The End of the Wild

by Nicole Helget

  The ceiling rumbles, rattling the glass light fixture above my head as Mikko and Alexi tumble out of the bed they share.

  “Me first!” I hear one of them say upstairs.

  “No, me!” says the other. They stumble down the stairs, elbowing each other out of the way, asking me what’s to eat.

  “I’m baking bread,” I tell them. “We’ll have toast and jam in a while.”

  “I just want jam,” says Mikko. “I don’t need bread.”

  “I don’t think so, mister,” I say.

  Mom and I made the jam. We still have four pints left from her last batch.

  Maybe this summer I’ll make it just like she did.

  Plum-and-Currant Jam

  In July, collect an ice-cream pail of red currants. They grow wild on short bushes with the maple-shaped leaves about 50 paces into the woods from the gravel road. Don’t be discouraged by their disagreeable smell. Put the top on the ice cream pail and put the currants in the freezer. In early August, pick the wild plums from the giant bush on the northern edge of the woods. In the biggest pot you’ve got, slowly cook down 4 cups of plums and 4 cups of currants. Turn the fruits up to boiling, then turn down to low-medium heat and simmer until there’s mostly liquid with some pulp. Slowly add 8 cups of sugar. Stir constantly. Ladle into clean and heated jars. Seal.

  I turn on the TV to a morning cartoon. The house is noisy and warm and almost feels normal. I tidy up a bit, and then I watch TV with the boys until the bread is done. When the timer dings, I cut slices and slather each one with plum-and-currant jam.

  Mikko licks the jam off four slices of bread, and when he thinks I’m not looking, he slips the soggy bread between the couch cushions.

  “Hey,” I say firmly. “No way.”

  Alexi eats three slices but sets the crust on the arm of the couch.

  “Pick that up,” I say. “Throw it in the sink, at least. Quit acting like gross little pigs.”

  “Oink,” says Alexi.

  “Oink, oink,” says Mikko.

  After they eat, I put the dishes in the sink and dry the laundry. Toivo’s cell phone rings several times. Each time it’s an 800 number, probably a debt collector. I tell the boys to get their snow pants and boots on, and they do.

  Mikko’s got on two different boots, and Alexi wears Toivo’s socks on his hands for mittens, but I don’t care. “Let’s go,” I tell them. “Maybe we’ll see Ranger.”

  “I want a dog so bad I could scream,” says Mikko. He clenches his fists and baps them around as though he’s playing drums.

  “I want a dog so sore I could pee,” says Alexi.

  When I’m in charge of the boys, I try to remember all the things Mom used to say to them. They scrapped a lot when she was alive, too. “We’re going to Alkomso’s and are going to try and have a nice time.”

  “Yeah,” says Mikko. “Don’t ruin it.”

  We mosey on toward Colter. It’s a small town with hardly any stores open and nothing to do if you don’t know how to entertain yourself, which most kids don’t. The boys break twigs off of the trees and scrape them along the slushy snow that’s building up. It’s early for snow, even for Colter. The boys and I walk faster than usual to keep warm.

  I decide to take a detour. “Follow me, guys. Let’s say hi to Mom.”

  I lead the boys behind the small church and through a little gate into the cemetery. Our mom is buried right next to her mom, who died of breast cancer when Mom was just a little girl.

  I kneel down and try to feel Mom’s presence. It occurs to me that if the grove gets cut down, this will be the only place I might be able to feel near to her. The boys sit down, crisscross applesauce right in the wet snow. Mikko stares at the headstone as though he’s trying to figure out the words.

  We didn’t care whether Mom had a headstone or not, but Grandpa did. Without consulting us, he had a big, shiny black one made. It reads JOHANNA, BELOVED DAUGHTER AND MOTHER. Skipping WIFE and skipping her married name were Grandpa’s ways of sticking it to Toivo. Toivo won’t come out here anymore.

  The boys pick at the crisp, dry grass poking up through the snow, and I sweep the flakes away from Mom’s marker. We just sit there in silence for a while.

  “Children,” a deep voice says.

  My blood goes ice-cold. The boys jump.

  Grandpa.

