Sitka had to accommodate herself in the back for this ride.
“Mama wants to talk to you,” I told him as he took the phone.
“Think she’s gonna be happy with you leaving Fennec behind?” Jason asked as Papa talked to Mama.
“Probably not. But he needs to calm down from whatever’s going on with him. He’s not been well lately,” I told him.
“And you think leaving him out there on his own will help him get better? Sounds like a suicide mission to me, leaving him to fight on his own.”
I frowned. “Fennec’s not going to take his own life just because he’s alone in the wild. He knows how to survive.”
Jason laughed. “He’s obviously not okay in his head, kid.”
Guilt started to take up most of the space in my chest, and with Jason’s words sinking in, I realized I shouldn’t have been such a bitch to him while trying to get Papa back to camp.
We also shouldn’t have left him alone in the forest, but he didn’t even move a muscle when Jason arrived.
He didn’t want to help, and he wanted us to leave.
He wanted me to leave.
“He’ll be fine,” I whispered.
*
After an over six-hour drive to Fairbanks, we met with Mama at the hospital and waited for Papa to get checked out by the doctors.
Jason had stayed with us for a while because he was worried about Papa, and when the doctors told us that Papa had fractured his ankle and would need to stay the night to also clean up his wound and get the medication he needed, Jason left.
He told me to call him if I chose to drive back to Wiseman with him, but I wasn’t so sure about it yet.
Fennec didn’t want me there, and even if he wasn’t okay, I knew being alone was what he needed.
I got up from the chair in the waiting room after a nurse told us we could go see Papa for a few minutes before we’d have to leave, and with Mama following me, we went inside the room to find Papa comfortably lying on the bed.
“How are you feeling?” I asked, stepping up to the side of the bed and placing my hand on his arm.
“Better. The meds are helping with the pain. Doc said it’s not a bad fracture, but that I was lucky.”
“I knew this would happen someday. It’s not safe out there. And with all that snow falling in the winter—”
“Alena, that’s enough,” Papa warned. “It’s late, and I would like to rest. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
Mama sighed and shook her head, then looked at the cast around Papa’s ankle and let out a harsh laugh.
“Just so you know, I don’t approve of you leaving Fennec out there on his own. He’s still a kid.”
“He turns twenty in three weeks,” I muttered, but Mama didn’t wanna hear that.
“He’s all alone and not even Jason’s up there to help in case he needs it.”
“What are you gonna do about it? Drive all the way to Wiseman and get him to come here? He won’t. The forest is where he wants to be. No reason for us to make him do something he doesn’t want to. Will only anger him.”
I hated listening to them fight, but Papa had a valid point.
Nothing could get Fennec to come down here, and at that moment I believed not even I could make him.
“We’ll talk tomorrow. You need to go home.”
I leaned in to kiss Papa’s head. “See you in the morning,” I whispered, squeezing his hand before walking over to the door and letting Mama say goodnight to him.
“You’re not being honest with me, Judd,” I heard her whisper, and with Papa’s emotions changing in his eyes, I slowly started to believe the same.
“Bye, Papa.” I waved at him, then I went outside with Mama to head to her car.
“What do you mean he’s not being honest with you?”
“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
We got into the car and put our seatbelts on. “If you want, I can go back to Wiseman and try to get Fennec to come here. Maybe he’ll listen to me,” I told her.
Surely, he wouldn’t stay mad at me for long, right?
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but that might be the best option. I don’t want him to be all alone up there. It’s not safe.”
I eyed her carefully as she pulled onto the road. “It’s not safe because of the animals, or because he could hurt himself?”
“Both. He’s not well.”
“Mentally?”
She didn’t reply, but her silence spoke volumes.
“He wasn’t doing well ever since we got back after the holidays. He was quiet and down. Do you think he’s depressed?”
There was little I knew about depression or any mental health issues, but the way Fennec acted those days couldn’t have been because he was in a bad mood.
“He’s not depressed, Vespyr,” she sighed, looking over at me for a second before focusing on the road again. “There’s a whole lot you don’t know. A lot I don’t even know about him. But there’s no way we’ll ever find out what’s wrong if he doesn’t let us help him.”
I looked down at my hands and wondered if it was even worth talking about this.
I talked behind his back before, and knowing how it made him feel upset me.
“I’ll go by Jason’s house tomorrow to ask him if he’s willing to drive back to Wiseman. I’ll try to talk to Fennec.”
I missed him, and no matter how angry he made me today, I couldn’t stay mad at him forever.
He held my heart, and being this far away from him would only tear me apart.
Slowly, but so damn painfully.
35
“Thank you again, Jason. I know you probably have better things to do, but Mama is right. Fennec can’t stay there on his own until Papa’s on his feet again. Literally.”
Jason was kind enough to take me back to Wiseman, and because he knew we’d have to drive back again if Fennec agreed to come back home with me, he decided to pack his things and leave the cabin behind for a month until Papa was ready to go back.
We owed Jason, and Mama had already promised to invite him over for dinner while he stayed in Fairbanks.
“I got nothing better to do, kid.”
I looked out of the window as we drove along the street to get to his cabin, and once he turned into his driveway, Sitka howled in the backseat as she recognized she was home.
Turning in my seat, I smiled at her and scratched the spot behind her ear to give her the attention she deserved.
“Want me to take you to him? You can’t drive the quad, right?”
I shook my head. “I think it’s best if I walk up there on my own. I need to be alone with him and take my time to explain that he needs to come back home.”
Though, I hated every single second of just thinking about it.
“Take Sitka with you then. Can’t let anything happen to you,” he told me, nodding back at his loyal companion.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I can go a day without her. But I need you to bring her back. Think you can talk Fennec into coming down here in less than a day?”
I hoped so.
No matter how much I wanted to stay there with him.