The Simple Wild: A Novel(49)

Is he talking about his father? What happened between them? I hold that steely stare of his for one . . . two . . . three long seconds.

He’s the first to break away, his eyes drifting to Agnes’s house, to where my dad leans against the rail, his hand lifting to his mouth for a moment before pulling away. He’s smoking.

Stomach-churning embarrassment washes over me. I got jealous for no good reason and stormed out, basically ruining dinner and making things exponentially more awkward than they already were.

So much for not letting my resentment get the better of me. So much for controlling my own actions.

“You know, you’re definitely Wren’s daughter,” Jonah mutters.

“Why do you say that?” I ask warily. Do I want to hear this answer?

“Because neither of you have the guts to speak your mind when it matters most.”

I watch him stroll away, gravel crunching under his boots.





Chapter 10




I’m scratching feverishly against a mosquito bite on the back of my calf when the patio door from the living room slides opens.

My dad pokes his head out. “There you are.” His gaze drifts over the patchwork quilt I dragged from my bedroom and cocooned myself in, a ward against the evening chill as I sit curled up in the wobbly aluminum chair. “Hungry?”

“A little,” I admit sheepishly, feeling my cheeks flush all over again from my embarrassment at the scene I caused.

He appears with two dinner plates balanced in one hand. “Agnes fixed this for you. Said you don’t eat mashed potatoes, so she gave you extra of everything else.” He sets a plate down on the worn coffee table in front of me. It’s loaded with a heap of white and dark meat—more than I can possibly eat—and, funny enough, peas and carrots.

He nods to the chair beside me, the orange-and-red woven strips torn in several places, looking ready to give way with the slightest weight on it. “You mind if I join you?”

“No. Of course not. Go ahead.”

He sinks into it with a groan, setting his own plate on the stack of plastic bins piled next to him. “Agnes makes a mean roasted chicken. I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t go back for seconds.”

I reach for my plate. “I’ll bring these back to her when we’re done so I can apologize for earlier.”

He opens his mouth to say something, but then seems to change his mind and instead slides a can of beer from his vest pocket. “Thirsty?”

Normally I’d decline, but something inside urges me to accept it.

He pulls a second out of his other pocket. The sound of the can cracking open cuts into the silence of the calm evening.

I watch him for a moment as he sips his beer, his thoughts lost in the acres of fields beyond us.

Do I bring up that fiasco from earlier?

Do I wait for him to bring it up? What if he doesn’t bring it up?

Maybe I should avoid the entire topic of Mabel and keep the mood light, not make things more awkward?

“I’m sorry,” I blurt out before I can think too much more about it.

“It’s okay, Calla,” he murmurs, holding a hand up. “Jonah explained where your head went.” He chuckles softly. “Right after he told me what he thought about me, and how I’ve handled myself with you. Man, that guy doesn’t hold back any punches. He can make you feel this small.” He holds up two fingers, an inch of air in between, to emphasize his point.

“Yeah, I’ve noticed,” I mutter, frowning. Jonah said he wasn’t getting involved with our drama.

“He’s right, though. I owe you an explanation. Even if it can’t fix anything. Even if it’s twelve years too late.” Dad’s eyes settle on a pile of old worn shoes, cast haphazardly into a corner, and sits there for so long that I wonder if I’m going to get one.

“The January before I was supposed to come to Toronto to see you, one of my pilots, Derek, was flying through the Alaska Range when the cloud level came down fast. We think he got confused and took a wrong turn. Flew right into the mountainside.”

“Was that Mabel’s father?”

He nods. “It was supposed to be my run. But I was buried in problems here—a fuel shortage, two grounded planes, a bunch of paperwork that I couldn’t ignore. You know, taxes . . . that sort of stuff. So I asked Derek to come in on his day off and do the run for me.”

Understanding hits me. “You would have crashed that day.”

My father would have died that day.

“I don’t know if I would have. Derek had only been flying maybe five years by that point, and not a lot of time in those mountains. Me? I couldn’t even guess how many times I’ve done that route. I know my way through there. I would never have made that mistake.” He takes a long sip of his beer. “I should never have sent him.”

I search for words, but I don’t know what to say. “That must have been hard to deal with.”

“It was. For everyone at Wild. But especially Agnes. Mabel was due that coming August, but there were complications and she ended up born in June, a few days before I was flying to Toronto to see you. She had a heart defect that needed surgery right away. They rushed them both to Anchorage by medevac and I flew myself over.” He sighs heavily. “After what happened to Derek, I couldn’t leave Agnes to deal with that on her own. Not if Mabel didn’t survive. That’s why I canceled my trip to see you.”