Oh man. “Still hot,” I murmur, as an odd tingling sense courses through my entire body, like it does every time I think of him now. There’s so much I have to tell her, but now is not the time to even hint at it. “I’ll talk to you later.” We end the call just as Agnes pokes her head out onto the porch.
“There’s still some chicken left, if you’re hungry. I already set aside plenty for Jonah.” Agnes and Mabel walked into my dad’s kitchen around three, while he was napping, Mabel’s arms hugging her latest plucked catch from the farm, Agnes’s laden with potatoes and carrots, and lettuce for a green salad. We hadn’t made plans for dinner, but I was thankful to see them show up all the same.
By the time my dad staggered out of his bedroom, the house was smelling of roasted meat and we’d settled into solitary tasks—Agnes with a book, Mabel with a game on her phone, and me with my computer—as if we all lived here.
He didn’t say anything, didn’t question it. Just smiled at us and sank into his La-Z-Boy.
“I’m full, but thanks.” I offer Agnes a smile before turning back to my screen.
But she lingers, pushing the sliding door shut behind her. “Still working on Wild website stuff?”
“No.” Is there any point? “Just keeping my mind busy.” I toggle over to another screen, one of about thirty I have open, to pictures of my time here so far.
“That looks like Kwigillingok,” Agnes murmurs, edging closer. “That’s a nice one.”
“No.”
“No?” She frowns in thought. “I think it is.”
The more I stare at it, the more I disagree. “It doesn’t do it justice. At all. None of them do.”
She tips her head as she ponders it. “Maybe it has a story to it that I can’t see?”
“Maybe.” On the screen, it is a pretty enough view, I’ll admit. Not the barren wasteland my mother insisted was waiting for me. But it’s just another picture from a plane, high up in the sky. You wouldn’t know why we went—that it’s where the little girl with asthma who needed the ventilator lives with her family and two hundred other villagers, on what feels like the very edge of the earth when you’re landing.
You wouldn’t know that Jonah pounded on my door and practically forced me out that day. Jonah, the broody bush pilot who started off as my enemy and has somehow evolved into something far more important to me than a friend.
Agnes settles down onto the edge of the wicker love seat where there’s room. I sense that she wants to talk, as her gaze roams the porch, stalling on the lights dangling above. “Christmas in summer.”
“Welcome to my life. My mom has lights up in our backyard all year round.” Tiny, white lights that weave around the lilac bushes and Japanese maples and the trunk of the massive century-old oak tree that Simon has had to pay arborists tens of thousands to maintain over the years. This is kitschy by comparison, but it’s still cozy.
“All this old stuff you dragged out . . .” She looks around us at the transformation. “I’ll bet it’s nice out here at night.”
“It is, actually. We were out here last night after the sunset.”
“You and Jonah?”
“Yeah.”
“Hmm.”
I ignore her curious murmur and keep scrolling. The pictures of Jonah cutting firewood appear and my finger stalls, my eyes caught momentarily on his hard flesh and his statuesque form, his olive-skinned complexion all the more so next to the misty fog.
“Now there’s a fashionable look for your website.” Agnes chuckles.
I keep flipping, pretending that my cheeks aren’t red. I’ll admire the rest of those later, in private.
“Marie was by the house on Saturday night, looking for Jonah. Forgot to mention that to him,” she says casually.
“Big surprise.” My tone
is more clipped than I intend, a reaction to the way my stomach tightens instantly, despite what Jonah told me about their platonic relationship. Marie’s not going anywhere. She’s in Alaska for the long haul. Will he change his mind down the road and decide he can give her what she wants?
The very idea of Jonah with her—or anyone else—makes my chest burn. “Did you tell her we were stuck at the checkpoint for the night?”
“I did.”
Good. I can’t help the jealous little voice inside my head.