The Simple Wild: A Novel(26)
“If I could see that paperwork, maybe I could Google—”
“I don’t know where it is. He took it when I confronted him. Made me promise not to tell anyone.”
A promise she obviously broke by calling me.
My own frustration begins to build. “When do the doctors want to start it all?”
“Next week. He has to go to the cancer clinic in Anchorage for it; that’s the closest one. Jonah said he’d fly him back and forth, so he can be comfortable at home on the off days.”
It’s a good thing Jonah’s much more willing to fly to Anchorage for my father than for me, at least.
My gaze drifts over the inhospitable living room. “Why don’t you go ahead and redecorate, then, while he’s gone?” Some paint color, new artwork, a few lamps. Anything would be an improvement at this point.
Amusement flashes in her eyes now. “Just come over to Wren’s house and tear down that hideous wallpaper in the kitchen?”
Her words catch me off guard. “You mean you don’t live here?”
“Me? No. I live in the little white house across the road. We passed it on the way in.”
“Oh . . .” The puzzle pieces that I’d begun putting together—an understanding of my father’s life—suddenly don’t fit. “So you’re neighbors?”
“For thirteen years now. Your dad owns the house. I rent it from him.”
Neighbors. Coworkers. Friends.
And “it’s complicated.”
I trail her down the narrow hall, digesting this new information. “I still think you should do it. My mom painted Simon’s bookcases one weekend while he was out of town for a convention.” Simon had paid a small fortune for the golden oak custom units before he met my mother. She despises golden oak.
I remember watching the blood drain from his face when he walked through the door to see the new and improved soft white ones.
He got over it . . . eventually.
“Yeah, well . . . I’m not Susan.” Agnes sighs, in a heavy way that carries deeper meaning with it. She leads me into a small corner bedroom with chalky walls and a pink crystal chandelier dangling in the center of the room. “You should have seen all the boxes he had stuffed in here. Took me all day yesterday to move them out.”
It took Agnes all day, I note. Not Agnes and my dad.
The room is now empty of everything save for a metal-framed twin bed tucked into the corner by a small window, a wooden kitchen chair next to it, and a simple white chest of three drawers on the opposite side. There’s a narrow closet with a louvered door on the wall directly beside me. The kind of old-fashioned folding door that our house in Toronto used to have, too, before we remodeled.
Not until I move farther into the room do I realize that the walls aren’t plain white, but adorned by faint pink calla lilies of various sizes.
It finally dawns on me. “This was my room.” My mother once told me that she spent the long, dark months waiting for me to be born painting my namesake flower on the walls of my nursery. An entirely new hobby for her, inspired by boredom and the fact that she couldn’t grow the real thing. Or anything, for that matter. In the end, it kept her sane until the trip to Anchorage to wait out my due date at a family friend’s house, as was necessary back then if you wanted to guarantee that a doctor would deliver your baby.
Her skill has improved greatly over the years. She still paints sometimes, usually in the winter, when the gardens around our house are asleep and she’s looking for a quiet escape from the daily grind of the florist business. Her “studio” is directly across from my bedroom, taking up the front half of the third floor. The room is bright and spacious, and decorated in canvases of ruby-red tulips and vivid peonies, bursting with pink-tipped petals, all done by her hand. Some of her pieces now grace the walls of local restaurants and stores, a small sign beneath them naming her price to sell. But she’s not in her studio often anymore, claiming that she doesn’t need to paint flowers when she’s elbow-deep in real ones all day long.
But twenty-six years ago, in a land that is unforgiving for so many things, this was her garden.
And my dad has preserved it all these years.
Agnes looks thoughtfully at me. “I figured you might like it.”
“I do. It’s perfect. Thank you.” I toss my purse to the floor.
“It gets chilly at night, so I put plenty of blankets down to help keep you warm.” Agnes gestures at the colorful and eclectic stack of folded quilts at the foot of my bed, and then looks around the space, as if searching for something. “I think that’s everything. Unless there’s something else?”
I hold my phone up. “The Wi-Fi password?”
“Yes. Let me find that. The bathroom is out here to the left, if you want to freshen up. Your dad has his own in his room, so this one is all yours.”
With a weary sigh—if I weren’t running on the adrenaline of anticipating meeting my father, I’d probably nosedive right into that bed—I unzip the nylon track bag and begin emptying it, noting with frustration how little clothing I was able to fit.
And how most of it is damp.
“Dammit!” My black jeans are cold and wet against my fingertips, as is my sweater, my running gear, and the two other shirts I hastily stuffed into the right side of the bag. The side that Jonah so casually tossed into the puddle of muddy water. Gritting my teeth to keep my anger at bay, I fish out a small woven hamper from the closet and toss everything in.