by Edie Claire
Stanley frowned. “Did I not just explain that?”
“I understand what happened twenty years ago,” she replied with more calmness than she felt. “But now is different. Your sons are adults, and the danger has passed.”
“You don’t know—”
“If it hasn’t passed completely, then what’s left of it is miniscule,” she interrupted. “Tony Russo has no idea where you are. And he can’t possibly be wasting time watching your family anymore, not across the border in Canada or all the way up here in Alaska. The benefit of righting the wrong here outweighs the risk a million fold!”
Stanley’s face reddened. His lips pursed together and his brow knitted. “There’s more to it. You can’t possibly know—”
“Then tell me!” she said boldly. “What else are you afraid of?”
He kicked out at one of post rails, making Kibbe rise with a start. The dog surveyed his master critically, shuffled a few feet away, then lay down again. Stanley didn’t seem to notice. His face was tight with frustration and his fists clenched the arms of his chair. “Don’t you think I want to see my sons again?” he cried. “That’s all I want! But I’m trying — for once — to do the right thing! There is no happy reunion possible here! There’s been too much time and too many lies. The truth wouldn’t help them now; it would only make them angry!”
“Of course it will make them angry!” Mei Lin argued, surprised by her own temerity. She wasn’t afraid of Stanley no matter how many posts he kicked, but intentionally aggravating a patient over a matter which was arguably none of her business was way, way outside any professional code of conduct. “But I’m equally sure they’ll get over it! It may take a while, but eventually they’ll understand. And as soon as they do they can move on to forgiving you.”
“There’s no reason for them to bother,” Stanley growled. “What are they going to get out of it?”
“They’ll get their father back!”
“They have a father!” he shouted in return. But his voice broke before he could finish. Tears flooded his eyes. “Doug Tremain is their father now. He’s been a good one, too. God knows he’s done a better job of it than I ever could.”
Mei Lin stepped closer to him, but Kibbe, in the uncanny way canines have of responding to human distress, was already there. The dog dropped his muzzle onto Stanley’s knee and wagged his tail sympathetically. Stanley sniffed and rubbed the dog’s ears with affection.
“Fatherhood is not a contest,” Mei Lin said softly. “You are you, and Doug is Doug, and right now, he is irrelevant.”
Stanley shook his head. “I’m not worth finding again, Mei Lin. My sons believe that I died a hero. They’ve got a picture in their minds of the man they think I was. Whatever they think, it’s better than the reality. Why bust up the dream? I’d rather be a stone-dead saint.”
Mei Lin’s teeth gritted. His self-effacement now was every bit as over the top as his self-love had been back then. “You’re not a hero or a saint,” she countered. “But right now you are acting like a coward.”
To her surprise, he laughed out loud. “Yeah. That too.”
“Not in everything,” she corrected. “Just in this. You’re afraid to face their anger. So afraid you won’t even give them a chance!”
The dig at his pride had no effect.
“There is no chance, Mei Lin,” he replied with authority, even as his eyes continued to water. “And it’s best to leave well enough alone. My boys are happy now. They don’t hate me, and they don’t hate their mother. Hating someone hurts, no matter who it is, but hating somebody you love… that’s a soul-killer. No way is getting to know this cynical, dried-up old man worth that. For once I’m doing the unselfish thing. And I’d appreciate it if you’d stop arguing otherwise.”
Mei Lin opened her mouth to say something, but wound up shutting it again. She could think of nothing else to say, at least not now. But that didn’t mean she was dropping it. The only thing she dropped was her own hind end, back down onto the washtub. She would sit down, and she would think a while.
Then she’d start round two.
Chapter 22
Thane shifted slightly to avoid getting a kink in his leg. Waiting quietly and motionlessly was par for the course in his business, but he wished they had chosen a slightly more accommodating spot — like a nice, knee-height fallen log, or even a smooth tree trunk to lean up against. But no, the best place to view this particular bend in the stream happened to be a flat stretch of muck in the middle of a grove of sapling alders. Dave insisted that it was one of his personal hot spots for catching black bear fishing for salmon, and since it was the nearest hot spot to where the tracks they’d been following had left off, it seemed as good a place as any for a stakeout.
