“And Dad totally gave up his dream to be a photographer. He should have been one! For National Geographic.” I would have shaken my camera at high heaven, but I was trembling too much to retrieve it from my pocket. “So how fair would it be for me to be a photographer? I mean, wouldn’t that be rubbing it into my dad’s face that, hello, you’ll never get a chance to live your dream. But look at me: I’m going for it, thanks to your support?”
“It’s what your dad would want. Plus, Beethoven was deaf, and he composed music.”
“But a photographer needs to see.”
“Monet painted his most famous pictures when he had cataracts.”
“Yeah, but photographers need to see.” I was panting, wild eyed. A sight to behold, I’m sure. “You should see the pictures he used to make, not take, but make. I never got it until this trip. All the hours waiting for the right moment to tell a story.”
What was I doing? This wasn’t emotional flooding but a thirty-foot, crushing tsunami. No one—and I mean no one—wants to experience the ruins of anyone’s family this up close and in person.
“Shana,” Quattro said softly. I could tell he was going to reach for me, touch me. I backed up, my heels hitting the next step. I stared down at my scuffed hiking boots, embarrassed about losing control. And then he wrapped his arms around me, which was awkward given my backpack, but I didn’t care. I tipped into his chest, resting my head on his shoulder. How long had it been since I had felt safe?
“Why do you always have to wear orange?” I sniffled.
Quattro laughed, then after a moment pulled away to open his water bottle and urged, “Drink.”
As I tipped my head back, I wondered whether Dad was taking care of Mom now. Or were they walking alone?
“Sorry,” I mumbled. Without looking at him, I whispered, “It’s just not fair.”
“I don’t think life’s about being fair.” After a moment, Quattro added, “If it was, my mom would still be here.”
I jerked my head up to study Quattro, really study him. There was a hollowing in his face, which made him look vulnerable. But instead of meeting my eye, he stared hard at the wispy trees. “She was killed in a car accident.”
I cleared my throat. “I’m so sorry, Quattro.”
“It happened.”
“When?”
“A couple of years ago. Two. You’d never know it from the way Dad acts like this shadow of himself. He wasn’t ever like your dad, rock climbing, skiing in the backcountry, and all that. But Dad… he used to be pretty adventurous. He’d get out there.” But now, as if he was the one who had revealed too much, Quattro changed the subject when the overhead clouds released a light drizzle. He held his hand out to feel the raindrops. “Hopefully, it won’t pour.”
“Otherwise Ruben’s going to break out the ark.”
“Remember what the Flood was supposed to do, though?”
“Kill everyone?” I said.
“Be a fresh start.”
Chapter Ten
Considering how tired I was from trekking at altitude, I should have fallen asleep instantly, but snippets of my conversation with Quattro kept replaying in my head that night. Grace wasn’t the only mourner on the Inca Trail; if Quattro looked haunted by his mother’s death, then his father had one foot planted squarely in the otherworld. The next morning, I woke groggily to a conversation I didn’t understand and raucous laughter that I did. Our porters.
Did they think it was odd that tourists from around the world paid good money to look for ruins hidden deep in the jungle? I was wondering that myself after unzipping the tent to find grim skies and mud from last night’s deluge. There was nothing to do but retrieve the ugly paramilitary rain gear from my backpack. I sighed as I yanked the rain pants on and half-hoped that I wouldn’t bump into Quattro on the trail today. My hair already felt lank from a day of sweating without bathing. Why hadn’t I packed even one measly tube of lip gloss? And had I really dumped all my messy emotions on him yesterday? I groaned.
“You don’t look that bad,” Dad said. When he gazed at me as affectionately as he had the year Mom dressed me as a bedbug for Halloween, I knew the rain gear was worse than I imagined. “Here,” he said, “I’ll take your picture.”
As if, I was about to retort until I remembered the campfire last night. All of us were stretched out before the heat of the flames when Hank had suggested that we trade cameras to check out what everyone else had shot.
“These are all blurry,” Hank had said, holding up the camera I recognized as my splurge purchase. I tried to stop him from asking whose it was by reaching for it.
Dad said flatly, “It’s mine.”
“I bet a little Photoshop will fix them,” Helen said kindly after a damning silence.
Until that moment, I hadn’t understood what Dad’s loss of vision was going to be like for him. He wasn’t just losing his vision; he was losing a part of himself. Wherever he went, he wouldn’t be Gregor or the twins’ father or even the pest control guy but the guy with the bad luck. The blind guy.
Now, as if Dad were remembering last night, too, he said abruptly, “No, never mind. Let’s get breakfast.”