  Mikko and Alexi stand up and wipe off their snow pants. I stand up, too, and pull the boys close to me.

  But they lunge away from me and hug Grandpa’s legs.

  “Hi, Grandpa!” they squeal. Grandpa lifts both of them up at the same time and kisses them and bear-hugs them. His clothes get all wet from the snow on the boys, but Grandpa doesn’t care. He squishes them right up to his face. Then he reaches out and pulls me into his huge body and embraces me strongly.

  “Fern, you’ve got the most beautiful hair in the world,” he says, setting the boys down. “Look at that. It’s slick and rich as oil.” He takes off his cowboy hat and fluffs his thick hair. “Same color as mine!”

  “Yep,” I say. “It is the same. But it’s only hair.”

  “You do remind me of your mother, Fern. You are a lucky girl.” He pulls up his pants by the belt buckle that says BIG JOHN.

  “Did you bring us something, Grandpa?” The boys spin around him and dig their hands into Grandpa’s coat pockets. Alexi pulls out a money clip. Grandpa takes it out of his hands and peels off three twenties. I want to scold the boys and tell them we don’t take handouts, but it’s too late. After handing one to each of the boys, Grandpa stretches one toward me.

  A twenty. I could buy bread, milk, eggs, butter, and flour with that.

  I look away. “No thanks.”

  “I thought you might say that.” He refolds it and puts the clip back in his pocket. Mikko and Alexi take off running through the headstones.

  The boys don’t really understand what’s happening between Toivo and Grandpa. All they know of Grandpa is candy, toys, and trips to the zoo or the amusement park. The boys see Grandpa and immediately start thinking about his lake mansion-cabin with enough separate bedrooms and bathrooms for everyone, and a maid who cleans up. To them, Grandpa means fun boat rides and fishing poles and fireworks. But now I’m old enough to understand his ways.

  The way he bad-mouths Toivo whenever he talks to us.

  The way he buys us toys we can only use at his place.

  The way he tries to break up what’s left of my family.

  “We gotta get going, Grandpa,” I say. “It was nice to see you.”

  “I didn’t mean to chase you away. If you want to stay with your mom for a while longer, please do. I won’t bother you.”

  I don’t feel like Mom is here anyway. Even though this is technically where she is, the space isn’t warm or comforting in the way that the woods are. Being here on the anniversary of her death just feels like a responsibility. An expectation.

  “We’re meeting some friends,” I tell Grandpa. “Got some schoolwork to do.”

  “That’s good to hear. Are you keeping up? In school?”

  “Pretty much,” I say.

  He eyes me sharply, as though he doesn’t believe what I’m saying. He jingles keys in his pocket. “How’s your STEM project coming along? My company donated a nice prize, you know.”

  “Yeah, Grandpa. You told me that already.”

  “You know, Fern, all this stuff with Toivo—I’m just doing what’s best for you and the boys. I can’t have you kids flunking grades. Your mom would not want that.”

  I shift my feet and cross my arms. He’s right about Mom.

  “He’s just not fit,” Grandpa goes on. “He can’t even take care of himself. You have to trust me on this. I know best.”

  I uncross my arms and wave the boys toward me. “We have to go now,” I say. “Boys! Let’s go!”

  They come flying, jump into Grandpa’s arms, and kiss him good-bye.

  “See you, Grandpa,” I say.

  “Hold on there,” he snaps.
His giant hand squeezes my shoulder. He tugs me into a hug. He’s warm and smells like tobacco and leather. “You kids need me,” he says. “And I need you.”

  At first I resist. I keep my arms and back stiff. But Grandpa just holds on and on and won’t let me go. Finally, I give in and soften up into his big belly. Being hugged by Grandpa feels kind of safe. But then I worry that I’m betraying Toivo, so I let go.

  “Okay, Grandpa,” I say. “We have to go. Bye.”

  After we’ve walked on some, I turn around and see Grandpa down on one knee in front of Mom’s grave with his hat in his hand.

  Chapter 10

  When we get to Alkomso’s apartment, I punch in the security code and climb the stairs. Two of her little sisters swing the door open, grab my arm, and screech, “Come in! Get in here!”

