

Rain bit back a smile. “I think technology has progressed beyond cassette recorders. I’ll bring a digital recorder and earbuds and show you how to use it.”

“You’re a peach.” It wasn’t easy to say these next words. “There’s one more thing. Mitch has a living will in a folder in his filing cabinet. The doctor said I should have it on hand just in case.”

“I’ll find it and bring it tomorrow morning, along with the journal and recorder.” Rain hugged her again. “Please call if you need anything else.”

Megs stepped back. “I can’t lose him, Rain. I can’t.”

Rain took her hands, squeezed. “I know.”

Megs foundit almost impossible to sleep and spent most of the night sitting beside Mitch, talking to him, stroking his hand. She couldn’t quiet her mind, couldn’t turn off the gnawing worry. Medical staff came and went. The nurses checked the ventilator, the intracranial catheter, replaced IV fluids, and gave him antibiotics and other medications. Lab staff drew blood through the subclavian line to monitor his blood gasses. A radiologist brought a portable X-ray machine to his room to check the placement of the ventilator and the condition of his lungs.

She could have gone to the hotel, of course, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave Mitch’s side. It was almost a relief when the sun came up.

Dr. Schwartz, the neurosurgeon, arrived at seven o’clock on his morning rounds. He checked Mitch, read his chart, and repeated much of what he’d said yesterday. “He made it through the night. He’s stable for now. This is what we’d expect from a traumatic brain injury of that severity. There is some evidence that people in comas can hear us, so keep talking to him.”

“I will. Thanks.”

After the doctor had gone, Megs made her way downstairs, used the restroom outside the cafeteria, and splashed cold water on her face. She glanced at her reflection, saw lines of fear and fatigue around her eyes. “You look like hell.”

She ate a quick breakfast, got a large coffee with cream and some yogurt for later, and rode the elevator back upstairs. She found Rain waiting outside the ICU, a small duffel bag at her feet. “You’re here early.”

“I wanted to get these to you as quickly as possible.” Rain held out Megs’ car keys. “The guys got back with your vehicle last night and unpacked your gear. I drove your car down so you could have transportation. It’s parked not far from the ER entrance. Joe is waiting for me downstairs, so I can’t stay long.”

Megs waved to the security guard, who buzzed them in, and the two walked back to Mitch’s room.

Rain set the duffel at the foot of his bed. “How is he?”

“He’s holding on.” Megs set her coffee and yogurt on the small bedside table. “The doc said this is what he’d expect after this kind of injury.”

“That’s good news, right?”

“I suppose it is.” Megs couldn’t help but wish for more.

Rain knelt, unzipped the duffel, pulled out a file folder. “Here’s a copy of his living will. I left the original at your place. I wasn’t sure which journal you’d want, so I brought the first three.”

“You are amazing. Thank you.” Megs took the folder and the journals and set them on Mitch’s overbed table. “This really helps.”

Rain pulled a digital recorder, earbuds, and extra batteries out of her handbag and spent the next five minutes showing Megs how to record and play. “If you push the repeat button here, it will keep replaying until you stop it.”

“Easy enough.” Or so Megs hoped.

Rain set the recorder aside. “We’re just up the canyon if you need us. Please keep us updated. Just shoot me a text message when you can.”

“Will do.”

When Rain had gone, Megs picked up one of the journals, ran her hand over the aged leather. She’d never read them, never even peeked. As far as she was concerned, Mitch’s journals were his business.

“I don’t want to invade your privacy, love, but if there’s any chance this will help you, I need to try.”

The first entry was from the fall of 1970. Mitch had just started college and, like all eighteen-year-old boys, had been worried about the draft. He’d kept his grades up and had gotten deferments that carried him through to his senior year, when the US signed a peace accord and started bringing troops home.

“You got lucky, didn’t you?”

She thumbed through the pages, his cursive neat and easy to read. She found herself skimming through passages, the pages bringing back the voice of the young man she’d met, the young man who had distracted her in the best possible way. She nodded as she read about his opposition to the war and laughed at his less-than-flattering description of his history professor’s combover. When she read his entry about the death of his beloved grandfather, she got a lump in her throat.

I hope one day to be as good a man as he was.

Megs touched his hand, squeezed it. “You are a good man, Mitch. Your grandfather would be proud of you.”

She continued skimming the pages, trying to find where she’d come into the narrative. It must have been the spring of 1973. She’d dropped out of high school on her sixteenth birthday and had spent the next month prepping for her GED. When her certificate had arrived, she’d packed up and had driven west.

