The End of the Wild

by Nicole Helget

  Alkomso says, “Do you want to come with me to pick up Abdi?”

  “And Mikko and Alexi are dying to see you,” I add.

  After we get the boys, we all head outside. But instead of walking home with us, Mark-Richard moves toward the bus lines. “I gotta go so I don’t miss the bus.” Mikko wraps his arms around Mark-Richard’s waist and squeezes him. Mark-Richard hugs him back. “Bye, buddy. See you tomorrow.”

  Off he goes to get on the bus, which will take him the opposite way from where he used to live. He looks smaller, somehow, without Gary trailing along with him.

  Alkomso and I herd our little brothers away from school. For a while we don’t talk about anything. So much has happened since our argument that our argument doesn’t seem all that important anymore.

  Finally she says, “So, I guess you and Margot Peterson are BFFs again.” She gives me a kidding punch on the arm.

  I laugh. “Not quite,” I say. “Her parents are getting divorced.”

  “That sucks,” says Alkomso. “But I’m not ready to be quite as nice as you are.” She shifts her backpack on her shoulder and clears her throat. “You pick a STEM project yet?”

  “Maybe.” After a few more steps, I add, “How’s yours coming?”

  “Good.” She doesn’t go on about it. “I’m glad you didn’t get hurt in the accident,” she says. “That must have been really scary.”

  “It was. The dog got hurt bad.” I lower my voice so the boys can’t hear. “I don’t think he’ll make it.”

  “I hate when dogs die! Even if it’s just in a book. It’s the worst.”

  At her apartment we say good-bye, pretty much like old times, but not exactly. Something has definitely changed between us. It was easier when we agreed about everything.

  But now I have to have my own mind. And she has to have her own mind. And somehow we have to figure out how to be a different kind of friend to each other.

  As we approach Millner’s woods on our way home, I’m secretly hoping that I’ll see Ranger running and jumping and being his dog self. But I know that probably isn’t going to happen.

  My brothers and I stop when we see a Subaru wagon parked on the side of the road and a sign tacked onto Millner’s fence. YOU CAN’T FRACK MY LAND is what it says.

  “I know what that says,” says Mikko. “It says, ‘You can’t f-f-f—’”

  “Frack,” I say.

  Mikko gives me a side eye. “Oh,” he says. “‘You can’t frack my land.’”

  “Very good, kiddo.”

  Off in the distance, there’s a commotion of barking and yipping. Ranger’s pack. My heart jumps. Alexi puts his fingers in the corner of his mouth and whistles. “Here, doggies!” he shouts. “Here, pups!”

  While we wait, the crashing of legs breaking branches scatters the birds out of the trees.

  “They’re coming,” says Mikko. He climbs up and over Millner’s fence. “I’m going to catch one.” Alexi crawls underneath the fence because his arm is wrapped up to his side.

  I flip my legs over the fence rails.

  A few of the fast dogs bust through the underbrush and circle Mikko and Alexi.

  Whoo-hoo-hoo, they bark. Ark! Ark! Ark!

  Ranger’s not with them.

  Not only is he missing, but the dog with the fat belly is gone, too. My heart falls, and I get a little stomach-sick thinking that he’s suffering, trying to hold on to his life, or, worse, that he might be dead.

  Mikko and Alexi kneel down and pat their legs. They know the dogs aren’t mean-barking. They’re just showing off and maybe saying hello or wanting to play. The tails of the dogs wag so fast that they shake the dogs’ bodies. Without Ranger to boss them, the dog pack jumps and claws and wiggles. The dogs don’t know which person to get attention from first, me or Mikko or Alexi. They sniff my hand and then Mikko’s, and then go from smelling Alexi’s butt to my boots.

  “Hey!” a man shouts. “Boys! Come back here!”

  Out from where the dogs came appear Millner and another man, all bundled up against the cold in a heavy coat with furry hood. A camera with a huge lens dangles from the man’s neck.

  “Uh,” says Millner. He looks surprised. “Hey there, kids.”

  “Fern?” The other man puts his hood down.

  “Mr. Flores?” It’s weird when you see someone you know pretty well outside of the place that you know them from. “Hi. How are you? Are you coming back to school soon?”

