by Amy Ruttan
“Your replacement?”
Derek nodded. “I was hoping he’d take a permanent position in Wolf’s Harbor, but I don’t think he will. He has a girlfriend in Sitka. I just need a couple of regular doctors to help with my bid to get funding for a hospital in Wolf’s Harbor.”
“If you had a hospital I wouldn’t have to go to Juneau to run this test, or send Jennifer so far away from Wolf’s Harbor to have her baby.”
“Exactly. Wolf’s Harbor is right in the middle of the Inside Passage and we serve a lot of fishermen and loggers. I’ve been trying since I lost my first patient over a preventable injury when I first came here.”
“What happened?” Evelyn asked.
“Cut his femoral artery in a logging accident. If I could’ve gotten him into surgery we might have saved him. But I can’t get surgeons or nurses to stay in Wolf’s Harbor.”
Evelyn didn’t respond to that, but he saw the bloom of color in her cheeks as she went back to looking out the window.
Great. This is going to be a fun three hours. What else can we talk about to make it completely awkward for her?
“Ever been to Juneau before?” he asked, trying to steer the conversation to something more chatty.
“No. I’ve never been to Juneau...well, other than to the airport when I was sent to live with my grandmother in Boston. I went to Sitka and then flew to Juneau and then to Boston, which was a long flight.”
“You don’t like flying?” he asked.
“No.”
The silence fell between them again. He felt awkward, nervous around her.
Then Derek chuckled. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I can’t seem to start a conversation without it getting awkward.”
Evelyn grinned. “I know. Let’s stick to talking about Juneau, because I’ve been to Hoonah, and my dad would take me sometimes to watch the cruise ships come up the Inside Passage or we’d watch for whales, but I’ve never taken the ferry to Juneau.”
“Never?”
“Never. Dad would take the ferry to Juneau if he needed to go to the hospital, but I would always remain behind with Léelk’w.”
“Léelk’w means grandmother?” he asked.
“It’s what I called her. Or what she told me to call her. Do you know much Tlingit?”
“No. I don’t know much. I’ve had people try to teach me, but no.”
“You’ve been in Wolf’s Harbor for—what?—fifteen years?—and you don’t know much Tlingit?”
“Well, I haven’t had much time to learn it, and languages are not my forte, much to my mother’s chagrin.”
“Your mother wanted you to speak a lot of languages?”
“She is Haitian and my dad was Ukrainian, but I couldn’t pick up any of the languages my parents spoke—not Haitian Creole, not French, and certainly not Ukrainian or Russian. My Spanish grades in school were miserable too.”
Evelyn chuckled. “Well, Léelk’w would speak to me when I was younger in Tlingit. Dad didn’t know much. He did know Russian, though.”
“Do you know Russian?”
“No,” she said. “Just English, Tlingit, French and Spanish.”
Derek snorted. “Show off.”
Evelyn laughed, her eyes twinkling. He liked it when she smiled at him. It made him feel good. It made him feel at ease and relaxed. It made him feel alive again.
“You have a pretty smile, you know.”
She smirked. “So do you. Although I was kind of used to your scowling.”
Derek chuckled. “Thanks.”
“So, tell me more about Juneau and this ferry ride. I mean, it’s a three-hour ferry ride, yes?”
“Yep, but the views are incredible, and the ferry has a cafeteria on board, a movie lounge and a lot of comfortable seating.”
“Wow! I’m impressed.”
“What did you think it was going to be like?”
“I thought it would be like a barge.”
“Nah, we do things right here in Alaska—come on—it’s a three-and-half-hour voyage.”
“It’s very good of your friend to offer us space to do this test. Really it should’ve been done ages ago. I really hope I do have a run-in with this Dr. Pearson.”
Derek cocked an eyebrow. “What’re you going to do to him?”
“What do you mean?” she asked, confused.
“You sound like some kind of cowboy character, out for revenge. Are you going to deck him or something?” he teased.
“Tempting, but, no. I am going to question his medical integrity.”
“That’s the same as shouting Draw! in the Old West.”
Evelyn snorted. “Well, whatever, but he messed up when it came to two patients. Christina and Jennifer. At least Christina survived—as did her baby.”
“And Jennifer’s will survive. You’re here.”
Evelyn gave him hope. Something he hadn’t felt in so long. And he wanted to pull her into his arms and tell her how alive she made him feel, but he couldn’t.
And he didn’t want to think about the next doctor coming in. One who wouldn’t measure up to Evelyn, because none before had been like her.
Evelyn’s expression softened. “Yes.”
“Look, he didn’t care. He was forced to go on that rotation, like most are. He didn’t take it seriously. No one ever does. They just see a small town on a remote side of an island far from civilization.”
“I know, but I still want to give him a piece of my mind.”
“Okay, but don’t step on any toes,” Derek warned.
He didn’t want to jeopardize the rotation of professionals to Wolf’s Harbor, but honestly, if it came right down to it, he was going to back Evelyn every step of the way when it came to dealing with Dr. Pearson.
