Ixchel turns to me, then back to him.
“Josh … what’s the matter … what’s wrong?”
Dad.
I can barely choke the word out at first. It’s no more than a tiny croak. I say it louder, and louder, until I’m yelling. I begin to rush toward him when I realize that something’s wrong. Something’s horribly, terribly wrong.
The man who looks like my dad just keeps looking at us, but with no sign of any interest. He looks vaguely mystified when I shout, “Dad, Dad, DAD.” There’s no recognition in his eyes. None at all.
I must be hallucinating.
Then he speaks. And I know I’m either dreaming or crazy.
It’s his voice, my dad’s, no doubt whatsoever.
“Hey there, pal. Do I know you?”
I stop short, staring at him in disbelief. And yet, I believe him. Only too well. This feels like a waking version of my dream of Dad in the kitchen. Calmly pouring milk as he tells me that he and Mom cooked up a story that he was dead.
“Daddy … Dad. I don’t understand … how come you’re here?”
He stares at me, his eyes serious, filling with comprehension and sorrow.
“I’m your father?”
I’m numb with shock. “You don’t know me … ?”
He spreads his hands, palms open, looks helpless. “I’ve been on this mountain for months. Don’t know how I got here. Don’t remember anything or anyone. I always figured, you know, that seeing a familiar face might jolt my memory.” He gazes at me. “But … I’m sorry. I don’t know you.”
41
I try to speak, but no words come. All I can do is lick my lips against the blistering cold. Seeing this, the man who is my father takes hold of my arm. “You’re gonna freeze. Both of you—get inside.”
Outside the hut, Xocotli exchanges a few words with my father. I don’t catch what they say, but Xocotli keeps shaking his head, won’t budge. Finally, he comes over to Ixchel and me.
“This man says he’ll take care of you now, escort you down the mountain.” Xocotli gives me a questioning look. “That’s not what I agreed with Señora Susannah.”
“He’s my father,” I say.
“That’s something else she didn’t mention.”
“All right, then; wait with us until we leave.”
“We should leave now,” Xocotli says. “Bad weather is coming in. Wind rising. Things change fast up here.”
“They should stay until the wind goes down,” my father says. “I’ll take them.”
Xocotli gives us a hollow stare. “The mountain is unhappy. It’s time to leave.”
He watches as Ixchel and I follow my father into the hut. He doesn’t come in with us. “I’ll wait at the first hut,” we hear him yell.
The hut is the size of a large garage. There’s a tiny kitchen area with a gas-canister-powered stove and a bowl that functions as a sink. A log fire blazes under a brick-lined chimney. There’s a bed, spread with a sleeping bag, a small table with two chairs. On a single pine shelf is a pile of paperback books and a portable stereo.
My dad sits on the bed and invites us to take the two chairs. I stumble, finally find the chair, and sit.
When I bring myself to look again, I can’t take my eyes off him. He gazes back with a look that’s like a spear to my heart. It’s exactly the expression he had in my dream. Bemused, regretful, icily distant.
“So … you’re my son, huh? What’s your name?”
“Josh.”
He nods, and I catch a glimpse of a tear in his eye as he grins. “Josh; good, I like it.”
There’s a painful silence. “You’re Andres,” I say. “Professor Andres Garcia. You’re an archaeologist. You live in Oxford, England.”
“Andres. Wouldn’t have been my first guess. And England! That explains why I speak such good English,” he says.
“Your wife is Eleanor,” I continue. “And she … and I also … thought you were dead.”
Andres nods again, eyes down. When he looks back up, I see that his eyes are brimming with tears. He wipes them away with the back of one hand. I rush to his side and hug him. After a few seconds he hugs me back. It feels halfhearted.
“What are you doing here, Dad? How did you get here? And why didn’t you come back to us?”
He pulls away and puts his head in his hands for a long moment. Then he stands and walks to the kitchen, where he lights the stove to boil some water.
“I can remember how to speak and walk and … all the basic stuff. Which includes speaking English as well as Spanish, apparently. And I seem to know my way around a mountain. I remember everything that happened since I arrived on Orizaba. Most of all I remember the thing that’s kept me here—the fear. Someone is watching me. Someone is looking for me, and when they catch up with me, I don’t think I’ll be coming back.