My One Square Inch of Alaska (9781101602850) (32 page)

But Charlie had guessed I might go the opposite direction and had gone up the road and found us. Molly had let her dog back in the house, and followed.

Back in Whitehorse, while Mr. Luke Randall fixed my car (a radiator hose had a leak, causing the engine to overheat) at Luke’s Body Shop, Molly took us over to have breakfast with Mr. Randall’s wife and children—all four of them under the age of six. Mrs. Randall, though, seemed glad for the company, happy to make extra pancakes and thick rounds of bacon. Will told everyone how we were on our way to Tok, Alaska, so he could see his land. The little Randall children were fascinated by Trusty, who occasionally gave a bark, testing his reclaimed voice, and was as gentle with the children—letting them pull on his ears and roll around with him—as he’d been terrifying with evil Charlie.

After our car was fixed, Mr. Randall charged me far less than I’d expected for both the radiator hose and a new spare. Molly insisted we go back by the roadhouse. We sat at one of the tables in the empty place, playing Go Fish with a deck of cards she’d given us, while she went out the back to her and her daddy’s house. By the time she came back out to us, Will had put his head on the table and fallen asleep. Molly handed me a sack of sandwiches along with a piece of paper.

“Names of people you can trust, and directions on how to find them, between here and Tok,” she said. “I’ve contacted them on ham radio. If you want, you can check in with them at Haines Junction, Burwash Landing, and Northway. In Tok, if you run into trouble getting to see that land of yours, look up Sol Capputo—”

“Thanks,” I said, “but I think we’ll be fine.” I didn’t want
to stop and check in with people. I wanted to get to Tok, see Will’s land, and then figure out the best way to get us home.

Molly lifted her eyebrows at me. “You’re a young woman traveling with your little brother, with only a dog for protection—no real gun, no means of communication—through some of the toughest terrain in the world at the start of November, in a yellow convertible with a tiny camper. For one thing, that’ll make you stand out to the worst kind of predator—human, as you’ve already found. And for another, I figure you all must have some kind of story that’s more than just following up on that cereal box deed.” She paused, studying me, but I didn’t get the feeling she really wanted or needed for me to give any more detailed explanation.

I waited, and finally she smiled at me for the first time since we’d encountered her. “One thing I’ve learned out here—it’s all right to let people help you.” I smiled back.

We had about 390 more miles to go.

By the time we left Whitehorse, it was late afternoon on November 2. After the previous night’s events, I decided we’d stop for the night in Burwash Landing, especially since the Burwash Landing Resort—really a low-slung building that looked like a motel without any neon signs, just its name in simple brown wood letters—was open and had plenty of rooms available; it was closing up in a week. The woman who checked us in cheerfully told me that we were at “historic mile 1093” on the Alaska Highway, that the Jacquot brothers had opened a trading post at the site in 1904, and that in 1944 the lodge had opened.

The cafeteria was closed for the season. I asked her if we could have a campfire near the lake and cook some food, and she said that was fine, although she warned me of strong winds coming off of Kluane Lake.

“We have a dog with us,” I said. “We can leave him in the camper, but he’s really attached to my brother.”

“Bring him in and let me see him,” she said.

Will, who had been staring at the woman the whole time we chatted, ran out and soon came back in with Trusty. The woman knelt before him and stared into his eyes. I held my breath nervously as she cupped her hands under his chin and brought her face right to his muzzle. But Trusty just stared into her eyes, while she stared into his.

Finally, she looked up. “You have a very special guide here,” she said somberly.

After we stepped out of the lodge, Will said, “She must be part of the Yukon First Nations! Did you see her cheekbones? And her hair? She kind of reminds me of MayJune!”

I realized for the first time that MayJune had Indian features. I felt badly for MayJune, but knew that somehow she was handling Joey’s loss, while comforting others.

“The Yukon people helped the first miners and settlers….”

