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Gwen is to blame. Gwen had wanted, she guesses, to help Rita do something great. Gwen had been ruthlessly supportive for decades now, sending money, making phone calls on her behalf, setting Rita up with job interviews and divorced men who on the first date wanted to hold hands after an Olive Garden dinner. Their hands were rough and fat always, and Rita wanted no more of Gwen’s help. Rita loved Gwen in an objective way, in an admiring way totally separate from her obligations to sibling affection. Gwen was so tall, so narrow, could not wear heels without looking like some kind of heron in black leggings, but her laugh was round and rolling, and it came out of her, as everything did, with its arms wide and embracing. She could be president if she’d wanted that job, but she hadn’t—she’d chosen instead to torment Rita with her thoughtfulness. Baskets of cheese, thank you notes, that long weekend in Puerto Vallarta when they’d rented the convertible Beetle. She even bought Rita a new mailbox and installed it, with cement and a shovel, when it was stolen in the night. This is what Gwen did, this and humor Brad, and await her baby, and run a small business, as fruitful as she could hope, that provided closet reorganization plans to very wealthy people in Santa Fe.

Rita knows she can’t ask Shelly to share her sleeping bag but she wants a body close to her. She hasn’t slept well since J.J. and Frederick went away because she has not been warm. No one ever said so but they didn’t think it appropriate that the kids slept in her bed. Gwen had found it odd when Rita had bought a larger bed, but Rita knew that having those two bodies near her, never touching anywhere but a calf or ankle, her body calming their fears, was the only indispensible experience of her life or anyone else’s.

As her heart blinks rapidly, Rita promises herself that the next day will be less punishing, less severe. The morning will be clear and dry and when the fog burns off, it will be so warm, maybe even hot, with the sun coming all over and drying their wet things. They will walk upward in the morning wearing shorts and sunglasses, upward toward the sun.

The morning is wet and foggy and there is no sun and everything that was wet the night before is now wetter. Rita’s mood is a slashing despair; she does not want to leave her sleeping bag or her tent, she wants all these filthy people gone, and wants her things dry and clean. She wants to be alone, for a few minutes at least. She knows she can’t, because outside the tent are the other hikers, and there are twenty porters, and now, a small group of German hikers, and at the far side of the camp, three Canadians and a crew of twelve—they must have arrived after dark. Everyone is waking up. She hears the pouring of water, the rattle of pots, the thrufting of tents. Rita is so tired and so awake and she comes close to crying. She wants to be in this sleeping bag, not awake but still sleeping, for two and a half hours more. In two and a half hours she could regather her strength, all of it. She would have a running start at this day, and could then leap past anyone.

There is conversation from the next tent. The voices are not whispering, not even attempting to whisper.

“You’re kidding me,” one voice says. “You know how much we paid for these tickets? How long did we plan to come here, how long did I save?”

It’s Jerry.

“You know you didn’t have to save, Dad.”

“But Michael. We planned this for years. I talked to you about this when you were ten. Remember? When Uncle Mark came back? Christ!”

“Dad, I just—”

“And here you’re going down after one freaking day!”

“Listen. I have never felt so weak, Dad. It’s just so much harder than—”

“Michael. Yesterday was the hardest day—the rest will be nothing. You heard what’s-his-face . . . Frank. This was the hard one. I can see why you’re a little concerned, but you gotta buck up now, son. Yesterday was bad but—”

“Shhh.”

“No one can hear us, Michael.