Chapter 12
Hunter
Over the next few weeks, we fall into a summer routine.
I drive Isabella into Skagway every morning to work at the boutique, then return to Dyea to help out around the campground. Around six, I head back into town to pick her up, unless I’m already there…which I am. A lot.
Though they’ve never been anyone’s favorite tour, I happily volunteer to lead Beers, Brawls, and Brothels for July and August because it means I get to spend most of my day in downtown Skagway. I can pop into Isabella’s shop to see her between tours and meet up with her when we’re both done with work for the day.
My willingness to do the Skagway city tours means Tanner and McKenna can do local hikes and bikes together, leaving Parker and Sawyer to handle the Yukon tours and out-of-town groups. My dad takes the rafting trips and historic Chilkoot Trail walks, and Reeve, who’s finally old enough to lead tours on her own, is filling in where she can since Harper became a mom. Maybe someday Harp will come and work for us again, but for now, Wren keeps my sister’s hands full.
Fourth of July, a Stewart family favorite, comes and goes, and is as festive as ever. In fact, for the first time in years, I actually place in the annual axe throwing competition (no doubt because I had someone special cheering me on from the stands).
July fourth is also momentous because I get an email from Allegheny Shipping. My modular cabin kit will be arriving in Skagway harbor on July eleventh, a whole week ahead of schedule. Although I’ve been wanting my own place for years, and it’s been months since I placed the order, the day it arrives turns out to be a little bittersweet. Why? Because I’ve also loved the yurt that Isabella and I have been sharing for the last few weeks. It’s been its own little slice of heaven.
Tanner and Sawyer give me a hand moving the yurt and its contents from the foundation to the back part of the clearing because we still need somewhere to sleep while my cabin’s being put together by the crew I hired.
By the second week of August, my house will be ready. And two weeks later, the woman who would make my house a home will be leaving. I almost can’t bear it. It’s driving me to desperate places in my mind.
Desperate places…
…like leaving Skagway.
Since Isabella and I have been together this second time, I’ve come to realize how much her family and culture mean to her in a very real, very active, very daily, important way. She talks to her parents every two or three days, conversations she often has over speakerphone, giving me the chance to listen and observe. They start, almost without exception, with updates about myriad family members—first communions, graduations, fights, break-ups, make-ups, moves, celebrations, and scandals—that she follows along seamlessly with giggles and questions. After the family update, there’s time for her to ask about their health and well-being, and for them to remind her to stay warm and “make good choices.” Throughout, the conversation is sprinkled with a healthy dose of Spanish, though they speak primarily in English.
After a few nights of listening to these chats, I realized how much I looked forward to them; almost like a bedtime story or lullaby…the soothing tones of Isabella talking to her parents; of them loving one another, sharing stories, offering advice, and staying close.
She’s also told me more about her students—both at the private school where she works, and at the community center where she teaches English. She’s committed to helping Hispanic immigrants learn English and start their lives in America on as level a footing as possible.
When she used her life in Seattle and close ties with her family as an excuse for breaking off our relationship last summer, I didn’t understand. Not really. Sure, she loves her family, I thought. Heck, I love mine, too. I’m ashamed to admit that in my head, my tone was resentful and dismissive at turns. My ego had a hard time believing that she could place her family so far above a potential love interest that she would break things off instead of pursuing it.
My mother was fond of the Evelyn Waugh saying: “To understand all is to forgive all.” Not that Isabella ever asked for (or even wanted) my forgiveness, but the rancor I had toward her after last summer is so entirely transformed at this point, I count her loyalty to family as one of her most shining and admirable qualities.
…and my biggest adversary in envisioning, let alone having, a life with her.
Isabella Gonzalez is not a woman who is going to uproot her life and leave her family behind permanently, so the question becomes: Will I?
And as much as my love for her grows in depth and intensity every day, I don’t have an answer to this question. I wish I did. But I don’t.
Could I leave my family—my grandparents, father, siblings, siblings-in-law, niece, and friends? Could I leave Alaska with all of her funky quirks and wild ways? Could I be happy living in a city like Seattle? There is no doubt that giving up my life in Skagway would hurt, but would a life with Isabella be worth it?
We’ve only been dating for six weeks. I don’t know. I just don’t know.
But these questions weigh on me, and when I think of the day she will leave me, of that first night alone in my new house, I feel so empty, I want to curl up and die.
I don’t do long-distance, she said last summer.
I’m starting to understand her choices in a very real and gut-wrenching way. She was protecting herself. Falling in love with someone who lives far away is a bona fide recipe for heartache.
