The Simple Wild

by K. A. Tucker

  “You don’t even know what happened between us,” I mutter. “I can’t just forgive and forget, and give him a big hug.”

  “No one expects you to. But if you’re smart, you’ll be willing to try and salvage even a shred of what you used to have, for your own sake.” Jonah glances at his wrist to check the time again—I have yet to see him slide a phone out of his pocket—and then rounds the truck and climbs into the driver’s side. Leaving me standing there, feeling rebuked and I’m not even entirely sure for what. Several shoppers linger nearby, having witnessed my humiliating and raw dissection.

  The SUV’s engine roars to life and a moment later, there’s a holler of “Come on! We’re not all on vacation around here.”

  Yeah, Bobbie . . . He’s charming the panties off me, alright.

  I’d rather walk five miles wearing nothing but a million mosquitoes than sit next to Jonah right now.

  There’s a cab parked a few spots over. The driver, a man with shaggy black hair and a bored expression, lounges in the driver’s seat with his window rolled down, casually puffing on a cigarette. Watching the spectacle.

  I wave my hand, still gripping the bouquet of overripe daisies, at him. “Are you available?”

  He dips his head once—yes—and then takes a long drag.

  Are cabbies allowed to smoke in their cars around here?

  Holding my head high—I won’t give Jonah the satisfaction of knowing his words cut me—I stroll over to the taxi and climb in the backseat, trying my best to ignore the waft of tobacco smoke that lingers.

  An engine revs and I glance over to meet Jonah’s cold gaze, glaring at me through his windshield. We stay locked like that for three . . . four . . . five seconds before he peels off, his wheels kicking up dust clouds and stones as he leaves the parking lot. Good riddance.

  “Where to?” the cab driver asks, his dark eyes peering at me through the rearview mirror.

  Crap. How do I get back to my dad’s again? Where did Jonah turn? Was it before or after that sketchy coffee shop? “Do you know where Wren Fletcher lives?”

  He shakes his head, and for a moment I panic. I’m about to tell him to take me to the airport, but then I remember that I have my dad’s address in an email from Agnes. I quickly find it and read it out loud for the man. And then sink into the cracked, tobacco-­scented leather with a sigh of relief. I don’t need Jonah at all. “How much for the scenic way there?”

  Chapter 8

  “I still can’t believe you have six kids,” I murmur.

  “Seven, come December.” Michael chuckles as he turns into my dad’s driveway. “I told you, I was eighteen when my oldest was born.”

  “Still.”

  He grins mischievously, flashing nicotine-tinged teeth and a slight overbite. “What can I say? I’m lucky my wife likes babies.”

  I can’t recall the last time I offered more than a polite hello and nod when seated in a cab or Uber, intent on getting to my destination, my attention glued to my phone. And, truth be told, if I had a phone to use, and if I wasn’t trying to avoid Jonah, I probably wouldn’t even know this guy’s name.

  But, forty-five minutes after climbing into this taxi, I’m more familiar with Michael than with anyone else in the entire state of Alaska.

  Michael is only three years older than me, which is mind-­boggling. He mostly lives with his brother, and the two of them run a thriving cab company in Bangor together. Meanwhile his wife and kids live up the river in a village of about three hundred, with his parents and her sister. His wife wants nothing to do with Bangor and this way of life. She claims it’s too loud and busy. Ironically, she must not think that having seven children is too loud and busy, because she’s been popping them out like a Pez dispenser.

  Michael gave me a tour around Bangor, stopping by a lively riverfront, teeming with villager boats, and a landmark church—the first structure ever to be built in the town. He even agreed to play cameraman and took a few posed pictures of me while we were there, and the results aren’t half-bad.

  “You must miss your kids a lot.”

  He shrugs. “I see them when I go back.”

  “And how often is that?”

  “Depends on the season. It gets harder when we’re waiting for the river to freeze over, or thaw. Can’t take the boat through, and it’s not safe to drive. Sometimes I have to wait weeks.” His voice has an easy, unhurried way about it. Much like Agnes’s does.

