The Simple Wild (Wild 1)

She’s only twelve and I doubt she’s barged in on my night with my dad with malicious intentions, and yet I can’t help feeling this resentment for her right now.

This does, however, explain the empty fridge. And how my dad survives on a regular basis.

“Calla, wait until you try this.” Mabel pulls three plates from the cupboard.

“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.