At the time, it had seemed like a good idea. Looking back, Megs could see she’d been a scared kid running away. Well, no one could blame her for that.

Then she found it—the entry for May 28, 1973.

“You did write about me.” She took another drink of coffee and got the recorder ready. If she could operate a radio, she could do this. “Damned electronic gadgets.”

Then she pressed the button and began to read aloud.

Yosemite Valley

May 28, 1973

Mitch Ahearn satin his battered lawn chair in the shade of a ponderosa pine, reading Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, his shirt off to enjoy the warm spring breeze. The other guys sat shirtless around the picnic table smoking grass and shooting the shit, the Beatles’ Let It Be playing on Jim Gridwall’s cassette recorder.

“Too bad this was their last album, man.”

“They might get back together. You never know.”

“No way. It’s over, man. Yoko messed with John’s head.”

“What do you know about it, Yoder? Were you there?”

Their conversation and the music drifted around him, Mitch’s attention riveted to the page by Raoul’s brilliant insanity. Had Hunter actually done all of this shit?

He glanced up as a rust-red VW Beetle with Colorado plates pulled up to the campground, Janis Joplin coming through its rolled-down windows. His gaze lingered as a young blonde climbed out. She was small, not much taller than the vehicle. She stood there, looking into the distance at El Capitan, a smile on her face.

Rick Accardo looked over his shoulder. “Who’s that?”

“Fresh fish.” Gridwall whistled.

Mitch couldn’t understand why some of the guys treated women like this. “What’s wrong with you? Don’t you have a sister, man?”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to screw my sister.”

The others laughed, stoned off their asses.

Mitch glanced down at the page—or tried to. The woman shut her car door, walked around to the passenger side, and reached into her glove box to pop the trunk. She wore denim shorts and a yellow halter top, her long blond hair streaked by the sun, her body slim, her skin tanned, her legs slender.

“Check out that foxy mama.”

“Hey, need some help?” Gridwall called out, the greasy tone in his voice revealing precisely the kind of help he was imagining.

“Hot chick, man.”

She ignored them all, walked to the front of her car, and lifted the trunk lid, disappearing from view. When she closed the trunk, she had a large frame pack on her shoulders, climbing ropes hanging from one arm, a bag of climbing gear from the other.

“She’s a climber?” Accardo sounded surprised.

“She’s not a climber.” Gridwall laughed. “Women can’t be serious climbers.”

“Why not?” Mitch truly wanted an answer.

But Gridwall ignored him, getting to his feet and heading toward the woman, who was now searching for a campsite on the other side of the campground, probably trying to get as far away from them as possible.

He couldn’t blame her.

She found a site she liked and started putting up her tent—one of those new Nylon all-weather tents with a rainfly—just as Gridwall walked up to her.

“That’s a slammin’ tent, sugar. Let me help.”

“Thanks for the offer, but I’ve got it. My name is Megs, not ‘sugar.’”

That was an unusual name. Mitch bet it was short for Maggie or Margaret.

She worked quickly and confidently, clearly knowing what she was doing.

But Gridwall didn’t get the message. “Lighten up, babe. I’m just being friendly.”

“Your friendliness is noted, but, as I said, I don’t need help.”

Mitch found himself grinning.

“Fine.” Gridwall raised his hands in mock surrender, a smirk on his face. “Are you some kind of women’s libber?”

“I’m here to climb, just like you.”

The woman—Megs—was a spitfire. Mitch liked her already.

“Is that right?” Gridwall was turned so Mitch couldn’t see his face, but Mitch could hear the condescension in his voice. “Have you climbed before? Any first ascents?”

She almost had the tent up now. “What’s your name?”

“Jim Gridwall.”

“Dean Calder mentioned you. You’re the draft dodger.”

She knew Dean? That was news.

Gridwall sounded confused by this. “How did you meet Calder?”

“I bouldered with him in Joshua Tree last fall.”

So, she had climbed with Dean.

“You went bouldering with Dean?” But the surprise in Gridwall’s voice quickly became amusement. “I get it. You’re one of those chicks who digs climbers.”

“No, I dig climbing.” She reached for a guy line.

Gridwall grabbed her wrist. “Hey, don’t be so uptight. Come sit with us, smoke a joint, listen to some music, relax.”

She jerked her hand away. “Not interested.”

Mitch found himself on his feet. “Gridwall, leave her alone!”

“Mellow out, man.” Gridwall glared at him. “I’m just making conversation.”

But Megs could clearly stand up for herself. “It’s been great chatting, but this conversation is over.”

Then she stepped into her tent and zipped the entrance behind her, leaving Gridwall to stand there, looking stupid.