And on he went, while we got our clothes into our room. He’d read up more on the history and people of this area than he had about the history he was supposed to study in school. He’d done so well on this trip that for just a fraction of a second I forgot how sick he was. We gathered up armloads of wood from the designated pile behind the resort and then carried it down to Kluane Lake. We found a fire
ring and made a fire, then spread out our now filthy bedspreads to sit on. I heated up the last home-canned jar of vegetable soup. We ate that, along with the sandwiches Molly had packed us, and stared at the still, blue lake and the mountains beyond it, until night fell.

With the darkness came cold and a swift wind, but our little fire, shielded by a large rock, kept going. Without talking about it, Will and I snuggled up together, our backs against the large rock, one of the comforters pulled over us and Trusty under the cover and resting on top of our legs. Trusty gave little kicks and sighs every now and then.

Finally, though, as my cheeks began to feel numb, I was about to tell Will that we should go into our room for the night, but then he softly said my name.

“Yes?”

“What do you want to be?” he asked. “I mean…later.”

I stared at the fire. Any words I spoke would acknowledge a time after Will, a time
without
Will.

I thought,
How can I answer “fashion designer”?
That answer was the truth, but suddenly the truth seemed so stupid, so shallow, so trivial. Now I understood why Daddy hadn’t wanted to tell us the simple truth about Mama. Sometimes the truth just doesn’t seem to be…enough.

So I cleared my throat and said, “Dr. Emory says there are clinical trials for new medicines for your type of cancer.” I paused. Each word sounded, in the clear, cold air, like a little bell ringing and then whisking away on the wind. “I’m going to be a doctor, of course. A medical researcher—”

Suddenly Will twisted away from me and then punched me in the chest with all of his might. I gasped as he pummeled
me until I finally grabbed his arms and held him still. Trusty howled. In the flickering light from the fire, I could see that Will’s face was scrunched up with anger.

In fact, I’d never seen him angrier. He’d never gotten this angry at Daddy and his drinking.

Or Grandma and her hatred of us.

Or Howard and his taunting.

Or the evil man who’d attacked me the night before.

Or even the terrible, unfair diagnosis he’d been given.

This was the angriest moment of his life, and his wrath was directed at me. “Bull!” Will screamed. Spit flew from his lips. “You hated biology class last year. I heard you talking with Babs about how dissecting the frog made you want to puke! You would be an awful doctor and you don’t want to be one at all!”

“Will, calm down! Get back under the blanket.” I started pulling him back toward me.

He pushed away from me, sobbing. “No!” He looked frantic. “I don’t want your help with the blanket! I want you to tell me the truth! I want you to tell me what you really want to be when you’re a grown woman! And don’t you dare say a mama, either!”

His sobs quieted, settled into hiccups that punched in between every third word or so.

“But what if that is what I want to be, really?”

Will looked stunned at this idea. “But why? After all of—this—” He flapped his arms out, and I knew the gesture meant himself and his sickness and this trip and the mothering I’d done long before he became ill.

“Come here,” I said. “By me.”

He did, butt-scooting back to me, and then I held him,
his body pressed to mine for comfort and warmth, my arms around him, his head against my shoulder. I leaned my frozen cheeks against the top of his head, covered in a knitted cap.

Will was still hiccupping, but less often, when I finally sighed and said, “All right. The truth. I want to be a fashion designer.”

I waited for a second, for another outburst, for him to ask how I could want something so trivial. But he didn’t. He just said, “Ah,” hiccupped again, and waited for me to go on.

And so I did. At first I talked reluctantly—about designing, and techniques, and some of the clothes of Mama’s I’d remade—but then my voice picked up strength and speed, and I got lost in talking about how much I loved designing, and my ideas for designs, and my wish to study at the Parsons School of Design, and how Mr. Cahill had already written a letter recommending me, and my dreams of living in New York and working in Paris and Milan….

Finally, I stopped, and the second I did so, shame washed over me again. How could I speak of such future dreams to Will? His breath was slow and even. I wondered if—half-hoped that—he’d fallen asleep and heard little of what I’d said.

