Running Wild (Wild 3)

She’s right, and yet my feet feel leaden as I drag myself toward the living room.

My father is settled into his recliner, his cast-wrapped leg propped up with an extra pillow, Yukon sprawled on the floor beside him.

At the sound of my footsteps, Dad peers over his shoulder. “Everybody was in such a rush to get out of here. I thought you’d left, too.” His voice weighs with weariness.

“I wasn’t going to leave that mess for Mom to clean up on her own.” Bentley lifts his head enough to acknowledge me stepping over him before he drops with a thud and a huff that usually makes me laugh.

Tonight, though, my heart is too heavy.

Dad swallows. “I’m sorry that unfolded the way it did.”

“I don’t understand. I’m running the clinic because you asked me to. You wanted to retire, and you didn’t want to sell it or see it sitting there, empty. You’ve always said how much you love looking out the window and seeing the clinic running.” He said it again only two weeks ago, up in Hatcher Pass. “When did you and Mom decide all this?”

“We haven’t decided, and we don’t want to sell. At least, not tomorrow. But it is something we’ve been talking about more.” He picks at a loose thread on the blanket my mother draped over him. “Your mom and I put everything we had into this place. We talked about saving for retirement, but there was always something to spend money on. New equipment for the clinic, helping you with your tuition, cars. Remember that old beat-up Dodge you and Liz used to drive around?”

“The one that kept breaking down every time we stopped at a red light? How could I forget?”

Dad chuckles. “Anyway, I made decent money, but with three kids and a business with high overhead, I never did manage to put much away for down the road. We always assumed we’d sell this place if we needed to, even if it broke my heart. When you came home to work with me, I was so happy.” He punctuates that with a smile. “I loved knowing one of my daughters would continue my life’s work. And it still makes me happy.” He pauses. “But I wonder now if I shouldn’t have closed down.”

“Why?”

“Because you worked so hard for so long. You could be operating in one of those big hospitals, doing the kind of complex surgeries you’re trained to do, not vaccinating stray dogs in that rundown shack with one tech to support you. Even these other places in town have multiple veterinarians and techs, at least two receptionists—”

“I’m exactly where I want to be, Dad. I didn’t take the job in Anchorage because I didn’t want it. And I can do surgeries here. I have the equipment and the skill.” While we may call ourselves a clinic, that little shack has seen as many emergencies and saved as many animal lives over the years as places that label themselves a hospital.

“But not necessarily the patients.” He watches the dancing flames in the woodstove. “Your mother has always wanted to travel. She’s never been to Europe, or to the Caribbean. We talked about that a lot over the years, thought we would be able to afford it.”

“But you guys are going to Mexico this winter. You’ve been saving for it.”

“We were going to. And then Vicki and Oliver’s truck broke down, and you know they can’t afford to fix it. Those two really have no money. That boy, he needs to think about a trade or something. Anyway, that’s a topic for another day.” He purses his lips. “Liz and Jim have that walkout basement apartment. They’ve offered it to us. Jim’s never home, and Liz could use the help with the kids. It’d free up money and give us a chance to travel a bit while helping you all out.” He shrugs. “Just a thought that I was gonna bring up with you while we were on the hike. And then I had to go and do this, and I got distracted.” He gestures at his leg.

I think back to that day, to the conversation we were in the midst of before he fell. It was about money, about how I wasn’t making enough. And maybe, though Dad would never bring it up, about how I couldn’t pay them more. “If you increase my rent, will that help?”

“It’s high enough.” Dad waves his hand dismissively. “But that Jim … I don’t know how someone so smart can be so damn dense sometimes.”

“It’s not even Jim who’s the problem. I mean, yeah, he’s a dumbass. But it was Liz tonight. It’s like she’d been waiting for years to unload. She made it sound like I’m some sort of failure, just because I don’t make all my life decisions based on money and marriage.”