They’d been waiting quietly for nearly an hour now, with no luck. They’d agreed already that when the hour was up, they’d go back to tracking and trailing. Ordinarily Thane was a fount of patience, but today the forced inaction was killing him. As much as he wanted to see that cub, he could not stop thinking about Mei Lin. They had started a very good and pleasant thing this afternoon, and although he didn’t officially regret interrupting it under the circumstances, he would have been more comfortable with his decision if their current odds of success weren’t quite so abysmal. Dave had trailed a mother bear and two cubs to within a quarter mile of where they stood, but it was a leap to hope that the same bears would be fishing here now. They could just as easily be snoozing in a mossy daybed miles away. Or, worse yet, the particular bear family Dave had trailed here might not be the same one Mei Lin saw two days ago. Female bears usually kept to their own territories, but when the salmon were running, such boundaries tended to blur.
Dave glanced at his watch, then let out a sigh. “Well, this is a bust,” he announced, albeit in a whisper. “I’m thinking maybe we should move on to that berry patch off the Lake Trail I was—”
Thane cut off his friend with a hand on the shoulder, and Dave immediately quieted and looked where Thane was looking.
The tops of the bushes beside the stream bank were rustling. Something large was definitely moving within. The men held their breath as a grunting noise met their ears. And then, as if by magic, a black bear cub popped out of the underbrush. It splashed into the stream and sniffed about, then lifted its front paws and dashed them down flat in the water. It was a mimicry of its mother’s fishing technique, but on the shallow bank, the cub was more likely harassing water bugs.
A few seconds later the cub’s mother appeared. She was an older female with a slightly grizzled muzzle, and as she looked up and down the stream she gave the air a few perfunctory sniffs. Bears could see nearly as well as humans, but they trusted their vastly superior sense of smell more, so with the men placed downwind, the bear detected nothing that alarmed her. She swung her head over her shoulder and made a snuffling noise. Thane’s heart skipped several beats.
It would happen any second now. Come on, little fella! The gray cub had to be behind her still, hidden in the ferns. He heard the faintest grunt from beside him and realized it was Dave. Thane’s giant paw was squeezing the poor man’s shoulder in a death grip. He relaxed his hand, then tried to relax the rest of himself, as his gaze stayed riveted on the patch of brush.
The greenery rustled. A second cub popped into view, barreled into the stream, and pounced on its sibling’s back. The cub beneath responded with an open mouth full of teeth, but the force of the attack sent both of them sprawling into the water, rolling sideways in undignified somersaults.
Thane’s already stressed heart dropped into his boots. The second cub was as black as the first.
He and Dave watched the bears in silence for another twenty minutes, drawing what pleasure they could from the young mammals’ antics, which were not assisting their mother’s quest for food in the least. She wandered off upstream by herself, looking for calmer, more salmon-friendly waters, until at last she was out of view. The bumbling cubs followed at a distance until the
men lost sight of all three.
“Sorry about that,” Dave mumbled as they headed back toward the nearest trail.
“No worries,” Thane replied. He reached out to clap his friend on the shoulder, but Dave’s preemptive wince waved him off. “They’re out here somewhere.”
“I must have been tracking the wrong group for a while now,” Dave continued morosely. “I know just where it happened, too. I thought the first set was moving west, and these tracks seemed to be coming from the north, but I let my enthusiasm convince me they were the same. The glacier cub probably did move on west. I bet their territory ranges out closer to the bay…”
Thane listened with half his brain. The other half was devoted to a continuous playback loop of Mei Lin Sullivan, a beach covered with wolf tracks, and those glorious few moments before they’d been slobbered on by the labradoodle…
He was walking on autopilot with a stupid smile on his face when Dave received a call on his radio. The speaker was one of the assistant rangers. Standing several feet away, Thane could only pick up occasional phrases through the static. But as he watched Dave’s face gradually brighten, he had no trouble getting the gist.