But then he said, very quietly and softly, “Thank you. Now you have to promise me that you will really do it. You’ll really do everything you can to make those dreams come true.”

Tears welled, stinging my eyes in the cold. “I promise,” I said.

“Cross your heart, hope to die promise?”

I swallowed hard, then chanted the old schoolyard oath:
“Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye…I will follow my dreams. And make them come true.”

“Good,” Will said as if that satisfied him and settled my future.

I pressed my eyes shut, felt the sting of cold tears on my cheeks.

Now I realize that Will
needed
to hear what I wanted from life, my plots and plans. He had known that I needed to remember my own dreams. He needed to know that I wouldn’t lose sight of them.

It struck me, even then—and I still think about it—how many people we knew who had lost their dreams, and lost their way. Mama, desiring to sing. Miss Bettina, loving Daddy, but afraid to let him know. Jimmy, wanting to break free from his parents’ rigid expectations.

And then there were those who had followed false dreams for so long that maybe they didn’t know what they really wanted. Babs, grasping for love and attention, even from abusive boys like Hank. Daddy, clinging to an image of Mama that was really a mirage. Grandma, wanting status and approval so badly that she couldn’t even see how wonderful it was that she’d created a gathering place like Dot’s Corner Café. Mrs. Denton, wanting Mr. Cahill to be someone to her that he never had been, and never could be.

And finally, there were the people we knew who had quietly made peace with who they were, and their dreams, however they worked out. MayJune. Mr. Cahill. Even Mr. Litchfield. And Trusty, who had found his way back to his voice.

Suddenly, Will gasped. I opened my eyes, alert, ready to snatch him up and run if we were being threatened, but
then I saw what had snatched breath from him and woven it into a sigh of wonder. The sky was alight with draping, weaving swaths of jade and magenta and azure. The northern lights. We watched together silently, even after the fire burned out.

Then Will said, “Donna, what do you think happens after we die?”

For a second, my throat closed. I stared at the dancing display of light as if I might find an answer in a swirl or turn of color. Finally I said, “Well, at Grandma’s church, the pastor always said if we’ve been faithful, then we get to be in heaven, with God and the angels—”

Will sighed, his deep exhale asking if I’d never learn. “Not what we were taught. What you think.”

I pulled him closer to me, watching the lights turn and dance. “Truth be told—I don’t know, Will. I really don’t. Except I think whatever it is must be amazing and beyond anything we could imagine, beyond words.”

“Like this!” Will sounded pleased. I know he meant like the northern lights, draping the night sky with great sheaths of dancing gossamer, like angel wings…beyond words.

“Yes, Will. Like this. Just like this.”

T
he next morning, November 3, when I opened the door to our room, a blast of icy wind stung my face. I started to hurry to the office to turn in our key, and nearly tripped over two pairs of boots. Rolled up in one was a note. “These are mukluks, which will keep your feet very warm. I couldn’t help but notice your thin shoes. Velma.”

Guessing that Velma was the woman who had checked us in, I smiled at her generosity.

We had 214 miles to go.

Sometime after we left Burwash Landing, we realized that our car’s heater wasn’t working. We stopped long enough to put on our coats, hats, gloves, and our new mukluks, which wrapped our feet in a cocoon of warmth.

Trusty curled up in the foot well at Will’s feet, filling the whole space.

Will held in his lap the atlas and his framed deed to his one square inch of Alaska, ready to proudly show it at the deed office in Tok.

We had 130 miles to go.

For miles after Burwash Landing, we didn’t see anyone else on the road, just stunning views around every curve. I drove slowly, mindful of the patchy road, just gravel and dirt in places, and the sharp drop-offs around curves. Our breath puffed in little white clouds. We joked about making enough breath clouds to cause it to snow in the car. Then our breath started fogging the inside of the windshield, so we lowered our windows and stayed quiet, until we saw the tiny sign indicating we were crossing from the Yukon Territory into Alaska Territory. At that we cheered so loudly that Trusty barked, and his barking made us laugh.