As I walked home carrying the heavy manuscript, I remembered attending
one of Dr. Kerry’s lectures, which he had begun by writing, “Who writes
history?” on the blackboard. I remembered how strange the question had
seemed to me then. My idea of a historian was not human; it was of someone
like my father, more prophet than man, whose visions of the past, like those
of the future, could not be questioned, or even augmented. Now, as I passed
through King’s College, in the shadow of the enormous chapel, my old
diffidence seemed almost funny. Who writes history? I thought. I do.
On my twenty-seventh birthday, the birthday I had chosen, I submitted my
PhD dissertation. The defense took place in December, in a small, simply
furnished room. I passed and returned to London, where Drew had a job and
we’d rented a flat. In January, nearly ten years to the day since I’d set foot in
my first classroom at BYU, I received confirmation from the University of
Cambridge: I was Dr. Westover.
I had built a new life, and it was a happy one, but I felt a sense of loss that
went beyond family. I had lost Buck’s Peak, not by leaving but by leaving
silently. I had retreated, fled across an ocean and allowed my father to tell my
story for me, to define me to everyone I had ever known. I had conceded too
much ground—not just the mountain, but the entire province of our shared
history.
It was time to go home.