Don’t know how credible, really… couple of hikers… foreign, spoke pretty good English… first time seeing bears… German, maybe?… not too knowledgeable, but… that’s what they said… asked three times… matter of fact, you know… I didn’t say much… any bear would be exciting… definitely said cubs were different colors… young ones… she said gray… word he used was “light”…
Dave was spitting out questions, fumbling to write in a notebook with a pencil with a broken lead. Thane felt his own pockets but knew he had nothing to write with either. Dave gave up, signed off, and stuffed everything back in his pockets. When he turned back to Thane, his face was glowing. “We got ’em, my friend! Hikers had no idea what they were seeing, but that’s just as well. Sighted them off the Bartlett River Trail, heading away from the bay into the forest. I told you! Didn’t I tell you? I said that first set of tracks was heading west, maybe a little northwest—”
Thane went back to half-listening again as they hiked back to Dave’s truck with Thane leading — in double time. The more they hurried, the better chance they had of catching up with the bear family. And then, afterwards… A swish of shiny black hair loomed large in his mind… Afterwards, he would return to the house. The house where he was staying. And also the house where she was staying…
“Thane!” Dave demanded as they half-walked, half-jogged. “Take it easy! I’m older than you, remember? And my legs aren’t as long, either!”
Thane chuckled. But he didn’t slow down.
***
This time, as Mei Lin steered the Subaru away from the Torpins’ place and back down the long gravel road toward town, she drove slowly. She would not near-miss another moose calf. Her spirits were low enough.
She felt horrible. First, because she’d made no progress at all in reasoning with Stanley, despite multiple, increasingly creative attempts. He did not want any contact with his sons. He didn’t want them to know he was alive. And he was holding Mei Lin to her promise of confidentiality, adamantly. Of course, doing the right thing by Stanley would mean that the next time she saw Thane, she would feel like a traitor. And while she could think of all sorts of things she would like to feel the next time she saw Thane Buchanan, soul-crushing guilt was not among them.
But she would feel guilty no matter what she did. She felt guilty enough just seeing how pathetic Stanley looked as she left him, sitting on his porch with a blanket over his knees, eagerly scanning the edge of the clearing every few seconds with his binoculars. She could have told him that the glacier cub had left the area. But she had not. Never mind that Dave had specifically asked her to pass on that information, as well as his apologies for not getting back to the cabin today. Mei Lin couldn’t bring herself to tell Stanley the truth. She was too afraid that his hope of seeing a glacier bear was the only thing keeping him alive.
She was pulling back out onto the main road when her cell phone dinged. She moved the Subaru to the shoulder and picked up her phone from the console. She had a text. From Thane. Actually, she had a series of them.
She read through the first few, and her vision blurred. None of the words in the texts were tender or romantic, but the story behind them tugged at her heartstrings. He was excited, and he obviously wanted to share that excitement with her. He gave a detailed accounting of how disappointed he’d been to see the wrong bears, but how optimistic he was that some hikers had spotted the real thing. He and Dave were checking in at the lodge when he texted, but they planned to head to the river trail immediately. He did not know how long they would be out.
The text that got her was his last one.
Wait up for me?
Nearly ten minutes passed before her eyes got dry enough for her to drive again. Even then, she hesitated. Nothing she could do at Elsie’s house would help anybody. She would only pace and stare out the windows, wishing for Thane to come back and hug the misery out of her, even as she dreaded the sight of him. How could she not tell him, whether she chose to or not? Her acting sucked. Every laugh, every smile, every kiss would be tainted by her guilty secret. Unlike some men she’d dated, Thane wasn’t oblivious to her feelings. He would see the conflict in her. He would feel it.
