“Opening my own law firm,” he said. I thought for sure he was going to add, “Ta-da!” Thankfully, he refrained.
I realized Graham was delusional, and based on my Internet research, likely manic-depressive. I didn’t bring up the fact that he could be going to jail, that we were facing bankruptcy, and that those two things would pretty much make it impossible to get a bank loan to pay the start-up costs of running his own law practice. In fact, there was a very real possibility he could lose his law license entirely. Graham wasn’t stupid; he knew that. He was begging because he was going to try to hit me up for the start-up funds from the trust, which, if my attorney couldn’t keep the bank lawyers from getting their hands on it, wouldn’t even exist. This, I realized, would be a never-ending cycle that I could no longer allow to continue.
“You don’t even have to go back to the insurance company,” he said. “Unless you want to. I’ll support us.”
I refrained from laughing. “Our problem isn’t money,” I said. “It never was.”
“I know. I know. We need to get back to who we were before all of this.”
And there was my opening.
“I have something in mind,” I said, trying to sound hesitant.
“What?” He looked and acted eager to listen.
“What do you think about climbing Rainier again?” I asked.
“What?” he asked, sitting back, clearly perplexed.
Rainier had been more than just a blow to Graham’s ego. It had been a blow to his psyche. He’d failed to summit, and I had. He could blame it on an overcautious guide all he wanted, but we both knew he couldn’t physically do it. I had done it, and, to be honest, it had not been that hard. Maybe all those years growing up hiking in the mountains in Southern California had acclimated me.
“It would give us something to focus on, something not work related. It would help get our relationship back on track. I really believe that’s what we need, to get back to being the two people we were when we met, before all this stress changed us,” I said, even sounding sincere.
“You want to climb Rainier?” he asked, voice soft and doubtful.
“Remember the last trip? Remember how much fun it was and how it brought us together? We need to find hobbies that we can do together.” Unlike sleeping with your associate, I wanted to say, but didn’t.
“Well,” he said. “I don’t know.”
“I think you could probably do it this time,” I said, tweaking his ego. “You could train harder because you won’t be working so much.”
“I could have made it last time,” he said, and I could hear the indignation mounting. “It was the guide.”
“Well, this is your chance to prove he was wrong,” I said.
“The guides are always going to be overcautious,” he said.
“We don’t have to worry about that,” I said. “I was talking to someone who’s done the Liberty Ridge route and you don’t need a guide.”
“Liberty Ridge?”
“You do it early in the season when it’s cold and the snow isn’t melting. In fact, she said it’s not technical, just a grind, but if you take your time, it’s no big deal.” I could see he was still hesitant so I added, “You wouldn’t have to worry about some guide overreacting.”
His ego took the bait. “I could have summited last time. The guide was just overly cautious.”
“Well,” I said, “this time there won’t be anyone to make you turn back.”
“No guide?” He became thoughtful. “What if something happened?”
I waved it off. “Nothing is going to happen. The odds are, like, less than five percent.” I again sensed his reticence and added, “I also know I could afford to lose a few pounds. Bikini season is coming up.”
Graham smiled, but I could see the doubt in it. “Yeah. I mean, maybe we could at least train, you know, and see where we’re at.”
“We can begin tomorrow morning,” I said, figuring the sooner I made him commit, the less likely he could back out.
He picked up the book he’d brought and held it up so I could read the cover. “The woman at Powell’s said it was really good. She said you’d really like it.”
I’d already read it, and at the time I had liked it. But now I had a different view. The book was about a pathetic woman recently divorced, still pining away for her former husband. She was an alcoholic, willing to do just about anything to get back a guy who really wasn’t worth getting back, no matter how much he humiliated her.
I could no longer be that woman.
CHAPTER 13