Chapter 4: Above the Clouds

The revelation about their father's past changed the texture of the expedition. They were no longer climbing for Vikram. They were climbing to understand him, to reconstruct the decisions that had shaped a man who treated mountains like family and family like an obligation he could not quite fulfill. Dawa filled in the details sparingly, parceling out the story across rest stops and mealtimes. The partner's name was James Henley, an American climber Vikram had met in Chamonix in nineteen ninety-one. They climbed together for five years, pushing each other to increasingly ambitious objectives. The Kangthega attempt was supposed to be their masterwork. When James fell into the crevasse, Vikram spent fourteen hours trying to reach him before the rescue team pulled him off the mountain. He never spoke about it publicly. But he returned to the Khumbu region every year afterward, walking the same trails, studying the same ridge, refining his route as though solving a problem that had only one answer. Rohan understood now why the letter had asked for all three of them. Vikram had climbed alone for too long. He wanted his children to do what he never could: reach the summit together. The push to Camp Three was the most technical section of the route. The rock band Vikram had identified required mixed climbing, alternating between ice tools and bare rock, fingers searching for holds in frozen granite. Priya led the pitch with surgical precision, her movements efficient and deliberate. Aarav followed, his long reach an advantage on the wider cracks. Rohan climbed last, feeling the rope tug gently from above, a reassurance he had not expected to need. When they reached the ledge at twenty-one thousand feet, the clouds were below them, a white ocean stretching to every horizon. For the first time in years, the three of them sat together and simply looked at the world without needing to say anything at all.