Wilder

by North, Lena

  The first day, no one came to the cabin, and I started to wonder if Mickey had somehow warned them off. I'd dreaded visits, mostly because I knew that my so called father would be the first one to come and I had no clue what to say to the man. He’d saved me, at risk to himself, so I’d have to thank him. This wasn’t something I looked forward to, though. The man had ignored me all my life, and I did not like the fact that I owed him for rescuing me off the mountain.

  Now it was the second day back in the cabin, and Mickey would go to Double H to pick up some clothes and other things for us. Even though he got an early start, he wouldn’t get to the ranch until early in the afternoon, and to turn around and drive right back would make it a very long day in the car for him. It took some effort, but after some persuasion, he’d agreed to stay with his parents for the night and then return the next day instead. The convincing had started as cajoling, continued with a lot of yelling from both of us and then I’d brought out the big guns. I’d started crying, something I could do whenever I wanted to, and as big round tears rolled slowly down my cheeks, I let my bottom lip tremble a little to add to the overall effect. Unfortunately, Mickey had known me all my life, but when he’d stopped laughing, he finally agreed to spend the night with his parents.

  “Wilder,” Mickey murmured and shook my shoulder slightly. “I get what you’re doing, and I’ll give you that play because I have to leave. Need you to promise me one thing, though.”

  “Okay,” I murmured again.

  “You should talk to your dad,” he said, firmly.

  That got my attention, and I sat up so abruptly my head almost slammed into his chin.

  “What?” I asked sourly.

  “I don’t have time, Wilder, so don’t act stupid. Talk to Hawker, yeah?”

  I stared at Mickey, wondering if he had already spoken with the man himself.

  “I don’t have time, Wilder,” he repeated himself, and added, “Talk to him.”

  Our glares held for a while but then his face softened and a small smile played at the corners of his mouth. I was ridiculous, and we both knew it. Of course, I would have to talk to Hawker.

  “Sure, I promise,” I murmured, still sullenly, but that was mostly to save face.

  I knew my face saving efforts had failed when I heard him chuckle, but I couldn’t hold back a small grin of my own, so it didn’t matter. Best friends were sometimes a pain, but they were always a comfort.

  Then Mickey left, and I got out of bed. They’d given me a cane, and I’d laughed when the nurse gave it to me. It was a deep emerald green, exactly the same color as my cast.

  And there I was, hobbling into the kitchen to make breakfast in a small cottage that Willy had left me, wearing some of his clothes and missing him so much I thought my chest would explode. The numbness I felt those first days after I lost him had passed and the pain was almost unbearable. In a way, I was actually grateful Mickey had left because I knew that he would have held me as I cried but he would also have tried to cheer me up, and he would have kept me busy. Without anyone around to see my grief, I could let it rip through me and even though it hurt it was also cleansing. It felt as if the tears washed away that ball of ice and grief in my stomach.

  When the river of tears seemed to subside, I topped up my coffee and stared out the window, feeling hollow but also calmer. I decided that I needed something to do, or another crying jag would surely commence. Since I couldn’t leave, I figured going through Willy's things would keep me busy for most of that day.

  The house was small, only two bedrooms and a kitchen that extended into a surprisingly large living area, but there were still things to go through. Willy had a closet full of clothes in the room that had been his, so I sorted them into piles. Throw away. Donate. Save. I cried again as I worked my way through his clothes because the smell of him lingered in some of the garments, but the tears came easier. Then I attacked the desk and shelves that lined one of the walls in his bedroom. They were full of papers and books, and I put most of it in boxes, thinking that I'd either send it to Double H and go through it later or maybe ask Hawker if he knew what to do with it. A lot were notes about the history of the area, and some of it were clearly old.

  The cabin was built of stone, and the windows were small so by mid-afternoon the rooms started to get dark, and I realized I hadn’t eaten all day. One more shelf, I told myself. Then I’d make myself something to eat and spend the evening on the couch.

  Then I found a box full of papers that were different than the others. It seemed to be a manuscript or even a kind of diary, and once I started reading, I couldn't tear myself away from the text.

  “It was a beautiful spring morning, and ahead of me I had an easy day, an easy task, but I held my lips pressed together to keep the tips of my mouth from twitching. I couldn't smile, not yet. I wished Troy was with me, but I was glad Susannah wasn't, and it was a struggle to walk slowly through the settlement...”

  I put the box under one arm and brought it with me to the couch. Then I hobbled into the kitchen, made myself a cup of tea and a huge sandwich. It took two trips to get the warm brew and the plate to the cozy living room, but then I settled in to continue reading.

  When it was completely dark outside I moved around the house to make sure the door was locked and turned on a few more lights. The story was fascinating, so I leaned back on the couch and continued reading. I wondered how Willy had gotten his hands on it.

  “...that night I lay in a bed that was more comfortable than anything I'd ever slept in before, but found that I missed watching the stars, missed feeling the wind in my face.

  “Silly girl,” I muttered to myself. I wondered why I couldn't be happy, promised to the prince, a soft bed under my back, and an easy life ahead of me with no hard work. Then I was too tired to think anything else, and I fell asleep.”