  “What are you doing out here?” he asks.

  “Oh,” I say, “I just, um, wanted to see about a dog.”

  Millner flits his eyes away from me. “He don’t look too good, but he’s hanging on.”

  “Oh,” I say. “I wish—”

  “Nothing you could have done about it,” Millner interrupts. “Dog’s had a good long life.”

  I swallow hard.

  Mr. Flores lifts his camera and points it at the boys and the dogs. Click. Click. Click. “How’s the project coming?” He stares at the back of his camera, clicks a bunch of buttons, leans over to show something to Millner.

  Millner nods and laughs. “Good shot.”

  “I haven’t really started,” I tell Mr. Flores. “I have an idea, but not much else.”

  “Ought to get a shot of that owl burrow, too,” says Millner to Mr. Flores.

  Millner and Mr. Flores seem busy, as though they’re doing something important. I’d like to know what, but I don’t want to be nosy. “We’ll get going now,” I say. I try to get Mikko’s and Alexi’s attention, but they’re busy getting jumped on by the dog pack. Alexi gets knocked over by a mutt with a crooked tail. The dog stands over Alexi and licks his face all over.

  “Want to tag along?” Mr. Flores asks me. “We’re taking pictures of all the important animal habitats out here.”

  “Show them to that dang city council,” Millner adds. “Thinking they can come in here and take my land for a bog of poison.” He spits onto the snow. “No sirree.”

  “That’s my project!” I say. “Kind of. I was going to do the foods of the forest for the STEM fair.”

  Mr. Flores smiles so big I can see the fillings in his back teeth. “Fern, that’s great! That’s what I’m talking about! A project that impacts your community! And now that I’m not officially your teacher, maybe I can lend a hand.”

  “Me, too, all right,” says Millner. “Count me in. If you’ll take my help, that is.”

  “I’d—” I stop. Take a deep breath and exhale. “I’d like that.”

  We walk around for a while, with Millner pointing out where the foxes den and where the raccoons wash their food and where the deer bed down. He even points out where the bear comes and scratches his back against a tree. Millner points out the currant, raspberry, and gooseberry bushes and the wild-plum tree.

  I already know where they all are, but I say thanks anyway.

  Chapter 18

  For a few days our house is chilly, and not only because the windows and doors are drafty and the wind’s now coming in from the frozen north. Toivo and I are polite to each other, but that’s about it. When we pass each other in the tiny kitchen, we turn sideways and say, “’Scuse me.” Instead of gushing over the venison roast and ramp supper, Toivo delicately wipes the corners of his mouth with a paper towel and says, “I really appreciate you fixing us the meal.”

  He leaves for work at the same time we leave for school, but even though he knows that I know where he’s going, I don’t say, “Have a great day at work!”

  When he comes home from work and sees a bunch of photographs and descriptions of the edible plants in Millner’s woods spread out on the table, he doesn’t ask me how my project is going. Instead, he wanders around, sprays everything with Pledge and Lysol, and uses his shirtsleeve as a dust cloth. He swipes a broom along the corners of the ceiling, destroying cobwebs and ladybug shells. The whole while, he whistles old country songs. In the evenings, he sets the boys up on his lap and reads Dr. Seuss to them while they pick their
noses and scabs.

  Inside me there’s a boiling stew of confused thoughts. Why’s he cleaning so much? Why’s he reading to the boys? Is this the way it’s always going to be now?

  By the weekend, I’m about burst. Just as I’m ready to try to talk to him, Miss Tassel’s Caprice pulls into our yard.

  I set my elbows on the ledge of the bedroom window and watch. Miss Tassel shuts off her car and scoops up some papers from the passenger seat and the floor. She holds them to her chest with one hand as she adjusts the rearview mirror with the other hand, then fluffs her hair up way high.

  So this must be the home-inspection day. This is why Toivo’s been cleaning up the house. I completely forgot that I was going to do it myself.

  I tiptoe down the steps and settle with a creak on the last one. Toivo snaps his head to where I am crouched in the dark stairwell.

  When she knocks on the door, Toivo goes and opens it. “Mornin’,” he says.

