Over quinoa sweetened with raisins, Ruben revealed the plan for the day. The morning’s trek up to Dead Woman’s Pass would be divided into three ninety-minute segments. Helen slumped and shut her eyes wearily, already exhausted.
“We’ll take ten breaks, each a couple of minutes long,” Stesha said cheerfully. How she had managed to look adorable in pink socks that peeked out from under her rain pants, I don’t know. I pretty much doubled as an overstuffed sausage squeezed into a casing of nylon.
“Everybody ready?” asked Ruben, reminding us that we had a strict schedule to keep if we wanted to make it to the next campsite at a reasonable hour. Naturally, Grace chose the exact moment of our departure to heed the call of biology.
“Oh, geez, she’s going to take a million years,” Dad complained, readjusting his backpack as he glowered at Grace’s receding back. He had a point; with all our layers, going to the bathroom was a long, multistep ordeal.
“You go on ahead,” I said quickly. “I’m walking with her anyway.”
“You’re not being paid to keep her company.”
“Actually, I am.”
“But you’re not a trained guide. If anything, Stesha should have hired you to be the trip photographer.” Shaking his head, Dad held the new camera out to me. “Here, take it, kiddo. I can’t see well enough to use it.”
I backed away, frowning. “Dad, it’s yours.”
“Look.” His tone may have been mild, but that word was scalding. He pushed the camera at me so I could see for myself that Hank was right. The image in the viewfinder was blurry, an impressionist’s rendering of the landscape. “It’s wasted on me.”
I was about to suggest that he just default to autofocus, but I knew better. Dad would rather leave the camera behind to be ruined in the rain. Mom nodded at me, silently ordering me to take the camera already and stop making a scene. Everyone at the campsite was watching us. So reluctantly, I accepted the camera, no longer a friendly weight in my hand but a cold, heavy anchor, weighing us down to our reality. If Dad couldn’t take photographs, neither would I.
The rest of the day was nothing but one lesson in humility after another. As soon as I congratulated myself for being in excellent shape and managing the trek so well, the stone-paved path that the Incas had laid down five hundred years earlier turned into a waterslide. Stones that were already large and uneven now became slippery from the rain. I kept expecting to twist my ankle. I glared at the swirling rain clouds overhead. What next?
“Sorry,” Grace said as she stopped again, this time to wrestle her water bottle from her backpack.
After I drew the bottle out for her, I said, “What are you apologizing for? If anything, I should be apologizing for my dad. He’s not normally like this.”
Instead of answering, Grace studied a branch so gnarled it looked like a witch’s deformed finger. I wondered where her mind had taken her. Finally, she identified it: “Polylepis.”
“That’s so cool looking.” I started to pull out my camera only to remember my vow: I wasn’t taking photographs, not with my old camera, and definitely not with the new one.
“Survival does that, doesn’t it?” she mused.
“Warps us?”
“Shapes us.” She paused, letting the branch go so it sprang back. “You know, if my husband were standing here, I’d tell him that I was beginning to wonder whether he loved me.”
“Why?”
Grace swept off her wide-brimmed rain hat to wipe the sweat off her brow. “We loved to travel, Morris and I. But this”—she jabbed her hat accusingly down at the rain-slick stones—“this isn’t about travel anymore. This is beginning to feel like a suicide mission. I mean, I am going to become the Dead Woman’s Pass.”
The truth was, the Inca Trail wasn’t as romantic or fun and definitely not as bonding as I had imagined it would be. What had I been thinking? That we’d be the von Trapp family, trilling melodious harmonies as we skipped single file through majestic mountains? It wasn’t just Grace I worried about but Dad and his he-man pace to prove to Hank and everybody else that a twenty-year age gap and impending blindness meant nada when it came to his physical fitness. And then there was Quattro, who was disrupting my much-needed, much-wanted Boy Moratorium. I hadn’t seen him at all today, and I didn’t like missing him. Really missing him.
“Do you want to turn back?” I asked Grace, studying her intently. Less than halfway to Machu Picchu, now was the time to retreat if we were going to backtrack.
“Absolutely not,” she said, her mouth tightening. “I made a promise, and by God, I’m going to finish.”
But we still had the entire descent, never mind all the elevation gain ahead of us. I needed to get my mind off the trek. So I asked, “How long were you married?”
“Fifty-two years.” She stretched backward and groaned.