  ***

  I gave up a small cry when a loud knock suddenly echoed from the door.

  “Wilder! Are you okay?” Hawker called loudly from the outside and then I could see his face peering in through the window. “Open the door,” he commanded with a scowl.

  I raised a hand to indicate that I’d heard him. Then I noticed that it wasn’t dark anymore. I'd been so immersed in the story about this girl called Vilda and her friends that I hadn't noticed how hours had passed by. It was still early morning but the sun was up, and I’d spent the night on the couch. I gathered up the papers and put them back in the box.

  “Open the door immediately,” Hawker semi-repeated himself, sounding both angry and impatient.

  Jeez, I thought. What had crawled up his behind? As I got to my feet and grabbed the cane, I almost hit my cup of tea, which was half empty and standing next to the sandwich I had barely touched. I’d have to make breakfast.

  “Good morning to you too,” I said sourly as I stood in the open door.

  “You have had the lights on all night, I’ve knocked several times, and you did not open the door,” was his angry reply.

  “So?” I retorted.

  I could see why he would have worried – if he’d been my dad, which he wasn’t. I’d managed without real parents my whole life, and I didn’t need one all of a sudden.

  “For fu –” he started, but I interrupted him immediately.

  “Oh no, you don’t. You do not get to come here, wake me up and start shouting foul words.” I glared at him and then I laid it all out. “You might think that you’re my father, but you are not. I had Willy. I had Mickey and his parents. That had to be good enough for me, and it was way beyond good, so I did not suffer, but I also spent way too many years wondering why the man I thought was my father hated me so much. Spent the same number of years wondering why my mother didn’t love me.”

  My voice hitched a little because I was pretending that it hadn’t hurt, but it had.

  “I am grown up now, mostly, so you don’t get to come here and play at being my father. Not after a shitload of years when
you could have been one and wasn’t.” I concluded grimly, angrily and with no little determination.

  I could see that I got through to him, and a flash of hurt passed over his face. Then he leaned into me and growled, “Shut up, girl. You have absolutely no clue what you’re talking about, and you need to move that ridiculous cane and your sorry ass foot over to the kitchen so I can get some coffee going.”

  I stared at him, wondering if he was insane.

  “I –”

  “Move.”

  “I –”

  “Move.”

  “Will you stop interrupting me?” I shouted.

  “Move.”

  Oh my god. Realizing that he wouldn’t give up, I hobbled through the living room, up the two steps into the kitchen, and sat down at the table. The metal cane made a loud rattling sound as I threw it on the floor, and then I turned to the rather scary but somehow completely safe man that had stalked me through the house.

  “What?” I snapped.

  “Shut up,” he replied, seemingly calmer but still unhappy.

  Then he moved around the kitchen, making coffee and pulling food out of the fridge. I could see clearly by the way he knew where everything was that it wasn’t the first time he was in Willy’s house, and it hurt.

  “You’ve been here before,” I stated quietly.

  “Had dinner here every Monday for many years, Wilder,” he replied.

  I stared at him.

  “What?”

  He turned slowly toward me, and his anger was gone. His face was a blank mask, showing no feelings at all, and I didn’t like it. Then he put a plate full of huge sandwiches on the table.

  “Eat,” he murmured.

  “But –”

  “Eat.”

  Oh my god. Were we back to that again? I grabbed a sandwich with cheese and sliced tomato, thinking that being a huge man with long black hair, tattoos and a perma-scowl on his face, he was also oddly domesticated.

  “I will eat if you explain,” I murmured through a huge bite. Then I stopped chewing and raised my eyebrows. “Did you put salt and black pepper on the tomato?”

  “Well, yeah,” he replied. “Are there any other ways to eat tomatoes?”

  “No,” I murmured, but thought to myself that it was odd. I did that too, all the time, and he was right. There wasn’t any other way to eat tomatoes.

  We ate in silence for a while, and I was about to say something when he suddenly put his cup down on the table with a small thud.

  “I’m sorry about your mother, Wilder. We disagreed on everything, and a few more things most likely, but I’m still sorry,” he rumbled quietly.

  “Did you know my mother at all?” I asked because I’d never heard my mother disagree with anyone about anything. A smirk emerged on his face, and of course, in one sense he would have known her. I tried to backtrack by feigning a confident, grown-up attitude to the whole thing. “Except for getting in her pants, I mean,” I added, snootily.

  That didn’t make him happy if the muscle clenching in his jaw was an indication, but he held his temper in check and spoke calmly.

  “Yeah, Wilder. I knew Carrie.”

  I didn’t say anything at first because I had absolutely no idea what to say.

  “Did you love her?” I suddenly heard myself asking.

  “No,” he replied gently.

  Our eyes held for a long time, and it felt strange to look into eyes that looked so much like my own.

  “Wilder…” he started, sighing as he pulled his hand through his long hair. Then he straightened and continued resolutely, “No, I didn’t love her, and she didn’t love me. We met, and she was… She was pretty, yeah?”

  He started to look a bit uncomfortable, and I couldn’t stop myself from grinning.

