Forever Wild(3)

There was a time when Roy didn’t allow anyone inside his rustic one-bedroom cabin. While he’s still guarded, he no longer flinches at me coming in and out as I please, delivering food and perusing the wooden carvings that line the beautiful custom bookshelves.

I set the loaf of banana bread next to his stove and prop the check next to the can of beef stew he’s set out for that night’s meal. At least I know he won’t miss it that way. With that done, I search for the ideal spot to set the tree. The old trunk by the window, next to the framed picture of Roy’s daughter and ex-wife, seems the most ideal. I plug in the strand of white twinkle lights and then step back to admire it. I doubt this place has seen any festive joy since Roy moved here from Texas, thirty-three years ago.

Hopefully he doesn’t toss it out.

A Christmas card on the kitchen table catches my eye, next to a small pile of unopened bills. My curiosity over who might send the curmudgeon holiday greetings gets the better of me. With a quick glance out the window to ensure Roy isn’t on his way in, I peek inside.

My heart skips a beat at the flowery signature on the bottom.

Delyla.

His estranged daughter sent him a Christmas card? Roy told me, on one of the rare occasions he’s ever mentioned his family, that they weren’t on speaking terms. Was he lying? How often does Delyla send him a Christmas card? Does she do it every year?

A picture and a note lay atop the torn-open mailing envelope. I check the picture first. It’s of a stunning blonde, perhaps in her thirties, dressed in black jeans and a white cable-knit sweater. Her arms are wrapped around two young children, a boy and girl, each in matching black pants and white sweaters. All three are wearing festive red cowboy hats to mark the family holiday photograph. They look the part of a perfect, happy family, though I don’t miss the absence of a husband or father figure.

With another glance at the barn door, I unfold the handwritten note.





Chapter Two





“She wants a relationship with him, Simon. Why else would she have contacted him? Why would she send pictures of his grandchildren to him?”

“I’m not suggesting she doesn’t have good intentions.” Simon’s words, delivered in his smooth, Hugh Grant–esque British lilt, sound distant on the speakerphone as he putters around the kitchen. The clang of metal against porcelain tells me he’s fixing himself a chamomile tea to help him sleep. The man is as predictable as Bandit around an unattended plate of food. “Roy may be a curiosity to her more than anything else. Or maybe there’s a need for closure that’s been lingering all these years. Losing a parent tends to prod us into actions we might not have planned on taking.”

I sped-read through two pages of floral handwriting, afraid to get caught invading Roy’s privacy. I quickly confirmed that Roy’s ex-wife, Nicole, passed away from breast cancer four months ago; Delyla found her father’s address while cleaning out her mother’s filing cabinet and this is the first time she’s ever reached out to him.

The letter seemed cordial enough—an introductory note between two strangers, a “Dear Roy”—and yet between the lines, I sensed hours, if not days, of personal toil in choosing her words as she updated her father on the past thirty-three years of her life.

Delyla divorced three years ago after almost ten years of marriage to her high school sweetheart. Her mother, a widow after thirty happy years with a man named Jim, was complaining about being lonely, so Delyla and her children—outgoing, football-loving, seven-year-old Gavin and reserved nine-year-old artist Lauren—moved back into Delyla’s childhood home. They’re still there, in the same town outside Dallas where Roy and Nicole once lived together.

The kids don’t see much of their father, who has already remarried, with one child and another on the way. All that in just three years? That makes me think that relationship started long before the ink dried on the divorce papers, but there’s no hint of animosity hidden in Delyla’s explanation to suggest an affair.

Delyla didn’t ask any questions of Roy. No “Why?” or “Do you ever think about me?” No “What have you been doing for the past three decades?”

She didn’t demand answers.

She didn’t make accusations.

She simply ended the note with her home address, phone number, and email. An unspoken invitation for Roy to reach out, should he so choose, I gather. But she never came right out and asked him to.

Roy was rattled this afternoon. I can’t tell if it’s Nicole’s death or receiving a letter from his long-lost daughter that caused that. Likely both.

“I wouldn’t get too hopeful about this if I were you, Calla, especially given the kind of man Roy is. There’s a lot of bad history to unpack. Who knows what she’s grown up hearing about her father?”

“I’m not. I don’t even know what Roy’s going to do with this information. Probably nothing.” While he’s far less prickly than he used to be, he still goes out of his way to keep people out of reach.

Beams of headlights flash across a window, signaling Jonah’s return from Anchorage. A nervous flutter stirs in my stomach. “They’re here!” It comes out in a squeal.

Simon’s soft chuckle soothes me. “Don’t worry. They’re going to love you. And if they don’t? We’ll be there the day after tomorrow to talk some sense into them.”