“What are you thinking about?” she asks me, her naked body supple and warm spooned against mine. “It feels deep. And heavy.”
“How can my thoughts feel deep and heavy?” I ask, pressing my lips to the back of her neck.
“Because I’m getting to know you, and I know how a brooding Hunter sounds even when he’s silent.”
“My house’ll be done in a few weeks,” I say, sidestepping into the conversation.
“Right,” she says. “I can’t wait to see it! Why is that making you mopey?”
“Because it’s a few weeks closer to you leaving.”
I feel her inhale beside me. It’s a deep and heavy breath. Now I’ve infected her with my brooding.
When she doesn’t say anything, I decide to keep talking.
“I didn’t get it last summer…when you told me that you didn’t do long-distance, and that because your life was in Seattle, there was no future for us.”
“Do you get it now?” she asks, her voice tentative and soft.
“More than I did then,” I say. “Your family means the world to you. I love listening to your conversations with your mom and dad.”
“I know,” she says. She’s smiling now. I can tell. “You follow along. You laugh and frown at all the right places even if we’re speaking Spanish.”
“There’s so much going on. So much drama. It’s fascinating.”
“Yeah,” she says, with a little snort. “There are a lot of us, and we’re always in each other’s business. La Telenovela Gonzalez!”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Anything,” she says.
“You love your family…”
“Yes.”
“And your life in Seattle is important to you.”
“Very.”
“But you still came here for a whole summer. You chose to leave your life behind for three months. How did that happen?”
“Want to know the truth?” she asks, turning around in my arms. Her eyes are black in the darkness, but I lock my gaze onto their onyx shininess.
“Absolutely.”
“It wasn’t an all-at-once decision. It happened in stages. At first, I agreed to do the race because my cousin asked me to. So, originally, I thought I’d come up for three weeks, film the race, and go home.”
“What changed?”
“McKenna,” she answers honestly. “Most summers, I work for a summer school or for the summer camp at the private school where I work from September to May. But Ken told me all about seasonal employment up here, and how much money I could make. A lot more than I ever made teaching summer school.” She pauses. “Not to mention, being here does mean I’m spending time with family. Ken’s just as much my family as my parents or abuelos. We miss each other like cousins or sisters; it’s good to catch up face-to-face every few months, you know? Besides, summers are typically quieter for my family in Seattle—people travel, visiting in-laws out of town or going back to Mexico for a few weeks at a time. We have a big Memorial Day BBQ and an even bigger one over Labor Day weekend, but the rest of the summer is pretty low-key as far as my family goes. And you know how I teach English at the community center? That’s only from September to May, so I wasn’t letting anyone down there, either. Staying here for a few extra weeks to make bank and spend some time with McKenna wasn’t beyond my comfort level. It felt organic on a few different levels.”
Everything she says makes sense, but my heart longs for her reasons to include more than just her closeness to McKenna and desire to make money. Where do I fall into this equation? I wonder. Before I can ask, she speaks again:
“So, at first, it was my cousin, and then it was Ken and the job she found me.” She reaches up to cup my cheek. “But then…it was you.”
I am hit with the full force of her words and their meaning: that this woman who doesn’t do long-distance, who loves her home and her family beyond measure, abandoned both to spend her summer with me.
My heart skips, fluttering wildly in my chest as it catches up with itself on a double beat.
One for you. One for me.
“Bella.” I sigh, leaning into her touch, and she presses her lips gently to mine.
“I didn’t expect for us to get together again. I definitely didn’t expect to fall so hard for you this time,” she confesses.
“What happens now?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” she says, her voice uncertain and a little sad. “I really don’t.”
“I don’t either.”
“I can barely breathe when I think about leaving you—”
“You don’t have to!”
“—but when I think about abandoning my parents? That feels like dying, too.” She whimpers softly. “I’m an only child, Hunter. I’m all they have. To be honest, I don’t think I could live with the guilt of leaving them to move up here. It would eat away at me. I think, eventually, it would end us.”
“So the only option is for me to move—”
She reaches up and covers my mouth with her fingers to silence me.
“No!” she whispers passionately, her eyes severe. She holds her breath for a second before her thoughts come out in a tumble: “You love your family, too. You lost your mother. You helped raise your brothers and sisters. You’re the oldest grandchild. The oldest son. The older brother. The oldest uncle. In so many ways, you’re the anchor of this family, Hunter. I can’t be the reason you leave. I can’t.”
I’m surprised when my eyes burn like soap has somehow seeped into the corners. I close them tightly against unexpected, unwanted, unmanly tears.
She’s right, of course. I am all of those things. But I am something else, too.