  The house smells of roasted goat and almond milk and garlic. Sometimes I think Alkomso’s home smells weird, but she thinks my house smells weird, too. Like feet, she says.

  “Hullo,” yells Alkomso’s mother from the kitchen of the small apartment. She says something to the little girls in Somali that makes them back up and pout. Abdisalom pops out from behind a couch, and my little brothers are off like hounds after a rabbit.

  “Hi, Hamdi!” I say. That’s Alkomso’s mother’s name.

  Alkomso waves a notebook at me. “Did you see Mr. Flores on TV last night? I started a story about a science teacher who hates fracking and a lady lawyer who represents Kloche’s. They fall in love. It’s very tragic and very romantic.”

  Hamdi raises the spatula she’s using for cooking. “You stop thinking about boys all the time, and put that story away! Get to work on the STEM project!”

  The baby, Kaltumo, wails in a bassinet Hamdi has placed in the kitchen, where she’s cooking. I lean over and grab the baby’s tiny fist. I stroke her hand.

  “What’s the matter with her?” I ask Hamdi.

  “I don’t know. All she does is cry.” Hamdi doesn’t appear nervous or worried. She simply pats the baby’s belly and coos something else I don’t understand. The baby smiles, but then, as soon as Hamdi returns to her kitchen work, starts crying again.

  “I’ll hold her,” I offer.

  Hamdi waves her hand. “Sure, sure. You hold her.”

  I lift Kaltumo to my chest. She immediately stops crying and reaches for my lips. I put my nose to her hair and sniff. I love the scent of babies: curdled milk and baby powder. Matti smelled just this way. My eyes well up. I give Kaltumo a kiss on the cheek and lay her back in the bassinet and give her the edge of her blanket to hold. She puts it to her mouth and starts sucking.

  Alkomso sets up a laptop on a card table.

  “Where did you get this computer?” I ask.

  “The library!” she says. “You can borrow all kinds of technology from there.” Sometimes I don’t know why I don’t think about things like that. Alkomso’s family doesn’t have much money, either, but they always seem to be able to outsmart being poor.

  She clicks around and opens up a document called “What Is Fracking?” She says, “My project is so confusing. Lots of people think fracking is good because it brings jobs, but there are lots and lots of people who say that it poisons the air and water.”

  “I wonder why Mr. Flores didn’t tell us what he really thought about fracking,” I say.

  “Too political!” Hamdi shouts from the kitchen.

  “Quit eavesdropping, Mom!” Alkomso scolds. Then she leans close to me. “Mom said that Mr. Flores is in big trouble with the school board already. She said that Mrs. Peterson is working overtime to get him fired.”

  I pull on a strand of my hair. “That would be terrible. He’s the best science teacher ever.”

  “I know,” says Alkomso. “What’s your project? Have you decided? If you haven’t, you can be my partner.”

  “No,” I snap.

  She tilts her head.

  “I mean…” I take a breath. “I mean, thanks for offering, but I’ll figure out my own project.”

  “Are you still mad at me about what I said in class?”

  “No. I’m not mad about that. I just… I just think that if I do my own project and get a good score, maybe Grandpa will leave Toivo and us alone.”

  “Your grandpa just needs to give it up. Maybe he should get a girlfriend and think about something else.”

  I laugh. And I feel relieved. I don’t want to have a fight with Alkomso. Especially now that Mark-Richard is gone and I’m not sure when he’ll be back. I don’t want to lose another friend.

  When Alkomso and her family first came to Colter, I wasn’t her friend. I can still picture her on her first day at our school. I can still see her brown eyes scanning the classroom. She checked each face for a hint of a friend.

  When she looked at me, I met her hope with a stony glare. Those were the days when I was trying hard to fit in with Margot and her friends. I was one of the girls who used to snicker about Alkomso’s clothes, especially her scarves. I was one of the girls who used to pretend she had “germs.”

  At recess time, I would sit under the big tree with Margot and the rest. We’d scoff at Maura’s socks. We’d laugh about the hair on Bernice’s arms. We’d say Letitia had lice. We made fun of everyone for anything.

