Chris

Chris is Ben Givens’s grandson, a medical student, and his closest companion in the mountains. Their relationship is established through fifteen years of climbing and renewed in a brief phone call during Ben’s concealed suicide expedition: Chris’s invitation to return to Silver Peak makes a future outing imaginable even as Ben hides why he is away. The bond matters not because Chris understands Ben’s crisis, but because their shared habits keep offering Ben a way back into ordinary life.

Identity and Background

At the family dinner before Ben leaves, Chris is in his third year of medical school and has begun clinical work. He is seeing patients for the first time, but only to ask questions and practice diagnosis; he finds that work more interesting than laboratory study. The detail gives Chris an emerging professional identity, still at the stage of learning how to attend to patients rather than independently treating them.

The dinner also places his studies within family life. Ben asks after Chris and listens as he describes the beginning of his clinics, while Chris asks Ben about climbing. Ben has come to the meal pretending that everything is ordinary, concealing both his terminal colon cancer and his plan not to return. Chris has no knowledge of that concealed purpose. The difference between what Ben is planning and the future Chris assumes they can share gives the exchange its quiet dramatic tension.

A Long Partnership in the Mountains

Chris and Ben have climbed together for fifteen years and reached fifty summits. Their outings have included lunches on mountaintops, with the peaks spread out before them. Chris is described as strong and as approaching climbs with good cheer; Ben enjoys his company. The history is not simply a record of shared destinations. It shows a relationship repeatedly renewed through the practical work of choosing a climb, making the ascent, and spending time together afterward.

The balance between them has shifted over time. Ben first brought Chris into the mountains; lately, Chris has been the one taking Ben. That reversal indicates how their shared activity has continued as Chris grew stronger and Ben became less capable of assuming the old role without assistance. On this occasion, Ben initially resists the invitation by acknowledging that Chris is the stronger climber. Chris persists, proposing Silver Peak as a day hike and a comparatively modest return to the mountains. Ben finally agrees, though the promise is a lie: he tells himself that he will go with Chris when he gets home, while intending not to come home at all.

The Phone Call and a Renewed Invitation

After Rex has been injured and Ben’s plans have been disrupted, Ben decides to call Renee with an account designed to preserve his cover story. Chris answers after one ring. Ben is caught unprepared, but instead of immediately ending the exchange, he allows the conversation to continue. Chris is studying away from his apartment because people there play music; he is also getting only four or five hours of sleep when he is on night duty. Ben recalls the demands of his own third year and tells Chris that the short sleep is not enough. Their exchange brings Ben’s experience into contact with Chris’s current routine without turning into a lecture or a confession.

Ben does not yet tell Chris where he is. When asked, he says only that he is east of the mountains. Chris asks whether there are birds there, returning the conversation to the familiar subject of hunting and the outdoors. Ben then proposes that they climb Silver Peak together. Chris accepts, and Ben later reinforces the invitation after Chris mentions having climbed Stuart, suggesting that they do something else together instead. The exchange echoes the earlier family dinner: Chris proposes a climb, Ben hesitates or redirects, and the prospect of Silver Peak remains between them as a shared plan.

Relationship and Narrative Significance

Chris’s importance lies partly in what he does not know. Ben has carefully arranged his departure so that his family will not immediately search for him, and he continues to offer Chris a return date and a future outing rather than disclose the truth. The concealment makes ordinary conversation an instrument of separation: Ben speaks as if the relationship will continue later, while privately trying to prevent his family from witnessing his illness and death. Chris’s plans are genuine, but Ben’s agreement is not yet genuine commitment.

At the same time, the conversations do more than expose Ben’s deception. The earlier promise about Silver Peak returns during the call, and Ben chooses to speak with Chris rather than promptly ending the call to reach Renee. The shared climb thus becomes a small but concrete possibility of continued connection. The evidence does not show Chris discovering Ben’s crisis or resolving it; it shows him extending an invitation, discussing the demands of study, and accepting Ben’s proposal. Through these ordinary exchanges, Chris represents a relationship that remains available to Ben even while Ben is trying to disappear from the lives of those he loves.