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Show ALASKA -19 Later that day it was a white rose, kisses down there, exquisitely patient. But all the while, part of her stood by the bed and watched. He told her how on the training climb he had hallucinated from hypothermia and cried for this mother. "I never thought I cared for her. It was odd." He told her that he missed her the nights he lay slung down a cliff in a bivouac sack like a giant pea. "Maybe I'm done with it," he said. "But no child, Not yet. Just you, me, trips, weekends, love. After Alaska, I'll quit." Soon all the climbing gear was out of sight, hung neatly in his closet. Even so, she kept up the sessions with mirror, fixing a wedge into the little space inside herself so that she felt like a perfect pyramid. To hold the power to the center, he would never give up climbing, and she would have to keep on sailing Because Ian's arms were the way they were, she knew finally that he would undo the wedge and put her in irons. She would be a place where he could plant the flag and take a photograph. Soon ropes and nylon slings, metal stoppers and pitons would cover ail the available floor space. So she asked Jo to bring Sam over for dinner. "You're crazy," Jo said. Jo pretended to flirt with her cousin, so that he blushed and fidgeted. Ian had begun to pull out his gear again, and he moved about the living room while they were drinking their scotches and water, picking^ chocks, winding slings around his hand, putting them down again. "You must do a lot of climbing," Sam said to Ian. "And you must sail a lot." Ian stared past the cousin until they all dropped their eyes. Next to Sam, Ian looked darker. |