“But I’m also the man who loves Isabella Gonzalez,” I tell her, pressing my forehead against hers in the darkness. “And I’m not sure any of those things matter if I have to live the rest of my life without her.”
Her chest heaves against mine as a sob escapes her lips, a puff of breath warm against my own. She’s crying. We’ve made each other cry.
“It sh-shouldn’t be this hard,” she whimpers.
“Says who?” I ask, gathering her sweet body closer to mine, and blinking the tears away. “Isn’t anything good worth fighting for?”
She takes a deep breath, but it’s a little jagged. “I…I guess.”
“So, let’s fight,” I tell her.
“How?”
“I don’t know yet,” I admit. “But I’ve watched you fight to win—” I remember her screaming, “Hike!” to the Garrison’s dogs, and my chest swells with pride. “—and I know that even when hope is gone, you don’t give up.”
“That’s true,” she says, sniffling and giggling at the same time. “I’m a little crazy like that.”
“Then I’m gonna be a little crazy, too,” I tell her. “Because even when I thought I hated you, I was maneuvering myself to be closer to you. I couldn’t give up on us. Not without seeing you again. If I didn’t give up then, no way I’m giving up now.”
“So…you’re saying you want to try to figure this out?” she asks, the littlest bit of hope lightening her tone.
I hope to God I’m not just building castles in the sky to make us both feel better. There’s got to be a way to make this work. We just have to figure out what it is.
“Yes,” I say. “That’s exactly what I want.”
***
Isabella
Hunter’s and my conversation eases a little of the burden on my mind and in my heart, but not entirely. Time is flying—probably because I’m so damn happy with him—and before I know it, I’m receiving my final contract for the upcoming school year. I’m offered the same job as last year: second grade teacher, with a salary bump of seven percent. My benefits stay the same and I’m asked if I want to continue to lead the middle and upper school cheerleading squads after school. It’s a good contract, and the salary bump is a nice surprise; an annual raise isn’t guaranteed when you work for a private school.
I don’t think long before signing it and sending it back. The less I think about it, the better. After such a wonderful summer, it’s tempting to think of a life here in Skagway. The Stewarts are warm and welcoming, and McKenna makes it feel like home. But I meant what I said about leaving my parents. I can’t do it.
I have always imagined my parents as an active and important part of my everyday life, especially when I become a mother. I know how much grandchildren will mean to them, and I know how much I want my children to have strong memories of their Mexican American grandparents and strong ties to our extended family. It’s nonnegotiable.
But, more and more, Hunter is nonnegotiable, too. So where does he fit into my future? I don’t know yet. I’m desperately trying to figure it out.
Asking him to leave Alaska feels like a crime, feels like a total betrayal of the strong and growing love we have for each other. Even if he offers to follow me to Seattle and build a life with me there, I’m not certain I can let him do it. I’m too afraid of the pushback from his family and even more afraid that he’d end up hating me for it.
This entire conundrum makes me feel tired at work the next day. I’m leaning my elbows on a glass case filled with 14k gold charms—whale tails, bear paws, and totem poles—feeling sorry for myself, when my boss returns to the showroom after grabbing lunch with her husband.
“Hello, Isabella!” she says, swinging open the front door, which jingles merrily.
“Hey, Freya.”
“Brought back some cookies from Lucy’s.”
My mouth waters. “Oooo. What kind today?”
“She had chocolate chip, white chocolate raspberry, flourless cocoa, and vanilla sandwich with lime cream.” She opens the pink box and holds it out to me. “You choose first.”
I take one of the flourless cocoa cookies, bite into it, and sigh with delight. “What does she do to them to make them this good?”
“Bakes ’em with love, I’d guess.”
I finish the cookie, telling myself one is enough even though my mood demands a whole box.
“Wanted to talk to you about something,” says Freya, taking a bite of a white chocolate raspberry cookie. She clears her throat, like she has a speech prepared. “You’re the best worker I’ve ever had, Isabella. Mature. Confident. Punctual. Trustworthy. Not to mention, you’ve got a way with folks. I swear, you could sell water to a well.”
“Thanks for that, Freya,” I tell her, wiping the crumbs from my lips. “I like it here.”
“Well, I’m real glad to hear that,” she says, looking relieved. “Now, I know you’re headed back to the Lower 48 at the end of August, and that’s all well and good, but I have a proposition for you. What would you say about working here from Memorial Day to Labor Day next summer? Pay bump, of course, because you’d be the manager, not just a cashier. I’d hire someone to help you, so you wouldn’t be alone. Full disclosure, I’d plan to leave you on your own for a month or so. For years, Johan’s been trying to convince me to go back to Copenhagen for Sankthansaften, the Danish midsummer festivities. I’ve always said no because summer was our busiest time here in Skagway. But with you here…I think I’d finally feel like my shop was in good hands.”
