attempted the first winter crossing of the high plains. Overtaken by a blizzard, they became lost and wandered for five days in sub-freezing temperatures. Hull and Michell survived the ordeal, but Cole died from exposure. Two years later, a hut was constructed in his memory as shelter for others caught in the area’s changeable weather. In the decades since, there have been reports of a lone figure seen wandering over the heathlands. When approached, he vanishes and no trace of him can be found.
I am haunted by dreams of the Bogong High Plains.
Chapter One
Déjà Vu, All Over Again
[10:00 p.m., Friday, February 24, 1995,
Providence Hospital, Portland, Oregon]
I’ve been here before: Walking down the corridor of some hospital, bracing myself for what I know is coming, pacing myself for what I know will be required. At the nurses’ station, they direct me to the second-floor waiting room where I find Sandy, arms crossed as if holding herself together. She stares out the window at the city’s night lights, sees my reflection in the glass, and turns, her face tight with anxiety.
“How is he?” I ask.
Eyes red, she shakes her head— “Not good”— then puts a hand to her face, and her shoulders begin shaking. I reach out and we fold into an embrace. She sobs once. Be strong. Be strong, I want to tell her. I need you to be strong.
We hold each other like that until she pulls away, removing a handkerchief from her jeans. “Let’s sit down,” I say. It’s almost ten, and we’re by ourselves. I’m grateful for this at least. I don’t feel like sharing a room with other grief-shattered people this night.
“How was the conference?” she asks, wiping her eyes.
“Fine. It was fine. Thanks for getting word to me. I was able to catch an early flight out of Dulles. How long have you been here?”
She looks exhausted as she checks her watch. “Since four. I came in with him.”
“What do the doctors say?”
“Not much. They’ve managed to stabilize him . . . they think. They say now it’s wait and see. Probably won’t know until morning. And even if he does . . .” Her voice trails off.
“Right. So, what happened?”
She fills me in; talking seems to relieve her, so I listen, thinking of the one in the ICU with drips and tubes sprawling from him like some high-tech marionette. It all came as a surprise, but then, not really.
When she finishes, I say, “You look beat. Why don’t you go home. I’ll stay.”
“I don’t know. I should be here in case . . .”
“I’ll call if there’s any change. I promise. There’s nothing you can do now. And I’m sure Fernando must be worried about you. You know how caring and considerate cats are.”
She looks up and I’m grateful to see her cracked smile. “Like you care about Fernando.”
“But I do. I do.” Fernando and I had taken an immediate and mutual dislike to each other upon our first meeting, and our relationship only deteriorated from there. “Go home,” I urge. “You need to get out of here.” I’m glad she doesn’t resist.
“Call me if— ”
“I’ll call. I promise.”
And soon I have the room to myself. Just me and a few dozen ghosts. Sliding into a chair, I swear under my breath, “Damn, damn, damn . . .” I had promised myself when I returned from Australia I wouldn’t go through this ever again: Never again keep a midnight vigil in some hospital, awaiting the inevitable. There had been too many. I had promised myself. Never again.
And here I was.
By my own diagnosis, I’m borderline burnt out. And I should know. I’m a mental health professional. Fortunately, one’s own mental health is not a prerequisite for the job. It’s been a year since I returned to the States, exhausted and drained of life. Aside from brief visits, I had been away for twelve years, first living in Japan, then Australia. Mom was happy to have me home, the Prodigal Son returned. That first night back I would have preferred just going to bed and sleeping for the next month, but she had killed the fatted calf and made a huge dinner of it, invited Sis and her homophobic husband, and chattered happily, managing to forget the circumstances that had brought me back.
We sat around the dining room table, I with no appetite, force-feeding myself to be polite, catching up on all the news. Family news. News of people I went to school with. News of people at church. Mom was a fount of unwanted information. Silently I listened as she went on and on.
“Oh, and did I write that Carol’s been diagnosed with breast cancer?”
Carol was my age. We had dated during high school, back in those early, preconscious days.
“No,” I said. “I don’t think so.” More information I didn’t need right then.
“Yes,” she sighed, adjusting her bubbly mood to the weight of the news. “It’s serious I’m afraid. But that’s a part of life. Eventually, you reach that age where your friends start getting sick and dying.”
My sister and her husband were stunned at Mom’s comment. Even Dad caught it.
I said, “Mom, my friends have been getting sick and dying for the last ten years.”
Thirty-one by last count, as my plane lifted off from Melbourne. It was the thirty-first death that was bringing me home. She started to speak, then, realizing what she’d said, nodded and resumed eating.
And yet, in spite of my exhaustion, in spite of my burnout, in spite of my resolutions on that long flight back to the US, within a month I was sitting in a ventricle of the heart of the epidemic, volunteering for more action.
Dad expressed concern about this. We’d been outside in the yard on a late winter’s day, pruning his trees and preparing his garden for spring’s return. Some people are easy to be with when grieving, people you can be comfortably silent with. Dad is one of them. Clipping dead branches, he asked, “Are you sure about this?” He meant volunteering. Hadn’t I had enough of this AIDS? Maybe it was time for me to get on with my life. To realize there was more to life than death.
I turned the soil for his garden bed. “No. I’m not sure. But I’m not sure I have a choice.” To his bemused look, I said, “I remember you telling me how the day after Pearl Harbor, you and your brothers went down to the Army office and signed up.”
After serving his three years, he had the chance to return to being a civilian again, to marry and get on with his life. And he signed up for yet another tour of duty. Why? I once asked. He’d hated the military, hated the regimentation, the fighting, the food. But there was a war on, you see, and the war dominated those years, shaping his generation, infusing every aspect of their lives, and overriding any personal plans. He could not not be part of it.
“That’s kind of the way it is with me now,” I told him. “This epidemic is my war.” He nodded, saying nothing further,