And what of Stanley? Mei Lin had never met anyone more consumed with self-loathing. She realized now that his moments of seeming light-heartedness had been outliers. He could give heartfelt career advice or get excited about a bear, but fundamentally, his worldview hadn’t changed since she’d found him delirious on his cabin floor. He hated himself, and he believed his life to be worthless. He felt guilty about leaving his sons and maybe other things… like Angela. Who was Angela, anyway? Mei Lin still didn’t know. She didn’t understand him at all!
Her frustration boiled over. She banged her hands on the steering wheel and swore out loud. This waiting and worrying was no good. She had to do something! But what?
She had no idea what. She had no plan whatsoever.
Then again, when did she ever?
She revved the Subaru back into action and performed a three-point turn.
Chapter 23
When Mei Lin walked up to the cabin for the third time that day, Kibbe greeted her as if he hadn’t seen her in months. Stanley looked at her with alarm. “What’s up? Is Jesse okay?”
“He’s fine.” Mei Lin took off her heavy backpack and walked with it past Stanley and into the cabin. “I offered to bring your dinner up myself tonight,” she called out as she unloaded the plastic containers of food Amanda had given her. Then she walked back out to the porch. She realized that her tone sounded clipped. Besides being winded from the walk, she was impatient to get on with it. Unsurprisingly, she still had no plan.
“I’m afraid Dave won’t be coming by either,” she admitted. “He and Thane are following another lead. Some hikers thought they saw a gray cub out at the park.”
Stanley’s disappointment was evident. “Oh. Where, exactly?”
Mei Lin did her best to explain what she remembered of the details.
“Well, I hope they find it,” he said, smiling now. “Thane would get a kick out of that. I’m sorry I…” His voice trailed off in thought. But after another moment, he looked up at her with amusement. “I’m surprised to see you back again. I thought for sure you’d given up on me this time.”
Mei Lin steeled herself. She would not be fooled by another of his superficial displays of good humor. She plopped back down on the washtub and absently rubbed at Kibbe’s ears. “Who is Angela?”
Stanley blinked. For an instant he seemed genuinely puzzled, then his muscles tensed and his smile disappeared. “I don’t know,” he said unconvincingly. “Who are you talking about?”
“You told her you were sorry,” Mei Lin explained. “Who was she?”
His face reddened to a disturbing hue. “Is this something else I babb
led when I had the fever?” he demanded. “You said you told me everything!”
She shook her head, summoning her reserves. Playing hardball was difficult for a born people-pleaser, but she was determined to get a better handle on his mindset. If he got angry with her, that didn’t necessarily mean she was failing. It could mean just the opposite. “I did tell you everything, up to the point when you asked me. You didn’t mention Angela until the next day, when you were having a nightmare. Who was she?”
He pursed his lips with annoyance and looked away.
“Someone you loved?” Mei Lin pressed.
He scoffed at that. “I don’t think I’ve ever loved a woman — at least not the way you mean. That’s part of what makes me such a swell guy.”
“Then I’m sad for you,” Mei Lin said genuinely. “I tend to err in the opposite direction, but that has its own problems. Who was Angela?”
He met her eyes. “Are you going to let this go?”
“Did you stop asking me about Mariel?”
He harrumphed. “Fair point.”
“Who was Angela? Why did you tell her you were sorry?”
Stanley’s blue eyes flashed with pain, and she could see that deep within him, some thread of resolution was breaking. “She’s the woman who saved my life. The last time I should have died. Wait… no, that honor belongs to you now, doesn’t it? Let’s say the ‘next to last’ time.”
Mei Lin scrambled to make sense of his words. “Where did this happen?” she asked.
“South Sudan,” he said in a gravelly tone. “Near one of the camps the UN had set up for the displaced. The field hospitals were lucky to have one resident surgeon for tens of thousands of people; some had no surgeon at all. The injured would come in waves, depending on where the fighting was. I’d go wherever I was needed. I’d just finished an assignment in the Upper Nile, and another doctor and I — a pediatrician — were headed back to our base camp. It wasn’t far. We had a UN escort.”