The Simple Wild: A Novel(78)

“He’ll be home in a few hours. But he’s fine.”

“Okay.” She nods slowly, as if it’s taking time for her to absorb that answer, to trust it. She brushes her hair off her forehead. “Can I hang out with you until then?” There’s desperation in her voice. He might be fine, but he so easily might not have been. Something scary happened to someone she cares about and she doesn’t want to be alone.

Neither do I, I realize.

“Of course you can.” I smile. “I hope you feel like digging through old junk.”



“Are you okay?”

“Of course I’m okay. I wasn’t in the plane, Mom.”

“But still, that must have been scary for you to witness.”

“It was,” I admit.

Her sigh fills my ear. “I remember those days, hearing some of the stories of things that’d go wrong. I’d do the math on how many times they went up in the air each day, and the odds of something bad happening being that much higher because of it. Especially in those little planes. They’re not like the big jetliners that practically run on computers and have backups of backups. It got to the point where every day, your dad would walk out the door and I’d wonder if that was the last time I’d see him alive.”

“That would have been hard to deal with.”

“Hard? It drove me nuts. I was never meant to be a bush pilot’s wife.”

Simon’s profession is certainly much safer than my dad’s. Aside from that one patient who launched a silver-plated Sigmund Freud head statue at him—missing him completely but putting a hole through the wall—Simon’s biggest occupational hazards have been paper cuts and chair ass.

“Thank God for this George guy. Imagine what could have happened?”

Yeah, thank God for George, and Jillian, his little hula girl.

But, more importantly, thank God for Jonah’s stubborn need for a gut check. If he hadn’t insisted on taking Betty for that quick flight, there would have been a young mother and newborn baby in that plane when the engine caught fire.

Who knows if that landing would have been any smoother.

Jonah very well may have saved their lives today.

“They still work!” Mabel exclaims behind me. I turn to find her with her arms held wide, a string of red, blue, and green Christmas bulbs stretched between them.

“I can’t believe it!”

“I know, right?” Mabel giggles. “I’ll check the rest.”

“What can’t you believe?” my mom asks.

“Hold on, Mom,” I murmur, shifting my phone away from my mouth. “If we have enough, we can string them up all over the ceiling, like a canopy.”

Mabel’s eyes widen. “Oh, that would look so cool.”

“Calla! Who are you talking to?”

“Agnes’s daughter, Mabel. Did you know Dad kept all your stuff? Like all of it.” Mabel and I spent almost two hours rooting through stacks of dusty plastic tubs from the deepest corner of the garage, to find everything from holiday decorations to garden gnomes and whimsical sundials.

“Agnes has a daughter? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Why didn’t you tell me about all those phone calls between you and my dad? I want to throw back, but I bite my tongue against the urge.

“I haven’t had a chance.” To be fair, we haven’t spoken over the phone since Monday afternoon. There’s plenty I have to fill her in on that I can’t do over text. But now is not the time. “We found your wicker chair under a tarp. It’s in decent shape,” I say, trying to sway the conversation back to lighter things. The cushions have long since succumbed to time, moisture, and some -animal—likely mice—but the chair’s frame itself is sturdy enough to bear weight.

We dragged it all out, and then Mabel helped me clean off the porch, lugging the decrepit lawn chairs, fishing rods, and other miscellaneous things that have collected over the years into the garage. And she did it all without a single complaint.

It’s my first time spending real time with Mabel without the buff-er of my father and a game of checkers. She’s quirky and plucky and talks nonstop about three different topics at once, often trailing off mid-sentence. I’m starting to think she may have issues with attention.

And I’m growing more fond of her with every minute.

“Listen, I’ve got to go. There’s a customer here,” my mom says. “You’ll fill me in on everything later, right?”

“Sure.” I know she means later tonight, but I’m not exactly rushing to dive into that conversation. Does she really need to know why my dad canceled his trip all those years ago? Would she care if Alaska Wild has run into financial challenges, and that I’m trying to help while I’m here? Maybe she would. But maybe I also selfishly want some time for just me and my dad, without her complicated relationship with him entering the picture.

I end the call just as a truck engine sounds.

Mabel drops the strand of lights in her grasp and bolts out the door. “It’s Jonah!” she yells. Her feet pound across the grass as she runs for his driveway.

And I feel the inexplicable urge to run right behind her. But I resist, occupying myself with my bottle of water and an apple I washed hours ago to eat but couldn’t find an appetite for.