  “Must be hard.” But what’s it like compared with not seeing your child for twenty-four years, I wonder.

  “I can provide for my family better this way. Here.” He passes a business card over the seat to me. “Call me anytime you need a ride. I’m always working. Even when I’m sleeping.”

  “Cool. Thanks.” I frown at the name. “Wait, I thought your name was Michael.”

  “Michael is my kass’aq name.”

  “Your what name?”

  He chuckles. “My kass’aq name. ‘Kass’aq’ is what we call white people.”

  “Oh. But this is your real name? This . . .” I frown at the spelling, sounding out cautiously, “Yakulpak?”

  “Ya-gush-buck,” he corrects, emphasizing each syllable.

  “Ya-gush-buck,” I repeat slowly. Coming from a city as diverse as Toronto, it’s not the first time I’ve struggled with—and ­butchered—a name. “So . . . not at all how it’s spelled, then?”

  “Not for a kass’aq.” He grins. “Stick with ‘Michael.’ ”

  “Sounds good.” Scooping up the bouquet of flowers, I hand him the thirty bucks we agreed on, plus a tip he more than earned. “Thanks for being my tour guide.” I slide out of the back of the car, noting with relief that Jonah’s Escape is nowhere to be seen.

  “No problem,” Michael says with a wave, his brakes squeaking as his car begins to roll away. He didn’t ask about that scene with Jonah in the Meyer’s parking lot, for which I’m glad.

  The moment I step through the door and into my dad’s eerily quiet, dark house, my phone picks up the Wi-Fi connection and begins chirping with a string of text messages and voice mails from my mom and Diana. I sigh, knowing I can’t avoid calling home much longer.

  Right after I eat.

  Two paper bags lie on the counter, empty and folded. When I open the fridge, I find to my surprise that my groceries have been tucked away, lined up much too neatly for a man who was chucking vegetables on the checkout belt only an hour ago. And here I was, expecting my salad supplies to be strewn across the front lawn.

  Maybe this is Jonah’s way of apologizing for being a complete asshole. “Well, that’s something. I guess,” I murmur. But it’s going to take a hell of a lot more than this for me to forgive him.

  “You’re virtually strangers, Calla.” Simon pauses to take a sip of his afternoon tea—in his favorite Wedgwood china cup, no doubt; the guy is so predictable—before I hear him set it down on his metal office desk. “It’s going to take time for both of you to get comfortable and figure each other out.”

  The kitchen chair creaks as I lean forward to sop up the last of the egg yolk with a piece of toast and shove it into my mouth. “I’m only here for a week.” Can I even begin to understand my father in that time?

  “That’s a self-imposed deadline. You can push your return flight and stay longer. That’s why we paid more for this ticket. So you have options.”

  “I thought it was so I had the option of flying back earlier, if this trip was a disaster.” Of course Simon would see it another way. “With how things are going right now, a week already feels like a death sentence.”

  “You knew this wasn’t going to be easy.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s going to be impossible if he runs every time I come into the room.”

  “Is he running? Or are you chasing him away?”

  I frown. “What do you mean?”


  “You’re holding onto a lot of resentment, Calla. Years of it, that you’ve used to shield your pain. You don’t hide it well and Wren isn’t the type to confront it. If you two are going to reconnect, and in such a short amount of time, you need to find a way to communicate, even if it’s around the proverbial elephant. At least for the time being.”

  “I’m trying, but . . . it’s hard.” How do you form a relationship with someone without forgiving them first?

  “Just remember . . . you can’t control him, but you can control how you act toward him.”

  I groan inwardly. Why do Simon’s soft words seem to carry the same message as the blunt-force-trauma version that Jonah delivered earlier?

  “Has Wren mentioned anything about the prognosis or treatment options? Anything at all?” Mom interrupts, her voice sounding distant over the speakerphone. She’s pacing around his office. I swear, it’s one of her favorite pastimes. Simon complains that she’s worn a circular track in his grandmother’s Persian rug.