  I never felt safe around them. Every morning my stomach roiled. My forehead singed. I would lie on my pillow and feel behind my ear, where I knew my hair was changing. The gray hairs grew stiff and wiry. Every morning I wondered if this would be the day Margot would notice.

  One day I was surprised to see Mom waiting for me outside my classroom door after school with Hamdi, who was waiting for Alkomso. One of my so-called friends elbowed me and said, “Look at that old lady with a new baby. Gross!” Because after Mom had Matti, her tummy hung over her jeans like a mushroom cap, and she didn’t color her hair, so most of her head was silver.

  I walked right past my mom and pretended she wasn’t mine. Mom watched me, understanding exactly what I was doing.

  I didn’t really like myself for a long time after that.

  I didn’t like saying nasty things about the other girls. I didn’t like talking about cute boys all the time. I didn’t really have the slightest interest in jewelry or nail art. I always knew that if I made one mistake, Margot and her friends would turn on me.

  Which they did.

  About a month after Mom and Matti died, the girls stopped talking to me. I would try to sit with them beneath the tree, and they would purposefully create a circle with their knees and not let me in it.

  They would pretend they couldn’t see or hear me.

  They would say things like, “I understand her mom died, but now she’s just trying to get attention.”

  And “She must like that her mom died, because now all the teachers give her extra time to get her homework done.”

  And “She doesn’t have to pretend to be so sad about her little brother. He was just a baby. She hardly had time to even know him.”

  What’s really embarrassing is that I was still frantic to be their friend, and so I kept trying. I think I was scared of any more change.

  Then one day, during reading class, Alkomso helped me out. I had lost my reading book. I just sat there when the teacher said to get it out. Alkomso scraped her whole desk and then her chair right next to mine. It was super noisy, but she didn’t care. Then she pulled out her reading book, set it on the crack between our desks, and opened it.

  When Mom died, Alkomso became the kind of friend to me that I should have been to her.

  I’m embarrassed about all that now. I can’t take it back, but I wish I could.

  I flip through a few pages of her book while the little kids throw pillows at one another.

  “The drawings in here make fracking look very neat and orderly,” I say.

  “I know! Look at all the green grass around the drills. And all the shiny trucks and hard hats.”

  “Yeah.” I nod. “Um, do you think it really looks like that?”
/>   She leans over my shoulders and stares down at a drawing with a pond labeled WASTEWATER. It’s shiny and blue. “Yeah,” she says. “Why not?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. All the kids in the apartment are making a racket.

  “Quiet down!” Hamdi says. “Kaltumo needs her nap.”

  I slap the book shut. “Let’s take the boys for a walk. Get them out of your mom’s way for a while.”

  “Yeah,” Alkomso agrees.

  I whisper, “Maybe we can go see where those trucks are going, do some research for your project.”

  She nods.

  Hamdi would have a heart attack if she knew we were taking the boys out that far, so we just tell her and the boys we’re going sledding.

  Once we get outside, Mikko kicks snow on Alexi and Abdisalom. They get mad and yell and carry on like a bunch of hooligans.

  As we’re walking past the American Legion bar, I notice an old Dodge truck, two-tone white and blue, with a crooked snowplow attached to the front. On the bumper there’s a sticker that reads NO FRACKING!

  That’s definitely Horace Millner’s old truck, the one that drove Mom and Matti upside down into the ditch. But the sticker is brand-new.

  It’s confusing, knowing that Millner and I are on the same side.

  I slow way down and try to see through the dark windows. At first all I can see are the neon lights of beer signs. But then I fix my gaze on a man hunched over a coffee cup at the end of the bar. He’s all alone.

  “What are you looking at?” Alkomso asks.

  “Nothing. I’m not looking at anything.”

  She steps up to the window and presses her nose against it. “Who is that?”

  “No one,” I say.

  “Is that him? The one who—”

  I tug her arm. “Let’s go.”

  She walks along beside me. My head spins with thoughts. Does the sticker mean that Millner isn’t going to sell his land? But even if he doesn’t, Toivo said the county can simply take it if they want to. I’ve never seen Millner’s truck at the bar before. Is he thinking today about what he did to my mom and brother? Is he going to drink his guilt away? But I didn’t see a bottle or glass of beer.