“You’ll be arrested for trespassing!”
“Unlikely.”
“Your dad’s cool with this?” I asked. The wood in the fireplace crackled.
“He doesn’t know. Besides, he’s the one backing out when he promised…” Quattro’s expression shut off then. Just when I thought the conversation was over because I had trespassed into no-woman’s territory, he confessed in a low voice, “My mom told Dad that she wanted her ashes scattered somewhere beautiful and remote.”
“So what better place than here?”
“And this”—he gestured to the mountain somewhere behind us, lost in darkness—“this was supposed to be our way of saying good-bye to Mom.”
Quattro now removed a metal canister from the backpack at his feet, cradling it tenderly in his big hands.
“That’s her?” I asked, raising my eyes to his as he entrusted me with the real reason for his pilgrimage to Machu Picchu with his father.
“I carried her almost every step of the way.”
The tiny container looked too insubstantial to contain a woman’s life. My eyes watered, and I wiped away the tears. Quattro shot me a rueful look and said, “My parents never had a Fifty by Fifty. They had a One. My mom—all she ever wanted to see was Machu Picchu. Since I was a kid, she had a postcard of Machu Picchu on our fridge and would tell us, ‘We’re going there one day.’ But she wanted me and Kylie to be old enough to walk the entire trail and to remember it all. So we waited until Kylie was twelve.”
And then it was too late.
Or was it?
“You’re going?” I asked. “Tomorrow?”
He shrugged.
“By yourself?” Why did I ask when I already knew his answer as much as I knew what mine should have been: Let’s go. Together.
But I hesitated too long as every objection formed in my mind—it was dangerous, my parents would ground me forever. So instead, it was Quattro who said those words: “We should go.” And he placed the canister carefully in his backpack, rising from the sofa as if he had revealed way too much.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Well, my dears, I am being ousted,” Grace announced dramatically the next morning as she returned to the casita, all banging doors and clomping feet. I yawned, tired from waking myself up at four on the off chance that Quattro might sneak out. I wasn’t sure what I would have done. But as it turned out, Christopher had suspected Quattro’s plans and hidden his hiking boots. I hadn’t seen Quattro since he grabbed his boots from his dad and stormed out about an hour earlier, with Christopher following close behind.
“What’s going on?” Dad asked, setting down a travel memoir that he had found in the lounge this morning. He was making notes on hotel stationery.
Without breaking her stride, Grace walked directly toward her bedroom and began tossing her few remaining possessions onto the bed. “Orders of the military. Can you believe it? I knew I should have hidden, but one of the armed rascals actually cornered me when I was loading the final sandbag. This… this is ageism! You know, if we were in the States, I might hire a lawyer.”
“But we aren’t,” Mom said in a placating tone. “So what exactly happened?”
“Another helicopter is flying in this afternoon, and apparently the Peruvian government doesn’t want an international crisis on their hands with any old people keeling over. So they’re insisting that every single elderly person be evacuated. Elderly!” She threw up her gnarled hands, looking like Yoda, a character not exactly known for his youthfulness. “I’m not like one of those senior citizens who take the train to Machu Picchu. I’m sorry, but did I or did I not complete the Inca Trail on my own?”
My mom exchanged a look with me, both of us smiling slightly. Right then and there, I promised myself that I’d be this spry and spunky at Grace’s age.
“Since there are so many gray-haired wonders walking around town, your age-group’s been delayed. Lucky you,” said Grace to Mom, with a wistful sigh. “Well, put on your best clothes. I’m taking everyone out to lunch.”
“I wouldn’t trust anything being served at a restaurant,” Dad said, grimacing.