The Simple Wild: A Novel(15)

“Who?”

“That guy. That beautiful guy over there who was drooling over you—”

“No!” I grab hold of her with my free hand to stop her, because when Diana gets an idea in her head . . . “I am not going to hook up with some stranger to get back at Corey.”

“Well . . . But . . .” she sputters, “you have to do something!”

“You’re right, I do.” I clink my glass against hers before downing the rest of my drink, my legs itching to whisk me away before Corey notices me here. “I’m going home.”

And then I guess I’m going to Alaska.





Chapter 4




“These are nice.” My mother holds up the new pair of military-red Hunter rain boots.

“Right? Except they take up a lot of room. I’m not sure if I should bring them.”

“Trust me. Bring them.” She lays them into the suitcase I’ve reserved for footwear and toiletries—that’s already brimming—and then takes a seat on my bed, her finger toiling with the small pile of price tags heaped by my pillow. Evidence of the “Alaska” wardrobe flash shopping spree I went on yesterday. “You sure you’re only going for a week?”

“You’re the one who taught me that ‘overpacking is key.’ ”

“Yes, of course, you’re right. Especially where you’re going. You won’t be able to just run out and grab something that you’ve forgotten. They won’t even have a mall.” She cringes at the very idea of mall shopping. “There is literally nothing there. It’s a—”

“Barren wasteland. Yes, I remember.” I cram a pair of wool socks resurrected from my winter clothing bins into the corner of a second suitcase. “You haven’t been there in twenty-four years, though. Maybe it’s changed. They have a movie theater now.” I know because I Googled “Things to Do in Bangor, Alaska” and that popped up. It was the only indoor activity to pop up, besides weekly knitting classes and a community book club, two things I have no interest in. “Bangor could have doubled in size. Tripled, even.”

She smiles, but it’s the condescending kind of smile. “Towns in Alaska don’t grow that quickly. Or at all, in most cases.” Reaching for one of my favorite fall sweaters—a two-hundred-dollar soft pink cashmere wrap that Simon and Mom gave me for -Christmas—she folds it tidily. “If I know your dad at all, that house is the same as when we left.”

“Maybe seeing it will jog an early childhood memory.”

“Or give you nightmares.” She chuckles, shaking her head. “That god-awful tacky wallpaper that Roseanne put up was the worst.”

Roseanne. My father’s mother. My grandmother, who I was too young to remember ever meeting. I talked to her occasionally over the phone, and she sent birthday and Christmas cards every year, right up until she died, when I was eight.

“Agnes probably took down the tacky wallpaper.”

“Maybe.” Mom sniffs, averting her gaze.

Do you still love my dad, even now? I bite my tongue against the urge to ask her about what Simon told me. He’s right; she’ll never admit to it, and I don’t want to make Simon’s life hell for the entire time that I’m gone. Things have already been tense around the house as it is. Mom went to sleep on Thursday thinking about blush rose table arrangements and orchid bridal bouquets, and woke up to news of a woman named Agnes, my dad’s cancer diagnosis, and my impending trip to Alaska.

I can’t tell what upsets her most—the fact that there’s another woman or that my father is seriously sick. All of it has left her unsettled. I’ve caught her standing in front of the bay window in the kitchen, clutching her mug and staring off into nothingness, at least a half dozen times. For a woman who’s always on the go, that’s a jarring sight.

Still, I can’t skirt the question entirely. “You would never leave Simon for Dad, would you, Mom?”

“What? No.” A deep frown pulls her brow tight, as if she’s reconsidering her answer after she’s given it. “Why would you ask that?”

“No reason.” I hesitate. “Have you talked to him at all?”

“No.” She shakes her head, then pauses. “I did send him an email a few years ago, though, with a copy of your U of T grad picture. So he’d know what his daughter looked like.” Her voice trails, her eyes transfixed on a chip in her coral nail polish.

“And? Did he ever answer?” Did he care enough to?

“He did. He said he couldn’t believe how much you’d grown. How much you looked like me.” She smiles sadly. “I didn’t keep the conversation going, though. I figured it was for the best. You’re not going to need that,” she says, eying the striped tank top that I’ve laid on top of my other clothes. Swiftly changing the topic.

“Didn’t you just say to pack for every situation?”

“They’re calling for highs of only fourteen degrees Celsius all week. Four, at night.”

“Then I’ll put a sweater overtop.”

She smooths a hand over the bedspread. “So, Wren is picking you up in Anchorage?”

I shake my head through a mouthful of water. This intense heat wave that shifted into Southern Ontario has refused to vacate, making the third floor of this house stuffy, despite the air-conditioning that pumps through the vents. “Some guy named Jonah is picking me up.”