  “We talked for, like, two minutes last night, Mom,” I remind her. “But Agnes said he’s going to Anchorage next week to start chemo and radiation. And he doesn’t look sick at all.”

  “That’s good. They must have caught it early.” There’s no mistaking the relief in my mom’s voice. Simon must notice it, too. How does that make him feel? Oh my God, I’m starting to sound like my British shrink stepfather.

  A bell dings, signaling that the door to Simon’s practice was just opened. “That’s my next patient. Call me tonight if you’d like to discuss this further.”

  “Thanks, Simon.”

  “But not between ten and eleven p.m. my time, if you can help it. There’s a BBC documentary on . . .”

  I tune him out, my mind straying to thoughts of how I’m going to fill the rest of my day, waiting for dinner at Agnes’s. I could head over to Alaska Wild, to get a better look at the planes and people who my father prioritized over his own daughter. But then I’d be risking another uncomfortable two-minute conversation with him. And, worse, a run-in with Jonah.

  Thank God I brought my computer.

  “Don’t hang up, Calla,” my mom calls out. There’s a flurry of muffled sounds and clicks, and then her soft and melodic voice is in my ear as she leaves Simon’s office with a receiver. “Hey.”

  “Did you get the pictures I sent? They should have come through by now.”

  “Let me see . . . Yes! Here they are. Oh my God! Is that what you flew to Bangor in?”

  “I almost puked.”

  “But you can’t even fit luggage in there!”

  “Which is why all my things are on a cargo flight from Anchorage today.”

  “Why on earth would they come to get you in that?”

  “Because Jonah is a jackass and he pretty much hates that I’m breathing his precious Alaskan air.” I fill her in on the day’s events, Jonah related, earning numerous gasps and groans.

  “But you have a dairy allergy! That’s not being high maintenance. That’s a legitimate medical condition,” she snaps.

  “Right?” I sink into a creaky kitchen chair, feeling vindicated. Finally, someone else is reasonably annoyed with Jonah’s antics. I can always count on my mother for that. “He is the biggest asshole I’ve ever met.”

  “Why does Wren keep him around?”

  “Because I’m in the Upside Down, where everyone likes him.” I roll my eyes, even though she can’t see it.

  “Just avoid him. I don’t want him making your time there harder than it already is.”

  “I’m trying to, but it feels like every time I round a corner, that bushy face is there. And he lives next door! I can’t get away from him.”

  “I’m sorry, honey.”

  “Whatever.” I release a heavy sigh. “I don’t want to talk about Jonah anymore.”

  “I don’t blame you. What else did you send me . . .” There’s a pause as she scrolls through the pictures. “Is this lettuce?” I can almost hear her frown.

  “Yeah. Literally hundreds of heads of lettuce. Maybe more. There are farm fields down the road.”

  “Huh. I guess some things have changed in twenty-four years.”

  “Not everything.” I grin, waiting for her to scroll to the next picture.

  She gasps. “The ducks are still there!”

  “In all their tacky glory.”

  Her mortified laugh sings out. “They’re as ugly as I remember them being.”

  My gaze wanders over the busy wallpaper.

  She gasps again, more softly, and I know she’s scrolled on to the next picture, the one of the calla lilies in my bedroom. “How did I forget about those? You know, I stayed up every night for weeks painting every last petal, all fat and swollen, trying to get them done before you were born.”

  “Yeah, I remember you telling me.”

  “Gosh, that was a lifetime ago, wasn’t it?” She murmurs wistfully. There’s a long pause, as she no doubt drifts back to her time here. “So? What are your plans for the rest of the day?”

  “Besides scratching all my mosquito bites?” I mutter, my nails raking at the back of my calf, where a red bump is beginning to flare and itch. “I may as well set up a bunch of posts for the site. Diana woke up with new ideas.” I’ve had at least ten texts from her today.

