She must have been thirteen or younger when the abuse had started. That wasn’t long ago. She was only sixteen now. The sexual and emotional abuse were probably still fresh—an open wound that she tried to cover with steel and sharp edges.
“Thank you for trusting me with that.” Mitch took her hand, realized she was trembling. “I’m so sorry this happened to you, Megs. You didn’t do anything wrong. Your stepfather is entirely to blame. But nothing he or your mother did can change who you are. Youareinnocent—and incredibly brave.”
When she looked up at him, there were tears in her eyes, her fingers now clinging tightly to his. “Do you mean that?”
“I know it must be hard to accept when your mother blamed you, but, yes, I mean it. What your stepfather did was a crime, and what your mother did… That’s probably a crime, too. It’s unforgivable. It wasn’t your fault.”
“Ihatethem.” She spat the words, but fear quickly replaced fury. “What if Wayne reads those news stories and comes after me? He’s out of prison now.”
“You’re safe with me, Megs. If he shows up, Dean and I will rip him apart.”
Her lips curved in a wobbly smile. “Can I help?”
“You bet.”
Chapter 11
Megs stopped recordingand closed the journal, uncertain she wanted Mitch to listen to that particular memory over and over again. She would find something happier. “It’s time for some stretches.”
She stood, went to the foot of the bed, and flexed his right ankle, his eyes open now. “Do you know how lucky I was to meet you? That night was the night I began to heal. Your reaction and your reassurance meant more to me than you could know. I stopped feeling guilty—mostly.”
She looked into his eyes. “Most guys your age would probably have taken advantage of the situation to get laid, but you trulycaredabout me. I’ve never really understood why. You could have had any woman—one with a college education who wanted children or who didn’t cuss as much—but you chose me.”
She’d learned so much from him and from those books, reading them all cover to cover more than once, discussing them with him at night.
Our Bodies, Ourselveshad changed the way she’d thought about herself and what Wayne and her mother had done. It had given her language to describe what had happened to her, ways of expressing her emotions and sexual feelings. It had given her confidence that she’d lacked, strength that was based on something more than her determination not to break.
Walt Whitman’s poetry had opened her eyes to the beauty of language and the ability of words to describe the wonder she felt in the natural world. That book had been the start of a tradition for Megs and Mitch. They’d taken poetry on every climbing expedition since and read it together in their tent at night.
As for the book of sexual fantasies…
She’d turned the tables on Mitch with that one.
Megs moved to Mitch’s left leg, repeated the stretch, her thoughts drifting to that terrible night, to the memory of rage on her mother’s face.
It had been fifty-one years since her mother had thrown her out, and the woman hadn’t gotten in touch with her or offered an apology, not even when Megs made the covers of magazines for summitting Everest and winning the world championships in sports climbing. As for Wayne…
Well, karma had come for him. He’d gone to prison, where the other inmates had beaten him to death. Child molesters weren’t popular behind bars.
Fabiola entered the room, a look of concern on her face. “Radiology is coming to get another chest X-ray. Mitch’s fever has spiked, and the doctor is concerned he might have pneumonia from the vent.”
“Pneumonia.” Megs knew that pneumonia was a common complication of being on a ventilator. “Isn’t he still on antibiotics?”
“Yes, but some bugs have become resistant.”
It was the start of a day of complications.
The X-rays showed pneumonia. Not long after, his subclavian line stopped working and had to be replaced. Then his oxygen levels began to dip, probably from pneumonia. Then word came back that the bacteria in his vent was, indeed, resistant to the antibiotics they’d been giving him.
Megs sat in his room or stood at his bedside, holding his hand, explaining what was going on as if he were conscious. But she couldn’t forget what Dr. Schwartz had told her, his words on repeat in her mind.
With this kind of severe injury, he’s got about a forty-percent chance of a favorable outcome.It’s not just the injury. There are also potential complications.
This couldnotbe the point when the odds kicked in and everything went south. Mitch had been making progress. He didn’t need setbacks.
Keep fighting, love. Keep fighting.
The hours ticked by, Megs holding tightly onto any bit of positive news that came her way. His fever was responding to medication. They had the right antibiotic now. The new subclavian line was working. His eyes were open. Best of all, that big, beautiful heart of his—the heart that had carried him to the summits of all fourteen of the world’s highest mountains and had loved her so well—was still beating inside his chest.
