The Simple Wild: A Novel(21)

A reality that seems more certain with each sudden and violent jerk.

The plane careens to the right, earning my panicked gasp. I squeeze my eyes shut and keep taking calm, steady breaths, hoping that will quell this bubbling nausea. I can do this . . . I can do this . . . This is just like flying in any plane. We’re not going to die. Jonah knows what he’s doing.

“That’s Bangor, up ahead.”

I dare peek out the window and below, hoping the promise of my toes touching the ground soon will help with my nerves. Lush, green, flat ground stretches out as far as the overcast skies allow me to see, a vast expanse of land mostly untouched by the human hand. It’s peppered with streams and lakes of all shapes and sizes, and one wide river that snakes through it.

“That’s Bangor?” I can’t hide the surprise from my voice as I study the crops of low, rectangular buildings huddled along the river’s edge.

“Yup.” A pause. “What were you expecting?”

“Nothing. Just . . . I thought it’d be bigger.”

“It’s the biggest community in Western Alaska.”

“Yes, I know that. That’s why I thought the buildings would be, I don’t know, bigger. Taller.” With all the scrambling of the last two days, I had little time to educate myself on where it is I’d be going. All I know is what I read on my phone while waiting for my plane this morning—that this part of Alaska is considered “tundra” for its flat land; that the sun barely sets during summer months and barely rises during the long, arctic winters; and that most of the towns and villages around here have Native Alaskan names that I can’t pronounce.

Jonah snorts, and I immediately regret admitting my thoughts out loud. “Doesn’t sound like you know much at all. Weren’t you born here?”

“Yeah, but it’s not like I’d remember anything. I wasn’t even two when we left.”

“Well, maybe if you’d bothered coming back before now, you’d know what to expect.” His tone is thick with accusation.

What the hell is his problem?

We hit a pocket of turbulence and the plane begins jolting violently. I brace myself with a palm against the icy window as that queasy feeling begins to stir again, and the solid form deep inside me begins to rise. My stomach’s preparing to empty its contents. “Oh God . . . this is bad,” I moan.

“Relax. It’s nothing.”

“No, I mean . . .” My body has broken out in a sweat. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

His quiet curse carries into my ear. “Keep it down. We’ll be on the ground in five minutes.”

“I’m trying, but—”

“You can’t puke in here.”

“Do you think I want to?” I snap, fumbling with my plastic bag. Of all the things I dreaded, vomiting is up there with the worst.

And now I get to do it sitting behind this asshole.

“Hell. Six other pilots available and I had to be the one to get you,” Jonah mutters to himself.

I close my eyes and lean my face against the window. The ice-cold glass helps a bit, even with the jarring bumps. “ ‘Don’t worry, Calla.’ ‘It’s no big deal, Calla.’ That’s what a decent person would say,” I mumble feebly.

“I’m here to get your high-maintenance little ass to Bangor, not soothe your ego.”

High-maintenance? My ego? I crack one lid to shoot daggers at the back of his head. All pretenses of politeness have dissolved. “Does my dad know you’re such a giant dick?”

Jonah doesn’t answer, and I’m glad for it, because talking makes my nausea worse. I push off my headset and go back to drawing long breaths through my nose and exhaling slowly through my mouth, fighting my body’s urge to evacuate its contents at any given moment as I’m bumped and jostled in our descent toward the runway ahead.

The tiny two-seater plane teeters side to side like a seesaw before the wheels touch the ground, bouncing several times and then finally sticking.

Miraculously, I somehow succeed in keeping my tacos down through it all.

I breathe a sigh of relief as we coast down the runway. To the right, I spy several large rectangular buildings in various colors—forest green, fire-engine red, navy-blue—with two commercial planes like the ones I flew earlier today. We head left, though, toward a crop of smaller steel-gray buildings, the largest of them wearing a white and aqua-blue sign that reads ALASKA WILD.

My heart begins pounding in my chest.

I was here twenty-four years ago. Too young to remember, but I was here, and I’ve imagined this moment countless times since.

A short, stocky guy wearing a fluorescent vest casually waves his orange sticks, guiding Jonah to a spot at the end of a line of six planes. In front of us is a row of four more. Behind them, another two.

All of them are larger than the one we’re in, I note.

I want to ask questions—Are these all my dad’s planes? What part of the airport are we in? Is the collection of colorful warehouse--like structures actually the city airport? How many people work here?—but it’s become apparent that Jonah has no interest in enlightening me about anything, so I bite my tongue. I can ask Agnes. I’m assuming she’ll be more pleasant to talk to.

Or I can ask my father, who I’m about to meet.