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“I don’t see Santa or his elves.” I eye the A-frame cabin nestled at the edge of the tree line as Jonah circles our plane over the frozen lake. A narrow trail cuts through the forest leading up to it, the far end connected to another trail that snakes through the sea of tall, thin evergreens. A road, though I don’t know how often it’s been used.
“You just missed him.” Jonah smirks and jabs a thumb toward the last town we passed.
It finally clicks. “The North Pole! Oh my God!” A wave of nostalgia washes over me. I can’t believe I hadn’t clued in already. “My dad always used to tell me he was flying there. I thought it was the coolest thing.” Back when I only knew his face thanks to a picture, when I’d prattle nonstop over the phone and he’d listen patiently.
Jonah’s deep chuckle carries through the headset. “Yeah. Well, it’s not the North Pole, but it’s North Pole, Alaska. Christmas all year round. They’ve got giant candy canes along the main street. We can take the snow machine in tomorrow for somethin’ to do, if you want. It’s not that far.” He points to the expanse of buildings in the distance as a crop of lights ignite in the dusk, ahead of the coming nightfall. “That’s Fairbanks up ahead. It’s the second-largest city in Alaska.”
Jonah wouldn’t divulge any more hints about where we were heading as we loaded my luggage into the passenger seats. I snooped though the cargo area, packed with his black duffel bag, a cooler, a box of dry food, and several jugs of water. I badgered him as we fled the incoming weather system, heading northeast past the frozen plains, over the snowy, sawtooth ridges of the imposing mountain range, far enough that the looming clouds broke apart to allow slivers of sunshine through. Still, he told me nothing, enjoying my frustration while the radio frequency buzzed with chatter from other pilots, citing their coordinates, weather patterns, the odd joke.
Now, as the sun prepares to slip past the horizon at two thirty in the afternoon, I accept that Jonah has flown me farther north than I’ve ever been.
This is now my life.
Will the shock ever wear off?
I huddle in my heavy parka and thick winter boots, my body tense as Veronica—the four-seater Cessna that I spent so much time in when Jonah shuttled my father and me around Alaska on daily excursions—jerks and shakes violently on our descent. While I’m nowhere near as anxious as I was flying in a small plane that first day back in July, the few months away have robbed me of some of my unearthed bravery. “Whose place is this?”
“George and Bobbie’s. They were gonna come for Christmas, but George got one of his funny feelings.” Jonah gives me a flat, knowing look. The burly pilot from the Midwest is well known for bowing out of flights due to his superstitious tendencies. “So, they decided to wait out the snow. Offered their place to us for the next three days. It’s fully stocked already.”
“That was generous of them.” A giddiness sparks inside me at the thought of three days alone with Jonah. The most time we’ve ever spent entirely alone was that trip into the mountains to pick up two hikers this past summer. We ended up grounded for the night because of heavy fog and wind and sought refuge in a rustic safety cabin. There was no running water or electricity, and nothing but a sleeping bag and muskrat jerky. And an insurmountable tension between us that rose to a boiling point, impossible to ignore. It was the night everything changed.
It was also the last night I was under the illusion that my father would survive his cancer.
Jonah releases the yoke long enough to give my knee a squeeze. “They’re happy you came to your senses.”
“That remains to be seen,” I tease before my smile fades. “But what about Agnes and Mabel? I know you wanted to be there for them. Are they going to be upset?” My father spent every Christmas morning sitting on Agnes’s couch with a mug of coffee in hand and a checkerboard in play.
“Aggie’s the one who was watchin’ the weather radar at four this morning, hopin’ for enough of a break to let me fly. She didn’t want you stuck in Anchorage alone. Besides, they’re headin’ to George and Bobbie’s for dinner. A bunch of the Wild folks are gonna be there.”
“That sounds … nice.” For too many years, I blamed my dad’s charter plane company for our estrangement. I hated everything about it. It took me coming to Alaska to see that it wasn’t just some business, some job to make money. My father and Alaska Wild were improving lives. In some cases, saving them. And the employees were family to him. It still feels wrong that I’m about to inherit all that money from the sale of a place I used to despise.
I hesitate. “So, is my dad’s house up for sale yet?” He owned all three modular homes on that stretch of road—his, Agnes’s, and Jonah’s. Properties passed down to him from my grandparents. My father was not known for acting swiftly or decisively, but in the last weeks before his death, he was busy adding names to deeds to allow immediate transfer when the time came. “To avoid all that messy probate stuff,” he had said. It made it easy for Jonah to claim the house he was renting, and for Agnes and Mabel to take ownership of the other two houses to do with what they want.
“Not yet. She figures spring. She wants to give us a chance to sell first, and that’s gonna take a while. We’ve only had one person come through so far.”
I note how he says us and we, as if that house is somehow partly mine, and my heart warms. “I can help her take down the wallpaper in the kitchen, if she wants me to,” I say, even as I grimace at the thought of scraping off all those mallards. I remember Simon’s house being plastered with wallpaper when we moved in. It had been his English parents’ house before he bought it. Primrose in the bathroom, apple blossoms in the kitchen, lilacs in the dining room.
I don’t think my mother’s suitcases were even unpacked before she attacked the powder room with a metal spatula. They ended up hiring someone to tackle the rest because it was too much for any one person, and I doubt Simon appreciated the disparaging remarks my mother muttered under her breath about his parents’ decorating taste as she toiled away in anger.
But, of course I’ll help Agnes. I’d do anything for that tiny, soft-spoken woman, the catalyst for me reuniting with my father, and the reason I’m here with Jonah. Besides, what else do I have to do whi
le Jonah finishes up his last month at Aro?
How strange will it be for me to be in that house again, dismantling everything that made it my father’s? A shiver of unease slides down my back with the thought.
“I’ll help too,” Jonah murmurs absently, his keen focus on the snowy stretch of lake ahead of us.
“It’s frozen, right?” I ask.
“Should be.”
“Should be?”
“I hope so.”
I give him a high-browed stare. “This is you being funny?”
“No.” He smirks. “But that’s why we’re gonna do a touch-and-go first, mainly to check the snow, but also for overflow.”