  “Diana always wakes up with new ideas. I wish I had that girl’s energy . . . Oh! The time escaped me. I’ve got to get to the shop to finish up a few things. You wouldn’t believe this woman that came in this morning. She was insisting on having baby’s breath in her bouquet, even after I told her that I don’t work with it because it cheapens the look of the arrangement. She had the nerve to . . .”

  I lose track of my mom’s little tirade as something odd on the wallpaper catches my eye. I feel my face twist up. “Do ducks have nipples?”

  There’s a pause. “Sorry. What?”

  I lean forward to take note of the six distinctive dots perfectly spaced out on the underbelly of the duck. There are slight variations in dot size and spacing, though, which tells me that someone’s done this by hand with a black marker. To every last duck on this wall. “Did you do this?”

  “Calla, what on earth are you talking about?”

  By the time I’m done explaining, we’re both howling with laughter.

  “It would have taken hours. There are, like, hundreds of ducks on this wall alone.”

  “Well, it wasn’t me, but I wish it had been.”

  I settle back into my chair, in awe. “Maybe Agnes did it. I don’t think she likes the ducks much, either.”

  Mom’s laughter dies down. “So . . . what’s going on there?”

  “No idea, but whatever it is, it’s ‘complicated.’ We’re going over to her house for dinner tonight. She lives across the road.”

  “Good. You’ll get more than two minutes with him there. Wren was always a slow eater.”

  “To be honest, I’m dreading it right now.” How awkward will it be, to sit across the table from him? Will he at least attempt polite conversation? Or will he completely ignore me?

  At least Agnes will be there, too, to serve as a soft-spoken buffer.

  “It’ll be fine. Just be yourself. And listen, don’t worry about what that jerk pilot said. He doesn’t know you at all.”

  He doesn’t, and yet I haven’t been able to shake Jonah’s words from my mind.

  “Thanks, Mom. Love you.” I set my phone down on the table with a heavy sigh, and then crack open my MacBook.

  Chapter 9

  Agnes’s driveway is as long as my father’s, giving me plenty of time to study the little white rectangular house ahead of me as I approach, my sweater pulled over my head to protect my hair from the gloomy drizzle that’s been falling all afternoon.

  It’s a mirror image of my father’s house, save for the baby-blu
e siding and the front door, painted a deep crimson that delivers a much-needed punch of color. She doesn’t have the additional garage, but there is a small shed on the left, with a large green garbage can propped against the side. Agnes’s truck is parked in front of it.

  Gripping the sad bouquet of daisies in one hand, I knock on the door. A moment later, I hear Agnes’s reedy voice holler, “Just come in!”

  Warmth and the delicious scent of roasted chicken and herbs envelop me as soon as I step inside, and I steal a moment to marvel at how different this house feels from the cold, dark one across the road. For one thing, the kitchen, dining room, and living room are all open-concept, filling the length of the house. A short hallway divides two sides of the back, leading to the bedrooms, I presume.

  For another, it feels like a family home. It’s simply furnished in beiges and grays, the furniture bland in style but clean and well maintained. But, where my dad’s place is void of character, Agnes has infused small touches of personality everywhere. Rich hues of red and burnt orange color the walls. The couch is adorned with cushions with birds hand-stitched into their fronts. Wooden masks and swirling artwork that must be tied to her Native roots hang on the wall, and the entire wall beside the hallway is filled with framed photographs of people, many wearing colorful beaded headdresses and animal-pelt coats. Her family members, I presume.

  “So? You survived your first day in Alaska well enough?” Agnes asks, her back to me as she inspects a golden chicken sitting in a pan atop the stove, looking fresh from the oven.

  “It was touch-and-go for a while there, but yes,” I joke. I spent most of the day updating links on the website and setting up draft posts for Diana so they’re ready for her to add her words. I floated from the duck-infested kitchen, to the painfully bland living room, to the screened-in porch—which could be comfortable enough if not for the piles of clutter and decrepit vintage-style aluminum lawn chairs—and then finally my bedroom, where I ended up drifting off for an hour.