Page 88 of A Nantucket Wedding

“Hey,” Scott said and tugged on her hand.

She leaned over and kissed him. She ran her hands over his face. “Oh, Scott, you’re alive, you’re here, you’re okay.”

“I know. I’m luckier than I deserve to be. I was an idiot…”

“No, anyone can fall. I read the comments on the Internet on the way over. No one can judge when the mist will come in. Tell me about your arm. Does it hurt?”

A weak smile. “Not now. I’m pumped full of drugs. It hurt like the devil when I fell.”

“How did it happen? Tell me. Wait, can I sit on the bed or should I get a chair?”

She looked around. The nurse had quietly disappeared.

“Sit on the bed. This side.”

Jane hitched herself up on the bed, and Scott kept hold of her hand.

“Tell me.”

“It’s not dramatic. It’s ridiculously simple. I’d hiked up the Crib Goch path and I was beginning along the ridge. They call it a scramble there, because you need your hands. I was exhilarated, energized, I was so close, the air was sweet and pure—I thought I could run the rest of the way. It’s magic up there, Jane. I want to climb Mount Snowdon with you sometime, not now, and not the path I took.”

“How did you fall?”

Scott’s eyes were bright. “Suddenly this thick white mist rolled in from nowhere and the temperature dropped. I took my sweatshirt out of my backpack and pulled it on over my head and that movement unbalanced me. My foot slipped. Down I went.”

“Were you terrified?”

“I didn’t have time to be scared. It happened so fast. It happened likethis”—Scott snapped his fingers—“unimaginably quickly. I was sliding, almost rolling, and I reached out my arm to stop myself, and I knocked into a sharp edge of slate—it’s slate everywhere up there. I hit the slate, and my body came down on top of my arm at the same time. I heard the bone crack. It hurt, but not as much as it did when I found myself lodged between two boulders.”

“Scott, how frightening!”

“The fall was frightening. I felt better, safer, when I was stopped by the boulders. I could have fallen to my death from up there. People have. I was thankful to be stopped. I caught my breath. I went for my cellphone, but it had fallen out of the backpack when I got out my sweatshirt. The mist was still all around. I took off my backpack—that’s when I knew for sure I’d broken my arm. The pain was red hot. I couldn’t use it. I cursed and somehow wrestled my backpack off with one hand. I got out my wool hat and put it on. I drank some water. I had trail mix if I got hungry, but I wasn’t hungry. I huddled tight, trying to keep warm, but my arm hurt like shit and was kind of dangling, flopping. I had a flannel shirt in my backpack, I was wearing my T-shirt and had been warm enough in that because I was moving. I made a kind of sling, tying the sleeves together in front—I had to use my left hand, the hand attached to the broken arm, and that was a pain, I can tell you. But I got my arm more or less immobilized against my chest.”

“Smart,” Jane said.

“It helped keep me from panicking, doing all that stuff. I drank some water. Every so often, I’d yell out for help. I didn’t hear anyone. I had no idea how far I’d fallen or if I was stuck near some kind of trail. I was there ten hours.”

“Ten hours! By yourself, and with a broken arm? Oh, Scott.” Careful not to jiggle his arm, Jane leaned forward to kiss his face. “Scott, you’re alive, you’re here, that’s all that matters.”

“No. Wait, Jane.” Awkwardly, he pushed Jane away.

Her heart stopped. He had pushed her away. He was trying to sit up, and he pushed up with his good right arm until he was slightly tilted toward her. She reached out to help him balance, and they both laughed at how awkward this was, and then he flinched, and she knew he was in pain even with the medication.

She asked, “Did you break anything else?”

“No, but I earned several Technicolor bruises. And my hands are scraped.” He held one hand up to show the reddened palm and fingers. “But that’s nothing. Jane, listen. I need to tell you something.”

“It’s all right, Scott,” Jane said. She wanted to put her hand over his lips to keep him from saying they should divorce. Because she knew that was what he was going to say, that while he’d been curled up in pain and cold alone and lost on a dangerous mountain, he had realized how short life is, and how wrong it was for him, for them, to live with each other when they both knew they wanted different things from life.

“Jane, listen to me.” Scott clasped her wrist with his good hand. “Look at me. Jane, it was terrifying up there, but it was also extraordinary. As if I’d been lifted away from everyday life and I could think about things with clarity, without interruption. I thought about our last conversation, and how angry I was when I left and how sorry I was that I’d gone off that way, so pompous and self-righteous and inflexible.”

“Scott. Please—”

“And I remembered how you still loved me, after what I told you about my parents. You still wanted to be with me, to have children with me. You were so brave. Youareso brave. On the mountain, I knew that when I was rescued I’d tell you I want to have children with you.”

Jane blinked. She was fatigued from traveling, and fuzzy-headed, so had she misheard? “What?”

“Jane, I want to have children with you. I don’t know, call it an epiphany, that’s what people call it, a real come-to-Jesus moment, I thought how much I love you and how if I’d died—no, come on, don’t cry, I didn’t die—but if I had died, I would want to leave something real and unique behind on the earth and that would be a child. Children. Made from you and me. Jane—”

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