The Simple Wild: A Novel(64)

“I wish I could, Mabel. But I have a dairy allergy,” I explain with an apologetic cringe.

“Really? That sucks. So what are you gonna eat, then?” Mabel wanders over to look in my bowl. Her nose crinkles. “Oh. Well, it’s a good thing I made dinner for us, then.”

I frown. “Why?”

“Because Wren hates vegetables with a passion. Especially salad.”

My dad cringes. “I think ‘hate’ is a strong word, Mabel—”

“No it’s not! Mom calls him Baby Wren when he comes over for dinner because she has to cut them up into tiny little bites and hide them in sauce so he’ll eat them.” She grins at me as she digs out a serving spoon from a drawer.

So he was being polite, earlier. Now that I think back to it, there weren’t any peas and carrots on his dinner plate last night.

He sighs, and then offers me a sheepish smile.

Scooping a generous portion of pasta onto two plates, Mabel collects them and heads for the living room, hollering back, “Are you black this time, or is it my turn?”

“I can’t remember. You pick.” He stalls at the doorway. “We usually play a game of checkers every night. Missed a couple there.”

Because I came to Alaska, I gather.

He hesitates, biting his bottom lip. “So . . . a dairy allergy.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s why there’s all that soya milk in the fridge.”

“Soy,” I correct. “And yeah. It’s for my coffee.”

“Huh. Well . . . now I know.”

“Right. Like now I know that you wouldn’t have eaten any of this.” I wave the knife in my hand over the salad bowl.

“I would have eaten every last bite, kiddo,” he says with certainty, then disappears into the living room.

Leaving me smiling at a wall of ducks.



Mabel lets out a whoop, snatching the black checker piece from the board and adding it to her growing pile. “What’s it like, losing fourteen games straight to a little girl?”

My dad’s brow is pulled tight as he puzzles over the game board, as if replaying the last moves. “Seems I’ve taught you too well,” he murmurs, leaning back in his La-Z-Boy. His gaze wanders over to the couch where I sit cross-legged, my MacBook nestled in my lap. “You sure you don’t want to give it a try, Calla? ’Cuz I’m on the search for an opponent I can beat. My ego needs it.”

“Maybe tomorrow,” I say in a noncommittal way.

Dad chuckles. “Thank you for lying to spare my feelings. Your mom always flat-out refused.”

Mabel’s curious eyes drift from me to Wren, and back to me. I wonder how much she knows about our history. Can she sense the tension in the air when we’re in a room together? A tension that, thankfully, seems to be ebbing away ever so slowly.

My dad begins placing pieces back on the board. “Same time, same place, kiddo?”

I try to ignore the way my gut tightens. He’s called her that at least a half dozen times tonight and every time has been like a siren for me, a stark reminder that this kid has something with him that I never had, even all those years ago when I’d still call and he’d still answer.

Despite the fact that they’re not blood-related.

Despite the fact that he and Agnes aren’t even together.

They have a genuine father-daughter relationship.

Mabel glances at the clock on the wall and says with reluctance, “Fine.” But then adds with a devilish spark in her eye, “I’ll let you win tomorrow.”

“That’d be a nice change.”

“It’s on. See ya.” She leans forward and plants a quick kiss on my dad’s forehead, with not a hint of hesitation, as if it’s something she’d done a thousand times.

How will she react when she finds out he has cancer? The fact that everyone has sheltered her from that grim truth so far tells me it won’t be well.

She grabs the sweater she draped over the back of my dad’s chair. “Hey, Calla, you should come berry picking with me tomorrow. A bunch of us from in town are going in the morning.”

I push aside my dark thoughts. “Yeah, maybe?” I can’t remember the last time I did that.

“Okay.” She shrugs, like it doesn’t matter to her one way or another, but based on what Agnes said about me being the shiny new thing, I’m guessing that’s an act.

Just as quickly and easily as Mabel strolled through the door, she now strolls out, leaving a palpable calm in her wake.

“I hope you liked the pasta,” I murmur, biting into my apple. “There’s enough left to feed twenty people.”

“To be honest, I can’t tell the difference between this week’s and the last eight weeks’ worth,” my dad murmurs, eying my empty plate, which I filled twice with my own dinner. “Too bad you can’t help me with it. Seems like you can put away a lot, for such a tiny person.”

“I think the time difference is messing with my appetite,” I admit. “Plus Jonah’s trash panda ruined my lunch, so I didn’t eat much today.”

My dad frowns. “Trash panda?”

“Raccoon.”

“Ah.” My dad nods knowingly, smiling. “So you’ve met Bandit.”