  “Good morning,” she says. “All set?”

  “I guess so.” He suddenly looks very small to me. He’s skinny as a string bean. I start to feel rotten that I was so snotty to him.

  Miss Tassel drops a load of files and bags onto the kitchen table. “This all right here?”

  Toivo nods.

  She sniffs. “Smells clean in here.”

  Toivo tucks a wayward corner of his button-up—a new work shirt that has KLOCHE’S embroidered on it—into his pants. “Uh, over here is the TV room. I mean, this is the room with the TV in it,” says Toivo. He must be nervous as a cat at a coyote party. “I know it’s a small house.” He sighs. “But there’s an upstairs, too.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Miss Tassel’s stomach growls. Loudly. “Oh my!” she says. “Excuse me!” It growls again.

  I slap my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing.

  “Didn’t have time to eat,” she explains.

  “I made some turkey jerky,” Toivo says. “You want some of that?”

  “Oh, I couldn’t. I shouldn’t.”

  “I insist,” Toivo says.

  “Well.…” She hesitates. “All right. I am feeling a bit faint.”

  “Oh, and Fernny made currant jam. It’s good if you dunk the jerky in it.”

  “That sounds delicious,” says Miss Tassel. “Now, let’s begin.”

  Toivo pulls out a chair for Miss Tassel and then gets the jerky and jam and a couple of paper towels. He sits down. First he puts his hands on the tabletop, then he puts them in his lap, and then he puts them back up on the table.

  “Mr. Heikkenen, do you enjoy being a father?” asks Miss Tassel.

  “What?” says Toivo. “I mean, of course I do, ma’am. I love them kids.”

  “Right,” says Miss Tassel. “Most fathers do love their kids. But some of them are not cut out for the day-to-day job of being a father.”

  Toivo doesn’t respond.

  “Mr. Heikkenen, what do you like most about being a father?”

  “Ah—” he starts. “Um… ma’am?”

  It’s quiet again.

  “Mr. Heikkenen,” she says, “do you think you can provide for these children?”

  “Well,” he begins. He folds his hands together. “Well, I got a job.”

  I grind my teeth.

  “But I’m not sure it’s a good fit for our family.”

  I grab a clump of hair and suck on the ends of it.

  “I see,” says Miss Tassel. “Mr. Heikkenen, keeping a job is very important. Very important. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes. I do.”

  “Okay. Let’s move on. Do you think you can ensure that the children make it to school on time every day and that their homework is done toward grade-appropriate benchmarks?”

  A few seconds pass in silence. I know Toivo is working out the meaning of her words. “Ah, what, now, ma’am?” he says very softly.

  “Mr. Heikkenen, your father-in-law says that you have a drinking problem, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder, and that you were wounded in Iraq and are no longer able to hold a steady job. Are these statements true?”

  No word.

  “Mr. Heikkenen, Fern—the girl—is not your natural daughter, is she?”

  This time the silence goes on for about a minute. Miss Tassel opens the lid of my jam and then untwists the tie on the bag of jerky. She slides one out, dunks it, and takes an enormous bite. “Mmm. Mr. Heikkenen, tell me how you made this.”

  “Oh, um,” says Toivo. “Well, ma’am. The boys and me have been tracking the wild turkeys for about a year now. So last month when our freezer meat was getting spare, we went out bow hunting.”

  “You let the boys use real bows and arrows?” Miss Tassel asks.

  “What?” says Toivo.

  I wonder if Miss Tassel knows about Toivo’s hearing problem. He’s too proud to tell her, I’m sure.

  She repeats the question.

  “No,” he says. “I hit the birds. The boys help after.”

  “Oh. I see. Go on.”

  Toivo waits a bit. Then he continues. “So, I pegged two big toms in less than an hour. Each of the boys threw one over their shoulders. Boy, was that funny. Those toms weighed forty pounds each. But Mikko just had to carry one, and Alexi had to prove to his brother that he could, too. Then Fernny and I butchered them in the garage out back. And then, see, you have to filet some of the—”

  “Okay,” interrupts Miss Tassel. “That’s enough, Mr. Heikkenen.”

