As my words sank in, we tackled the next steep section of the mountain in silence. I couldn’t get enough breath to continue a conversation with Dad anyway. All I could manage was a steady rhythm of five plodding steps, then a brief panting rest. If my breathing was labored, how was Grace doing behind us? Ruben, Hank, and the porters waited for us at the crest of this section. We reached them just in time to hear Hank’s sarcastic assessment: “This is exactly the way I imagined the Inca Trail.”
I actually understood that complaint. My parents had taken a healthy chunk out of their retirement savings to fund this expedition with me, and the two following trips, with my brothers. This was hardly the Inca Trail I had imagined or would ever wish upon anyone.
“Then my apologies,” said Ruben smoothly. He gestured for the porters to push ahead. Somehow, drawing from a deep well of patience and good humor that I didn’t have, Ruben continued, “Just because we’re trying to make good time doesn’t mean that we can’t appreciate what we’re seeing.” He looked downhill to the other half of our group, still with one long set of stairs to climb before they caught up to us. “You know, this is one of the most beautiful cloud forests in the world.”
Strange as it might sound, I had been so distracted by worry and hunger and burning hamstrings, I hadn’t even noticed that we were surrounded by low clouds and wind-battered trees. While Ruben tried to satisfy Hank with a lecture on the function of moss in a cloud forest, Dad paused before a small orchid, an improbable, show-stopping pink flower that thrived without the benefit of direct sunlight.
“Your mom really wanted to see this… and a hundred other things. I just never made the time to take her,” he said finally with a defeated sigh.
“Dad.”
“You should check on your mom,” he said gruffly. “Why don’t you wait here until they catch up?”
I started to protest. After all, what the heck was the point of a family excursion if all we were doing was excusing ourselves from each other’s presence? Without wasting another moment, though, Dad began plodding uphill like a travel-worn pilgrim who’d been walking for such a long time, he’d given up hope of seeing whatever he’d come to find. His resignation was way worse than his anger.
Laughter—rich, joyous, and just shy of hysterical—signaled that the women were nearing. It was almost unfathomable that just hours ago, a chunk of mountain had sheared off, and we’d been screaming in fear.
“Sexy to the end, girls!” Grace cackled. Spying me, she added, “Right, Shana?”
The rain fell harder. Even with the thick foliage that arched overhead, drops of rain penetrated the canopy. But not a drop seeped through my military-grade barrier of rain gear. That was no less a miracle than Mom’s cheeks flushed as pink as the stubborn orchids blooming around us. No less a miracle than the women’s laughter.
What could I do but laugh helplessly, too? Laugh at my ludicrous mud-spattered rain gear and agree, “Oh, yeah, we are sexy to the end.”
Chapter Fifteen
All along the Inca Trail, we’d stood in awe at the stark beauty of ancient ruins. The barest suggestion of stone buildings could stop us. Yet it was the first sight of the sickly green Trekkers’ Hostel that made me tear up, and not because the eyesore of modern architecture was long overdue for a date with a bulldozer. I wasn’t the only one grateful for this last official campsite before Machu Picchu.
“Thank you, Lord!” cried Grace, so ecstatic I was a little worried she was going to kiss the building. But she only leaned her forehead against the concrete walls. “Thank you!”
The backpackers inside squeezed tighter to accommodate us. If they hadn’t, we would have been stranded out in the rain, huddling and shivering through the night. Everyone insisted that Stesha and Grace take two of the beds. Dad muttered a single halfhearted warning about bedbugs, too worn out to do much more. (And yes, for the record, bedbugs can thrive at high altitude.)
I couldn’t sleep. Every little sound made me think that we were being hit with another mudslide. Sick of feeling this claustrophobic panic, I crept around my sleeping parents to head outside, which made no sense at all. I was no safer out in the open. Plus, the ground was sopping wet, but at least it had stopped raining. The air smelled cleaner than anything I’d ever experienced, even while hiking in the Cascades back home.
A crunch of footsteps crept up behind me. Stupid, why had I ventured alone into the dark? I spun around to face Quattro, my cry strangled to a quiet gurgle.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, holding out his hands to steady me.
At his touch, I felt scared for an entirely different reason: I was fighting the inevitable. Tell myself that all I wanted was to be focused on my photography. Tell myself that I wanted to be relationship-free. Tell myself that I was done with commitment and expectations and compromises. But here I was, wanting Quattro to want me right back. It was so hard not to know where I stood with him, firm ground or mudslide zone. But now I knew I had to know.
“I didn’t know you were here,” I said in a low voice. Dude, do you like me, or what?