  “I get what happened, Hawker. I’m kind of proof of that?” I said, thinking that I understood and hoping that it would stop him from going into further details. I had absolutely no desire to hear about the hot and heavy part of their encounter.

  He grinned back at me and at that moment I could see clearly that my mother would probably have thought that he was pretty too.

  “Where did you meet?” I asked.

  “Uni. I had some classes with Rider, and we became friends. Went with him to his home, met Carrie there, and then later at parties in Prosper,” he replied.

  “You’ve been to Double H?” I asked, surprised that he had been to the place where I had spent most of my childhood. At least the happy parts of it.

  Hawker just stared at me with his brows high on his forehead.

  “What did they tell you, Wilder?” he asked slowly.

  “Fath –” I caught Hawker’s eye and corrected myself. “Paolo told me that I was an unfortunate mistake in my mother’s youth and that this was why he’d always disliked me. When Mickey called him a few foul names, Paolo explained to us that Mickey would fit in well with your crowd and that we’d find you in Norton, in John’s. Probably with a beer in your hand,” I said, and concluded, “That's all I know.”

  “Jesus,” he whispered. “No wonder you came in with an attitude.”

  “I always have an attitude,” I corrected him.

  Willy had always said it was in my genes, and I’d always thought that Gramps had meant that I got it from his genes, but now I realized that he had meant genes that came from the man sitting in front of me. Hawker defined the word attitude.

  “I know,” he muttered.

  “No, you don’t know,” I snapped.

  “Yeah, Wilder, I do,” he said bitterly, and when I wanted to protest he talked over me. “After the divorce and when I’d left Double H, I had dinner here with Willy every Monday because that’s when you went back to those idiots. When Willy had dropped you off at school, he went here, and we talked about you, how you were, what you’d done. He had pictures, videos, and he told me about every second he’d spent with you.”

  “But –”

  He interrupted me immediately, and that was good since I didn’t know what to say. Divorce? Leaving Double H? Willy going here each week?

  “There are things you don’t know, and I can’t tell you everything, but you should know one thing –”

  He made a pause, and I realized that he was suddenly angry.

  “I didn’t want to leave, and when I had to, then I wanted to take you with me. I couldn’t, and it has pissed me off for years to have to stand back. To only be a shadow in your life. To sneak in at competitions and graduations, stand in the back with dark shades and a stupid cap on my head, leaving before it was over so no one would notice. Surviving on scraps of information, like a fucking stray.”

  I made a strange gurgling sound, but when it seemed as if he would continue talking I raised a hand.

  “You need to shut up,” I said, and he blinked. “You lost me at the divorce, Hawker,” I continued.

  He blinked again, but his face seemed to soften slightly.

  “Yeah,” he sighed.

  Then he moved to top up our coffee, and when he sat down again, he had calmed down.

  “Yeah,” he repeated but remained silent, as if he didn’t know where to start.

  “Please,” I whispered. “Were you married?”

  “We got married when Carrie found out about you. Moved up to Double H. We wouldn’t have married if it weren’t for you, but things were okay between us. Not great, but we got along well enough, and I liked Double H. Loved Willy. Then you were born, but Carrie… she just wasn’t wired to be a mother, Wilder. And then she met Paolo Fratinelli.” he murmured.

  He held my gaze warily, almost as if he expected me to break down when he shared this.

  I started laughing.

  “Wilder?”

  “Jeez, Hawker. You expect this to be some kind of upsetting news to me?” I said. “You knew her as Carrie, but she wasn’t. She was Caroline Fratinelli, and she was a shitty mother who didn’t care about anything but Paolo
Fratinelli. She didn’t care about me, or anything else, the way she cared about him. She gave me nothing when she lived and left me nothing, not one cent, in her will. All she had, all that she ever was, she gave to him. Sucked for me, but that kind of love? Not many of us find that.”

  We sat in silence for a while, and then he sighed deeply.

  “Always hated that guy. Not because Carrie loved him, didn’t give a shit about that. Just thought he was a…”

  He trailed off, so I leaned in.

  “A dick faced shitgibbon of a fucknugget?”

  He barked out startled laughter, and I had to grin at him.

  “Jesus, Wilder,” he said finally. “Apt description, but still –”

  “Mickey’s words,” I interrupted calmly, and proudly.

  “Yeah, that's something Rider's boy would say.”

  “Not really, Hawker. Uncle Andy didn't seem so very happy with Mickey right then. Paolo was indifferent, though,” I said, remembering the condescending look on his face.

  “Probably didn't understand,” Hawker snorted. “I always thought his brain had to be more or less pickled with all that hairspray.”

  His unexpected words startled me, and I laughed out loud.

  “Look, Wilder, we have more shit to talk about,” Hawker started when I had calmed down.

  “Yeah,” I said and looked down at my coffee. Things were happening too fast, and I didn't know how to cope with suddenly having someone like Hawker in my life.

  “I get that you're confused and that the past weeks has been hard,” he murmured gently.

  I raised my head, and our eyes met. His were calm, and soft, but there was a hardness around them too. He looked determined, and when he started talking again, there was a steely tone in his voice.