Wild in Willow: Life and Love in Alaska

by Cherime MacFarlane

Synopsis

A family in turmoil. A son's anger explodes over the holidays.
A family Christmas celebration scheduled early due to the oldest son's business commitments has his parents on edge. A growing schism between the oldest and his parents threatens to fracture the family beyond repair.
The middle son has a girlfriend and his mom hopes that will work out for them.
The youngest daughter hasn't confided her pregnancy to the parents and things will get wild in willow.

Release date: January 17, 2018

Publisher: Paper Gold Publishing

Print pages: 66

Sample

 

 

“For cimininey’s sake! Get a move on. We’re burning daylight here.”

“I can’t find the frickin dried salmon. I promised to bring some for dinner.”

“Dang it. I don’t want to have to take this parka off again. Did you look in the pantry behind the flour in the big box?”

“Why is it in there? That isn’t where I put it.”

“I hid it when my brother came out.” The door slammed, and I understood he wanted to stop any further comment.

 If I didn’t love the man to pieces one of these cabin fever days, I might ventilate him with the old shotgun. A quick search behind the four five-gallon buckets of flour netted me all six of the big pickle jars I’d put the smoked salmon in. Since they were smoked, I wasn’t worried about the fish going bad, mice and weasels did concern me. It was the primary reason for keeping everything in either hard plastic buckets or glass jars.

It would be great to have other people to talk to for a while. I’m not angry at Jed, not really. But we’ve been out here on the back side of the Willow Swamp by ourselves since mid-October.

Other than talking about trapping, snow machining or the last book either of us read, we’re all talked out. Summer will change the situation. There will be work to do and fishermen to guide to the best honey holes for salmon. But we’re only part the way through winter. It’s two weeks before Christmas, and with three more months left of real winter, boredom is setting in.

That and the grandkids are the reasons we make the trek out to Willow for Christmas each year. The kids are all grown, and we’re on our way to our oldest son's house in Willow. We’ll spend a couple of nights there, exchange presents play with grandkids and return to the cabin after the brief break.

There’s one thing neither of us wants to discuss. Will the youngest be there or not? Last we heard she’d moved in with some guy in Anchorage and hadn’t seen fit to have anything to do with either of her brothers.

I understand why she might want to avoid Kyle. I do love our oldest son, and here comes the but, he is as rigid as they come. At times I think he picked up all his dad’s most annoying habits and none of the graces. There are times I'm positive we should change his wife’s name from Edith to Patience. The woman has the patience of a saint. He’s my son, and I love him to pieces. But there is no way I could live with the boy, he would drive me insane.

I uncapped a jar, poured the salmon into a couple of big freezer bags then hurried out the door. Jed quit pacing the porch and slipped the hasp over the loop. We used to leave the cabin open. One year we came back to chaos. The person who came in and stayed there didn’t put the bear matting back. Something got in and made a real mess. Jed leaves an old sleeping bag in the storage shed. If someone is desperate, they can stay in there.

Due to the presents and their size, Jed thought it best to take both snow machines. The previous night my husband hooked the sled to his machine. There was a gun rack for Fraser and a spice shelf for Edith. Kyle and Libby had posed the biggest problems. In the end, we decided on a jewelry box for Libby and a humidor for Kyle.

For the grandchildren, Eamon would tear open the wrapping and find a tackle box. Jed introduced our grandson to the joys of fly-fishing a few years before. At ten, he would be old enough to appreciate the wooden treasure his granddad had crafted.

I sanded, stained and polished the wood to a glossy shine after repeated brushing with a mixture of turpentine and bee’s wax. The box would be around for his children someday.

For our little princess, June, we made a cradle. Jed had been sneaky about crafting the piece. It could hold a real infant until the child got to be close to a year old. We hadn’t heard any rumors about Edith being pregnant, but maybe someday June would use it for a great-grand child.

June and Eamon were Kyle and Edith’s offspring. Fraser hadn’t found a woman to settle down with. I hoped when he left the Army the boy was ready to raise a family. But not quite yet. One of these days, I hoped.

Libby frightened me to no end. What was she doing in Anchorage she didn’t want us to know about? The child had no idea how out of control my imagination could get. Drugs and alcohol topped the list of things I feared for my youngest child. Right behind came inappropriate men.

I used the term to disguise my real fear, sleeping around. Fraser referred to sex without commitment as hooking up. I didn’t care what they called it, the whole thing added up to misery for my baby girl if she wasn’t careful.

I hoped she would be there and cringed when I contemplated Kyle’s reaction. I started the snow machine and climbed on with a bleak feeling. This Christmas in Willow could get wild, and not in a good way.

But there was no putting it off any longer. By unspoken agreement, my husband of thirty-six years and I hadn’t discussed Libby. If Libby chose to stay away, she would break my heart and shatter her father’s. Jed doted on the child, one reason Kyle stayed on her case while growing up. The boy did have a jealous streak.

We rode the machines a little slower than usual since Jed towed the sled. At least the cold snap had eased up. It’s a horrid ride when the temperature drops below -15. And it’s a long damn way to Kyle’s house on the outskirts of town.

As the crow flies the distance from the cabin to Kyle's backyard is something like fifteen miles. But there are so many lakes and wetlands between them and our cabin, in the summer it’s more like a thirty-mile trip by ATV. At least in winter we can cross the lakes we are positive are frozen on the snow machines.

By the time we got to Kyle’s, it would be close to noon. Thank goodness there would be no return trip today. That would have been a little too much. We crossed Willow swamp, and Vera Lake came into view. Just a short ride across the lake and we would come out in Kyle's big backyard. A little more now and a cup of hot coffee with a nice shot of brandy would be warming my insides.