like all the air has been sucked out of the room until I’m in nothing but a void of pain and emotion weeping near the tangible evidence of the past that showed at one time there were five of us who considered each other brothers.
Now, there are only four.
What are we supposed to do?
Kara
Dear Dean.
Well, we’re on our way back to Alaska. For so many years, I tried to tell you about my time there, and now that you’re gone, it’s funny how the words just want to pour out of me.
Unless you’ve been there, it’s almost impossible to understand her beauty and her savageness because they’re intertwined so brilliantly they can’t be separated. You have to love both to love the whole. Alaska isn’t merely a piece of land to be lived upon; she breathes and embeds herself into your heart and soul mere minutes after you bow in her presence.
She’s demanding and regal, temperamental and savage. She’s unconquerable. And humans are foolish to think they can.
There are so many pieces that make up Alaska. She provides rare but distinct praise for those few dynamic souls who sustain their lives there. You know there was a time when I believed I could be one of them. Almost sixteen years ago, to be exact. Now, between all the years in between and everything that’s happened, it seems like those years belong to a story that should begin with the words “once upon a time.” Back then, I thought I had the mettle to build my dreams conquering sweeps of ice while breaking down walls built around a man’s heart. I had my chance at the first.
It took a long time for me to realize I was blessed by her when I left; that Alaska gave me a gift to make up for my original one being lost.
Pausing in my letter, I sigh. It doesn’t matter how long it takes me to write it. Dean’s gone. He’s never going to receive it anyway. I glance to my right at the tall figure in the seat next to me. His dark hair flops over his forehead as he frowns down at his iPad. Slowly, I reach over and brush the hair away from my son’s forehead.
His head turns toward me before he pulls the noise-canceling earbuds from his ears. With a frown, he asks, “Are you okay, Mom?”
Mom. Alaska made me a mother to a son whose heart is easily the size of her landscape. Well, technically, that’s not correct. Jennings did, I think with a touch of lingering anxiety I shove aside knowing what’s going to happen the moment Jed’s will is read. After ignoring all of my attempts to contact him over the years, he’s finally going to be forced to admit he’s a father.
My breathing accelerates. I acquiesced to Jed adding in the codicil to his will because he accepted my conditions. It still doesn’t mean what’s about to be set in motion isn’t affecting me because I know it’s just going to add another level of emotional upheaval to the person I love more than anyone else in this world—my son.
Kevin frowns again when I don’t respond fast enough. Quickly, I pull myself from my thoughts and answer, “Yes, sweetheart. I’m just woolgathering. Go back to your movie.”
“Are you…” He doesn’t finish his sentence before he shoves in his buds again.
I wish he would just tell me what’s on his mind, talk to me about what’s bothering him. Because if there’s anyone in the world who understands what he’s feeling, it’s me. There’s so much pain locked inside of him since he lost both of his uncles a few short weeks ago in an accident that’s left the three of us devastated and floundering.
And here we are—heading right back to the place where it all started. After ensuring Kevin’s attention is back on the movie, I close my laptop and tuck it into the seat back in front of me. Looking out the window, there’s nothing but clouds from our current vantage point.
I know from my conversation with Maris the letters from the lawyers were going out today, as was the notice of Jed’s death to the local Juneau paper. But that’s not how he was known for the decades he lived in Alaska before taking a vacation to Florida and never returning. It’s why, despite the local media coverage that invaded our lives for weeks in Florida with the death of the “Misters Malone,” we haven’t been