Sophie and Caitlin Chapman had been college roommates and remained close over the years. Caitlin called Sophie first because she was her best friend as well as her husband’s sister.

I’d met Jesse a few times when he was in Los Angeles, and he’d struck me as a stable, competent man. His suits were dark; he wore his hair long but carefully cut; while on vacation he still shaved every day. He did not strike me as a passionate man. His letter about the travel agent who dreamed of Death was a surprise because I had never known Jesse to be the witty, observant man who came across in it.

To be fair, I think it’s also necessary to say that Jesse Chapman didn’t like me. No matter how open our society has become about homosexuality in recent years, there are still a great many intelligent, sensitive people who have real trouble dealing with gays. I am in no way swish, nor do I particularly like those who are. I don’t believe in sexuality as theater and am uncomfortable with those who feel compelled to dance across life swinging pink boas behind them, hooting and mincing all the way. But I have never hidden what I am either. I am not sorry and I am not ashamed. Apparently after we met the first time, Jesse asked his sister in a low voice if I was a fairy. When he heard I was, it colored every subsequent conversation we had. He watched and listened to me from a distance. Then one ugly night we got into a stupid argument about boxing, which I know a lot about because I used to do it as a kid. Jesse didn’t know a thing, but spoke with the assurance of one who most certainly did. To make matters worse, Sophie kept interrupting to tell her brother he didn’t know about boxing; why was he spouting off like this? Which didn’t help. I wasn’t any better. I knew he was full of baloney and could have let him have his rant and left it at that. But behind his words, I felt, was the distinct connotation that I was gay so how could I know about the sport. So I got pompous, he got defensive, and we ended up being barely civil to each other.

When Sophie called to tell me about his disappearance, I was doing nothing but reading medical textbooks about my disease and wondering what to do next. When there is only so much time left, you become schizophrenic about the last days. On one hand, you feel compelled to try to make everything matter—each meal a feast, any conversation full of wit and memorable lines. This might be the last one, so make it matter. Even if it’s ending, life is full of treasures and it’s wrong not to savor them while you can. That’s the feeling when you’re positive and hopeful. On the other side of your moon is the despairing cynic who sees no point in getting out of bed in the morning because sooner or later you’ll end up flat on your back there till the hopeless end. It is a constant battle between the two. From one moment to the next you never know which will emerge victorious. And whichever one does win, the other is disgusted.

“Wyatt? It’s Sophie. I’ve got some bad trouble and you’ve got to help me.”

The cynic ruled that day. One hand held the telephone to my ear while the other rested on a dull book of densely packed sentences explaining in cruel detail how little hope there was. She had trouble? How dare she even use the word with me!

I listened while she explained what had happened but grew increasingly more impatient as she continued. He had disappeared? What of it? A man had dropped from his life like a pine cone off a tree. Was I expected to get down on my dying knees with the others who really cared about him and search for where he might have fallen? Forget it!

After I’d asked the appropriately sympathetic questions, a large silence dropped over the conversation and each of us waited the other out to see who’d speak first. Sophie finally did. What she said changed the trajectory of the rest of my life.

“You owe me a wish, Wyatt.” Said as quiet as a whisper and a final sentence.

I reared back, as if stung by the biggest bee on earth. “No! Sophie, you know you can’t ask that now. It’s too late. I don’t want to hear about it.”

“Tough! I don’t care what you want to hear. You owe me a wish and I’m using it now. That was the deal. Those are the rules.”

“Goddamn you! Then what is it? What do you want?”

“I want you to go with me to Europe to find Jesse.”

“Are you mad? Europe?”

“You have to. We promised each other.”

“Sophie, I’ve got leukemia, remember? Sometimes I don’t even have enough energy to get out of a chair.”

“I know, but you’re also the world’s smartest person in a crisis. There’s nobody I trust as much, either. If you get sicker there, they have good hospitals. Don’t worry, I checked. I’ve been talking on the phone for the last three hours. You’re the last call I had to make.”

“Where is there, by the bye. Where would we be going? Europe is a large place.”

“Austria. Home of Mozart, whipped cream, and Nazis.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“No, he was from Israel.”

When Dick died, I made a big mistake. After the initial shock and funeral and the weeks needed to put a dead man’s affairs in order, I suggested to Sophie that we go away somewhere together. I used the standard lines: it’ll be good for you; being someplace new will take your mind off it… I was extremely concerned about her and was convinced a good chunk of time away from home would spark her spirits and help her to start fresh. To my amazement, she liked the idea.

“Where would you want to go?”

Surprised that she hadn’t protested, I had no next sentence. I hadn’t thought that far in advance because I was so sure the whole conversation would be spent convincing her she should make a trip.

“Go? I don’t know. We’ve got the whole world. You choose. Where would you like to go?”

“Switzerland. I’ve always wanted to go to Switzerland.”

“You never told me that.”

“I know, but it’s true. I’ve always wanted to go in winter and be up high in the Alps in a snowbound hotel. The mountains are all around and in the morning you hear big booms because avalanche patrols are dynamiting places they think are dangerous.”

“And you smell wood smoke and wear sunglasses because the light off the snow is blinding.”

“Right, but only during the day. Around four every afternoon it starts to snow big lazy flakes and everything is quiet.”

It was the happiest I’d heard her in weeks, but I had to ask again to make sure. “You really want to go to Switzerland? Because if you do, I’m going to arrange it immediately.”

“Are you serious, Wyatt?”

“Yes. I think we could both use a vacation, and Die Schweiz sounds good to me.”

“ ‘Schweiz’? Do you speak German?”

“High school German, but it’d be fun to try it out again.”

“Oh, let’s go! It’s a brilliant idea. You’ll arrange it?”

“Every step.”

But why oh why did I choose what I did? At the travel bureau I looked through handfuls of brochures and leaflets promising Switzerland the way Sophie wanted it. In the end, I signed us up for a week at a Club Mediterranean in Zims, a ski resort in the Berner Oberland that had a perfect view of the Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau mountains. I’d never been to a Club Med but had heard they were bustling, happy places where one ate well, danced at night, and sometimes met interesting people. I checked again with Sophie and luckily she agreed that it sounded like fun, so when we later walked smack into Uh-oh’sville, I didn’t feel quite so bad for having steered us into it.

The trip over was a pleasure. We flew into Zurich and then took increasingly smaller trains from there toward the mountains. At Interlaken it began to snow. By the time the little cogwheel chugger slowed to a stop in Zims, the whole world was snow, low clouds, people speaking French and German stomping by with colorful skis over their shoulders. We stood outside an original Art Deco train station breathing in cold clean air. As if on cue, we turned to each other at the same moment and embraced.