  “Oh. Sorry, ma’am.”

  “No,” says Miss Tassel, “I mean that really is good. It’s good you’re teaching your sons your traditions.”

  A chair shuffles around, and Toivo coughs into his fist. I can tell he’s nervous.

  “Ma’am?” he says.

  “What is it?”

  “Since I was twenty-six, I have been a father. First, when I fell in love with their mother, I became a father to Fernny. I had just got back from Iraq, and that woman and girl became my family.” He stops. “My everything.”

  “Go on,” says Miss Tassel.

  “It was hard sometimes to get used to knowing how to be around a kid, but I came along all right, I guess, because I never had a day where I didn’t love Fernny.”

  She nods. She takes another jerky. “But you never formally adopted her, right?”

  “No. I guess I didn’t. I guess I should have.”

  “You regret that?” she asks.

  He stares out the window. “I do,” he says. “There are other things I wish I had done better, too. I wish I hadn’t drank so much in front of her. And same with the smoking. But mostly I have kept my language clean, so that’s one thing I have in my favor. I also have in my favor that I have taught her to be self-sufficient about some things, which is not a thing they teach in school and lots of parents don’t even know themselves anymore.”

  I hold my breath for a few seconds because I don’t want to miss a single word.

  “She can tell the difference between what you can eat and what will poison you out in the woods.” He clears his throat again.

  Miss Tassel taps a pen on the table.

  I breathe.

  “Anyway,” Toivo goes on, “then I became father to Mikko, Alexi, and Matti, all right in a row. It never occurred to me to separate between which ones were my kids and which one wasn’t. I have always just thought that we belong together. I don’t think of them as that one is her kid and these are my kids. I think of us as a family, and we all watch out for each other.” He leans forward in his chair. “With or without adoption papers.”

  Miss Tassel rummages around in her purse. She pulls out a crumpled tissue, dabs her eyes, and blows her nose.

  “Uh, then, as you know,” he says, after a pause, “Johanna and Matti had an accident. Now they are gone to heaven, if there is one, and I hope that there is, because I would give anything to be able to see them at least one more time. But I don’t know about the truth in that, which is a terrible thing to live with.”

  He coughs a
nd sniffs. He’s quiet, so quiet that the ticking of the clock and the humming of the refrigerator seem loud.

  “Take your time,” says Miss Tassel.

  He clears his throat. “The world is hard,” he starts again. “I do not want the kids to have hard lives. But I don’t want them to have easy lives, either. The kids will struggle with me—that is true. But it is a good and honest kind of struggling that we do, one that makes us work together and pull out the best qualities in each of us. I can improve, and I will.”

  Miss Tassel nods. She leans forward, too. “Your father-in-law. He wants all of the children with him, you know.”

  Toivo sighs. “I am not stupid,” he says. “I mean, I know that Big John will have an easier time taking away Fern than he will the boys. Because he’s right—she doesn’t share my blood.” Toivo stops and looks to where I am in the dark. “But let me tell you and him something that no blood test will show. Behind her ear grows a patch of gray hair that comes from me.” He points on his head to where my gray hair grows on mine. “He might say it comes from the stress I have caused that girl, and it is true she has had an unfair share of it. But I think—and I think she would agree with me on this—that that gray hair is mettle. She and I have had to scrounge and scrap to feed this family, and it takes courage to do that. I like to think that gray hair is a little bit of me in her. If Fern ever disagrees, I won’t stop her from going. But I want her here, and here is where she belongs. I know Johanna would agree.”

  My heart and my lungs swell up like resting dough. I spread my fingers and use them to comb through my gray hair.

  It is nothing but quiet again. Finally, Miss Tassel opens up her file and begins writing. Toivo leans over to Miss Tassel’s shoulder.

  “I’ll let you read it when I’m done,” she tells him.

  “Sorry,” Toivo says.

  “Don’t worry,” she says. “It’s all good.”

  Chapter 19

  A moment later I can hear a truck rumbling down the road. At first I think it’s a fracking truck, but as the engine gets louder, I recognize the distinctive chugging of Grandpa’s big diesel. I leap up and emerge from the stairwell.