The rest of their trip to Hoonah passed peacefully. Mo slept the entire time until they got into the line-up of vehicles waiting for passage. That was when she woke up, and was more than happy to have the cookie that Evelyn offered her.
It wasn’t a long wait before Derek drove his car into the vehicle hold of the ferry. Evelyn grabbed her bag out of the trunk, Derek grabbed what he needed for Mo and they headed to the upper decks.
Once they were in the solarium Mo ran straight for the lounge chairs that were closest to the prow of the ferry and overlooked the open water of the Inside Passage and the mountains that seemed completely to surround them.
“Wow,” Evelyn whispered. “I forgot.”
“What?” Derek asked, taking off his jacket and setting it down on one of the chairs.
“What it looked like.” There was a sparkle in her eyes as she drank it all in. “I really forgot what it looked like. I think I’m going to head out on deck.”
Derek nodded and watched her go. Mo wanted to stay in the comfy chairs, where she could stand and look out the window as she didn’t like the wind blowing in her face. So he stayed with Mo and watched Evelyn through the window. He couldn’t help but watch her as she leaned over the rail, the wind coming off the water tangling her hair around her face.
She was wiping tears away.
His heart melted for her and he was terrified by how much she moved him. How she was making him feel again.
Something he hadn’t ever thought would ever happen again.
Something he didn’t want to happen again.
* * *
Evelyn had to regain her composure.
She’d forgotten about this place.
She’d forgotten about the times her father had taken her to Hoonah and how she would stare for hours at the mountains and the water. She’d forgotten what it looked like. The picture in her mind hadn’t done justice to what she was actually looking at.
She closed her eyes and drank in the salty smell of the water, the mist that clung in the
air on this gray morning.
“Look, see that over there?” her father said, pointing as they stood on the pier.
“What, Daddy?” She glanced over, but could only see water.
“Watch for it.”
A jet of water spouted from the surface and she saw a smooth, effortless black back just peek out of the water.
“Oh! What is that?”
“An orca pod. See—there are several of them. They travel together. They’re a family.”
Evelyn smiled and squeezed his hand. “Mommy loved orcas.”
Her dad nodded solemnly. “She did. She loved them so much.”
“I love them too. I will love them forever, and when I see them I’ll think of Mommy.”
Her dad hugged her tight and kissed the top of her head.
“Yes. Do that. That is what she would want you to do. She dreamed of her spirit roaming free over these waters with them.”
The horn from the ferry startled her. She quickly wiped away her tears and looked back.
Mo was in the window, waving at her and Derek was gazing at her, a strange look on his face. Their gaze locked for a brief moment and then he looked away.
Evelyn took a deep breath and headed back into the solarium as the ferry began to pull away from the docks, leaving Hoonah behind, headed to Juneau on the far side of the passage.
“Hey, Evie!” Mo shrieked, bouncing up and down in her seat.
Evelyn resisted the urge to hug her. She didn’t want to overstep her boundaries with Derek. She knew he was protective of his daughter, and rightly so.
“Hi! Did you have a good sleep?”
“Yep!” Mo said, and then went back to her book, sitting with her legs crossed in the air as she read her alphabet story book.
Evelyn couldn’t help but chuckle.
“You okay?” Derek asked.
“Fine. I just needed some fresh air, but it’s kind of drizzly out there so I came back in. The water is a bit choppy today.”
“Hopefully the sun will come out. After I get Mo settled with her grandparents we can take a trip up the gondola to the summit of Mount Roberts.”
“A gondola ride?”
“Sure. You said you’ve never been to Juneau, and we have some time to kill before we meet with the chief for dinner and discuss our plan of attack at the hospital tomorrow.”
“It’s nice you want to entertain me, but I don’t want to take you away from your family.”
“You’re not. You’re doing me a favor. My in-laws are nice people, and great grandparents to Mo, but they were never fans of me.”
Evelyn was intrigued. “Why is that?”
“I took their daughter away,” he muttered under his breath. “Although truthfully she was already gone. She came to Wolf’s Harbor. I didn’t meet her in Juneau and whisk her away. She was trying to escape them. Vivian was a bit of a free spirit.”
There was a pained sense of longing in his voice and Evelyn was envious, because she’d never felt that way about anyone ever—because she’d never let herself.
“Well, then, yes—I wouldn’t mind a gondola ride to the summit of Mount Roberts. I think that might be fun. I’ve never been up a mountain.”
He smirked. “You’re born and raised in Alaska and you’ve never been up a mountain. Pathetic.”
“Ha-ha.”
“Don’t fight,” Mo chirped from behind her book.
They both laughed at that.
“Who’s hungry?” Evelyn asked.
“Me!” Evie shouted, putting her book in her knapsack.
“Let’s get some lunch. We can come back after and see if we can see some whales in the water.”
Mo grinned and took Derek’s hand. “Sounds good!”
Evelyn picked up her bag and they made their way to the cafeteria. Derek and Mo were walking ahead and her heart skipped a beat, aching with a sense of longing to belong. To have family.
She hadn’t felt this way since she’d lost her father, and even then it had been fleeting because her grandmother had taught her to harden her heart. To be emotionless.