I’m incredibly flattered by Freya’s offer, and tell her so.
“So…what do you say?” she asks, her blue eyes probing and hopeful. A breeze enters the shop from the open front door, and her wiry gray hair escapes its bun in tendrils.
“Can I think about it?” I ask.
“Surely,” she says. “Ain’t got no one else to ask.”
A wave of tourists steps into the shop, and we work together to make sure they don’t leave empty-handed.
Hunter picks me up four hours later.
“Hello, handsome,” I tell him, kissing him on the boardwalk in front of Freya’s shop.
“Hola, bonita,” he says, kissing me back.
We hold hands as we walk to his car, which he always parks in the parking lot by Skagway harbor.
“How was your day?” I ask him.
“Okay,” he says. “Though I had sixteen-year-old triplets on my second tour, and one of them pinched my ass.”
“Wow!” I say. “Ballsy move for a teenager!”
“I’ll say,” he says with a chuckle. “I think her sisters put her up to it. Anyway…how was your day?”
“Interesting.”
“More interesting than usual?”
“Maybe.”
“You gonna tell me or not?”
“I told you I signed my contract for the upcoming school year?”
“No,” he says softly, stopping us in our walk. “You didn’t.”
“I signed it and sent it back,” I tell him, working hard to keep the wobble out of my voice. “I start on September fourth, but I need to be back by the first for professional development.”
“So that’s that,” he murmurs.
“Hunter.” I squeeze his hand. “You knew I was going home. That was never up for debate.”
“I know.” His face is bleak. “I knew.”
I tug on his hand to get us walking again. “But there’s been another development.”
“What’s that?”
“Freya offered me a job for next summer.”
“Huh.”
“Shop manager with one employee working for me. I’d start Memorial Day weekend and stay through Labor Day. Pay bump, of course, since she plans to travel and leave the business under my care while she’s away.”
“What’d you say?”
“I asked if I could think about it.”
“Is that something you can see yourself doing?” he asks. “Coming back next summer?”
“It is! I’d consider it, for sure. I mean, you’re here. McKenna’s here. I make great money. Why wouldn’t I consider it?”
“So…we’d say goodbye at the end of August, and you’d come back at the end of May?”
“From what I hear,” I say, “the tourism season in Skagway isn’t too busy from October to April. That leaves a lot of time for someone from Skagway to visit their girlfriend in Seattle.”
“It does,” he agrees, his tone slightly less morose. “But he sure would hate all those lonely nights away from her.”
“She would miss him, too,” I tell him. “But maybe it’d be worth it? If nothing else, it would get us a little closer to figuring this out?”
Before opening my door for me, he pulls me into his arms and holds me tight.
“I can’t afford to come every weekend,” he says close to my ear. “But I could definitely afford to fly down once a month. I can. I will.”
“And maybe I could come for Thanksgiving,” I tell him. “Or the day after Christmas I could come and stay until New Year’s. Those are long breaks from school.”
“Your parents would miss you,” he murmurs.
“They’ll see me plenty during the school year,” I tell him.
“It’s still a long-distance relationship,” he says. “You hate that. You don’t do it.”
“Maybe I do,” I tell him. “Maybe I was waiting for the right reason to give it a try.”
He leans back, grinning down at me, his face so beautiful in the early-evening light, my breath catches as I look up at him.
“You saying I might be the right reason, Miss Gonzalez?” he drawls.
“I’m saying you are.”
***
“You said yes?” McKenna demands. “You’re coming back next summer? Oh my god! I’m so stoked, Iz! This is amazing!”
We’re having a girl’s night at McKenna and Tanner’s cabin with Harper and Reeve, all four of us sitting on McKenna’s giant bed together while Clueless plays, thoroughly ignored, in the background.
“Hunter’s got to be over the moon,” says Harper, who holds one of Reeve’s feet in her hands. She paints the pinkie toe bright pink, then lifts it up to blow the shellac dry. “He’ll be counting down the days until you come back!”
“Wait ’til Parker hears,” says Reeve, who shares a cabin with Parker now that Harper lives in downtown Skagway with Joe. “She and I had a bet about whether or not you’d be back next summer. When she gets back from Whitehorse, she owes me ten bucks.”
“Hold on!” I say, my face screwing up as I peer over McKenna’s shoulder at Reeve. “Parker bet against me?”
“Yup. She said you’d go home to Seattle at the end of August, and that’d be that.”
