“Wyatt Speeks, Tarrarmiut Station.” He stared at me as he listened. “I’m good, sir, we’re all good, how are you?” Jesus, who is he sir-ing? Is he in trouble? “… Yes, she’s right here.” He held the phone in my direction. “It’s for you. It’s your father.”
I was gut-punched by my last image of my father: his stooped back as he turned away from me that broiling summer afternoon he dared me to come to this place. As I took the phone, I pictured him now, sparse white hair sticking up from his warty skull, angular body sunk in the wingback chair, visiting room walls garlanded with fake fall leaves and childish paper skeletons.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Val, what’s going on?”
I glanced around the room. Everyone was watching me, listening, until it kicked in how rude that was and they all got busy clearing dishes, went back to chatting, pretending they were no longer interested.
“Nothing. I mean, I’m fine,” I said as quietly as I could.
“Glad to hear it. Any progress?”
“Some…”
“Sounds like you… Can you talk?”
I took a walk around the cluttered room. The second I stepped beyond a five-foot radius around Wyatt’s desk, static roared in my ears. “Not really.”
“No privacy?”
“No.”
He sighed heavily.
“You okay, Dad? Everything all right?”
“Never better. Hadn’t heard from you. I was getting concerned. So I’ll ask the questions, you say yes or no. Do you think Wyatt killed your brother?”
I sat on the edge of the desk, gazing out at the skyline of majestic bergs in the bay. Recalled what Andy had said once about this frozen world: What looks permanent will fall. We will fall. “I don’t have an answer for that.”
“Jesus. Are you safe there now?”
“Pretty much.”
“Answer me.”
“Is anyone really safe?” I said louder than I’d intended.
“Val, I don’t know how much news is getting to you, but there’s been another incident, in Nova Scotia this time. Just outside of Halifax. A couple dozen people were hit by an ice wind. A wedding party, just leaving a church. Tragic. No one could do anything for them, understand?”
“I hadn’t heard that. We… hadn’t heard that. We lose the internet all the time.”
“I want you to get out of there.”
“Why?”
“You know why,” he growled. “Look, I’m going to make some calls. Get cash to the right people, whatever it takes. What happened to Andy happened; I can’t change it. But I can’t lose you, too.”
I pictured Sigrid’s eager, trusting face as she drew me into a huddle in the Dome and whispered the word for Let’s find the things we need to stay alive.
“That’s not a good idea, Dad.”
“I shouldn’t have pushed you to go, Val. You’re not up to the task.”
Odin lumbered around his cage on Wyatt’s desk. These days the mouse was logy, sleeping a lot, barely bothering to climb on his wheel for a spin.
“That’s a shitty thing to say to me, Dad. I’m already here.”
The phone crackled and buzzed and for a moment I thought he’d hung up, but then his voice blasted through loud and clear. “Listen to me. You’re going to lose the sun pretty soon. Less than two weeks, full dark.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“I want you out of that place, Val. I’ve got connections in Thule. I’ll wire some money over and they’ll get a plane out to you in two days, weather permitting.”
Raj and Nora set the last dish in the rack, Nora laughing at something he’d said.
“I won’t get on it.”
“Don’t do this to me, Val.”
“I’m doing what you wanted me to do.”
A long pause. “You’re not Andy, Val. I forgive you for that.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“There’s no shame in coming home.”
“Dad, listen to me. I’m not leaving until I finish what I started. You take care—”
“Don’t you hang up on me, Val—”
“I’m not hanging up, I’m saying goodbye. There’s a difference.”
A frustrated silence. “I’m frightened for you,” he said. “I was wrong to push you—I mean that. It wasn’t right.”
“It’s okay, Dad, really. I’m going to be all right.”