“It’s how I coped with my disappointment with your father.”
Whatever, it had served her well.
Or had it?
Now, watching Derek and Mo, she wasn’t so sure.
She wasn’t sure what she wanted, but the part of herself she always relied on was telling her to run before she was hurt. To walk away from the family she so desperately wanted.
A family she didn’t really deserve.
CHAPTER NINE
THE TIME PASSED faster than Evelyn had expected. Mo kept them both on their toes and Derek teased her about letting her have a chocolate chip cookie and chocolate milk on the ferry.
She was still pretty wound for sound when the ferry docked at Jordan Springs, just outside of Juneau, but by the time they got back down to Derek’s car and Mo was settled into her booster seat she was out cold again.
“Your car is like a sleeping pill for this kid,” Evelyn mentioned as she set Mo’s bag in the trunk while Derek got her belted in.
Evelyn slipped into the passenger side and Derek got behind the wheel as they waited for the ferry to open and let them out. “She’s always been a good sleeper. Of course letting her sleep this much means that she’s probably not going to sleep well for my in-laws.” He grinned.
“That’s very devious, Dr. Taylor.”
He chuckled. “They’re nice people, but they were very strict with Vivian. At least they’re a bit more relaxed with Mo, and Mo loves them both to death.”
Evelyn smiled as she gazed at Mo. Her curly light brown hair fanned her round cheeks, and her lips were parted as she breathed in her sleep.
“She’s a great kid.”
Derek beamed proudly. “Thanks. I’m going to miss her while she’s gone.”
“She goes every other month?”
“In the summer. In the winter it’s harder, and my in-laws usually go down south for the winter. I don’t know how many more years they’re going to be able to do this, or even if they’ll stay in Alaska, so I want Mo to have as much time with them as possible. It’s a connection to her mother.”
Evelyn nodded sadly. “That’s important. I had Léelk’w to remind me of my mother. I didn’t even know about my father’s mother until he passed and she gained custody of me.”
“And she didn’t let you keep in contact with your family up here?”
Evelyn sighed. “No, apparently not, according to Uncle Yazzie. And Grandma told me that they didn’t want anything to do with me.”
What she didn’t say was that she’d thought they didn’t want her because of her father’s death. She’d taken away Wolf’s Harbor’s only doctor. Everyone had loved her dad. Now she wasn’t sure that it was true. Still, it was hard to forgive herself...which was why she was here in Wolf’s Harbor. To seek forgiveness.
The child in her had believed that they hadn’t written. The adult knew they had. Her grandmother’s hardened heart toward anything connected with her father’s death meant she’d probably hidden the letters from her. Her grandmother had been so determined not to be reminded of her son in any way, Evelyn was surprised she’d tolerated her presence.
Derek started the engine and slowly drove out of the ferry. “She actually told you that?”
“Well, she put it politely. I wrote letters to Léelk’w and I guess they were never sent—and of course I never received any letters. It hurt then, but now I understand. There were legal battles fought and lost. And after a time I forgot it all. Forgot about Wolf’s Harbor and them.”
Did you?
She wasn’t sure that she had.
“You didn’t forget. You just buried it deep down. I get that.”
They shared a look, but then Evelyn broke the gaze to look ou
t the window as they drove down the gangway and onto land. Once they were out of the ferry terminal they turned onto the Glacier Highway and headed toward Juneau.
Mo was snoring gently in the back.
“You know, Léelk’w told me I had built up walls,” Evelyn remarked.
“I think we all have our own set of walls,” Derek said offhandedly.
“You have walls?”
He gave her a look and she laughed at the absurdity of the comment. Of course Derek had walls. She could see them as she peered over from behind her own walls. Walls were for protection. They guarded the heart.
“I have Mo to protect, and my practice. It makes it easier to deal with the stress of it all.”
“Yeah.” Walls were good for that too.
“So why do you think your grandmother wanted to cut you off from Wolf’s Harbor?” he asked absently.
“My grandmother hated Alaska. Hated that it took her son away, wrecked all her plans for him. The life she wanted for him. She was grieving, I suppose, in the only way she knew how. Talking about Alaska or Dad was frowned on. She only talked about my father when she expressed her disappointment in his life choices.”
“Not fair to you.”
Evelyn shrugged. “I know, but I get it. I get her grief.”
“Grieving I get,” Derek said. “Still, it must’ve been hard for you, not being able to talk about your family. Do you know much about your mother’s family?”
“I don’t remember much. Except one thing.” She chuckled.
“Oh?” he asked, intrigued.
“There’s a lot of Russian on my mother’s side, on top of the Tlingit. My maternal grandmother had a torrid love affair with a Russian fisherman. My mother is my uncle Yazzie’s half sister. So I have no idea about my maternal grandfather. Or at least my biological one.”
“Hey, close to the Ukraine,” he teased, and she laughed. “Torrid, eh?”
“Yeah, though I don’t like to think about Léelk’w having any kind of torrid anything.”
Derek laughed. “Yeah, I can’t picture Katlian as a young woman, but it doesn’t surprise me one bit that her and her sister were a bit of a... Well, they had fun.”
