Page 29 of Double Exposure

Chapter Eight

Jade Choi

I didn’t want Carter to let go of my hand in the helicopter. I felt desperate—not a feeling I’m used to, and I was reduced to clinging to him like some waif.

It’s not until he tells me I have to stay until . . . until what? The fire under me lights again.

This is my father. I am going to him. Period.

In the back of my mind is a churning worry that he may not be alive, but this is so overwhelming and so out of the realm of possibility that I can’t give the thought much oxygen.

Ross takes the line from my fingers and he and Ryan pull the gurney. Carter and I follow, with him helping me every other step as I try to negotiate the heavy snow.

I don’t think I torn any ligaments, but my ankle still hurts. The closer we get though, the less pain I feel.

Suddenly, they all stop and Carter gently puts a hand on my shoulder. “Listen,” he says.

The thin sound of a whistle comes from ahead.

“That’s him!” I cry, and the men move even faster. I can’t keep up and wave them on. “Go go go!” My breath condenses and lays thick in the air. Carter looks agonized, caught between wanting to stay with me and rushing ahead to find my father.

“Go!” I say.

He gives me a quick hug and then the three men are gone and I’m picking my way on more compacted snow left by their trail and the weight of the gurney.

I follow their tracks to the edge of the clearing and then dive into the woods.

Voices float and then there’s the sound of a small creek.

“Hey!” I call.

“Over here!” yells Carter. There’s a flash of red through the trees, the color of my father’s bedroll and tarp. Over the crest of a small hill, in a bend near the water, is an improvised lean-to with a small, blackened fire pit right next to it. The lean-to is six feet long at most and nothing more than the tarp tethered to the rock and secured to the ground.

Snow has slid off the top, piling on itself, creating an insulated space: a tunnel of snow wrapped around heavy plastic.

Carter squats by the opening while Ryan and Ross prep the gurney. Carter holds a mylar sheet folded to a five inch square.

Struggling with myself, my relief, anger, pain and frenzy to be with my dad, I hurl myself through the woods trying to get there, to be there, and be present.

I start running down the broken trail, slip on ice near the creek, but even the jarring pain in my ankle isn’t enough to slow me down.

A branch snags my hood and it comes down just as I break into the clearing.

“Is he? Is he—”

Carter smiles and lifts more of the tarp. “Want to say hi?”

My father, seemingly small and withered, looks at me from the end of his cocoon.

“Oh Jade, I’m so sorry.” His accent, the one that embarrassed me in middle school with its w-like r’s, is thick with pain and exhaustion. I am just so glad to hear his voice.

Kneeling down, I take Carter’s spot at my father’s head and place two hands on either side of his face. Our gaze meets for just a moment—a rare event. Tears sting and need to be blinked back.

“We thought you were gone. You were gone. Are you okay? What happened?”

“We need to get him out,” says Ross.

“And you are sure it’s just the leg?” Carter asks my father before he and Ross place an arm under him. Even though I don’t want to step away, I have to, to give them space to pull him out. Ryan is busy taking down the tarp and clearing the small campsite.