Running Wild (Wild 3)

He can’t afford to pay his bills?

It must be because his veterinarian is gouging him.

Bonnie didn’t do Harry any favors with her brand of parental cheerleading. He’s grown up in a cloud of entitlement, his ability to blame others for his failures almost an art form. And that failure hits him hard. I’ve had to give more than one pep talk over the years, including one after this year’s race.

“She always did call him God’s miracle. Remember, they had a hard time having him. It took years. She was in her early forties when he came along. They’d all but given up on the possibility by that point.” Dad whistles and the dogs turn from their exploratory wanders to rush back. They’re not supposed to be off leash anywhere within the park, but Dad’s never been good at following rules, and walking dogs born and bred to pull as soon as they’re tethered is as easy as herding a pack of feral cats. It’s quiet in Hatcher Pass this early in the morning, so we’re not likely to offend anyone.

“Earl would be rolling in his grave if he knew about this.” Dad shakes his head. “Has Harry paid his latest bill?”

“Cory hasn’t sent it yet. I wanted to talk to you first. See what your gut says.” I’ve been sitting on it for three days.

“Oh yeah?” Dad cocks his head. “What does your gut tell you to do?”

I expected as much from him. “My annoyed gut tells me to send him the invoice and tack on a home visit fee. My sensible gut says I might want to look at what he spends in a year and then charge him a monthly average rate with a modest discount, so he feels like he’s getting something from me.”

Dad makes a sound. “Two stomachs, Marie. You should get that looked at.”

I snort at his lackluster joke. “Really helpful.”

“You want my advice? Well, if we’re talking in digestive systems …” Dad watches as a marmot darts from a boulder and Bentley gives chase. It slides under another crop of rocks to safety. “The first one might make you feel good in the short run, but you’re gonna suffer down the road. The latter one sometimes makes things harder to digest in the short term, but in the long run, it usually works out better.”

“So, sensible is the way to go.” Honestly, it’s what I would have chosen in the end. That’s me— pragmatic Marie. Except when it relates to men and love, apparently.

“As tempting as it is to tell that twerp where to stuff it, because he would deserve that, he won’t go anywhere. He has an overqualified veterinarian catering to him. He’d have to be a damn fool to not see that.” Dad pauses, studying the expanse of bush-dotted knolls that make up Hatcher Pass. We’ve hiked this treeless area together for years—at first, with my younger sisters in tow, and then, when their love of the outdoors took a back seat to other things, just Dad and me.

I won’t lie—I prefer this. Secretly, I think he does, too.

In summers, we’d climb up to April Bowl, a shallow, turquoise-colored tarn, and beyond, traverse the ridge to Hatch Peak; in winters, we’d navigate the trails with snowshoes and avalanche transceivers strapped to our bodies. My mother was never keen on those excursions.

My favorite time to come, though, is the fall, just before they close the summit for the winter, when the bushes are tinged with burnt red leaves and the peaks are coated with crisp white snow, and there isn’t a soul in sight for miles.

Our adventurous treks were put on hold about five years ago when I brought home a silver husky named Aspen. She was thirteen, and while she loved the hikes, she couldn’t manage the climb. So we kept to easy trails, circling Summit Lake, collecting blueberries and fireweed, and looking for marmots and ptarmigan.

But then Aspen passed, and my father didn’t push to resume our more adventuresome hikes. He’d find excuses to avoid climbing to the ridge. “Next time,” he’d say. Or, “I can’t shake this leg cramp.”

The truth was my father had aged. It’d happened unbeknownst to me, somewhere in the seams of my busy life while I was so focused on what lay ahead for me in five, fifteen, twenty years. Sure, the birthdays passed and the years accumulated. I wasn’t blind to that. But my father was still here, as he had always been—a constant. The reality that he wouldn’t always be lingered in the recesses of my mind, but it was somewhere in the distant future.

And then Wren Fletcher died—too young and too quickly—and I came home from Western Alaska after that funeral, after watching Calla bury a father she’d only just reconnected with, and Jonah say goodbye to a man who’d treated him like a son, and for the first time, I truly noticed how white Dad’s hair had gotten, how wrinkled his hands were, how his gait was no longer that of a sturdy man but of a man who feels every step in his joints.