“Harsh,” I say, frowning at the Stewart sisters. “She doesn’t think my feelings for Hunter are for real?”
“She never said that.” Reeve cringes, looking sheepish.
“Give me your other foot,” says Harper, giving Reeve a stern look before sliding her glance to me. “Hunter was a wreck last fall. Parker’s just being protective. That’s all. She doesn’t want to see him hurt again.”
“Believe me. I don’t want to hurt a hair on Hunter’s head,” I say. “But it’s a tough situation. Real life isn’t a fairy tale, you know? We each have commitments. I have a job in Seattle. Volunteer work. Family. A life. He has the same here.”
“We know,” McKenna says gently, putting her hand on my arm. “I, for one, think it’s amazing you two are considering a time-share relationship.”
“A what-now?” I ask her.
“A time-share relationship,” she says matter-of-factly. “I read about it in Marie Claire. It’s a new thing, mostly because so many people work remotely now. Couples spend so much time in one place and then so much time in another. They can, you know, live in one place for six months and then live somewhere else for another six months. They share the time but spend it in different places. It’s really flexible.”
“That’s not really what we’re doing,” I point out. “I mean, neither of us works remotely. We have to physically be in our respective towns for work and family. I’ll be in Seattle from September to May, and Hunter will stay here. And then we’ll be here together from May to September.”
“Hmm,” hums Harper, blowing on Reeve’s other foot.
“What does ‘hmm’ mean?” asks Reeve.
“Shut up, Reeve,” says Harper.
“No,” says McKenna, nudging Harper with her elbow. “I’d like to know what ‘hmm’ means, too.”
“Well,” says Harper, “from my own personal experience, which was pretty freaking challenging, making a relationship work—especially in the beginning—is a lot about compromise.”
“Agree,” says McKenna. She turns to me, her eyebrows furrowed like she’s remembering something. “God, everything happened so fast last summer, Iz, I don’t know if I ever told you this! Before Mimi fell, Tanner’s and my plan was to move her to a memory care center in Haines. I was going to rent a place in Haines to stay near her, while Tanner would stay in Skagway during the summer, then join me in Haines when the busy season was over. I’m not gonna lie—the relocation bit felt a little daunting, but it meant that Tanner and I would only be an hour-long ferry ride away from each other.”
I stare at her, my mouth open.
We tell each other everything; how did I not know this?
“You were going to move to Alaska, Ken? With Mimi?”
She nods. “I can’t believe I never told you. But, yeah. I was. I was definitely thinking about it.”
“I thought…I thought you only moved up here because she passed away.”
“Nope. There was a plan in the works before she passed. I loved him, you know? I knew I needed to be closer to him, and at that point, it didn’t really matter where Mimi was, as long as she was getting good care.” She blinks away the tears gathering in her eyes. “But then she fell…and passed away. And so I moved to Skagway instead.”
I take her hands in mine, tears filling my eyes, too—because she suffered when she lost her Mimi and because the thought of leaving my parents behind hurts.
“I can’t leave my parents and move up here,” I whisper. “I can’t do that to them.”
“Oh, Iz!” she says, pulling me into her arms. “I know that! We all know that! It’s a totally different situation.”
“Do you think Hunter will leave Skagway and move to Seattle?” asks Reeve, her voice soft and small.
I draw away from McKenna, looking at Hunter’s littlest sister.
“I don’t want that for him,” I tell her. “I’ve already told him so.”
Harper “hmms” again.
“For the love of God!” exclaims Reeve, shoving Harper so hard, she almost falls off the bed. “What’s the ‘hmm’ about this time?”
“Isabella’s compromising,” Harper points out, shoving Reeve back. “She’s coming back to Skagway for three months next summer.”
“Right,” says Reeve. “And…?”
Harper tilts her head to the side. “Is Hunter compromising, too?”
“Are you saying you want our brother to move to Seattle?” Reeve demands.
“No,” says Harper. “But Hunter’s not just our brother, Reeve. He’s a man, and he loves this woman. And this woman loves her family, just as fiercely as you love yours, babycakes.” Harper turns to me, her expression thoughtful and gentle, and I’m so grateful for her mature, measured advice in this conversation. “Compromise is essential. On both sides. From both people and from both of their families.”
“That’s good advice right there,” says McKenna, nodding earnestly.
“Oh my god!” exclaims Reeve. “This is getting too deep!”
McKenna turns to Reeve. “Wanna pop some more popcorn?”
“Yes! Please!”
As Ken and Reeve hop off the bed and head to the kitchen to pop another bowl, Harper sits cross-legged across from me and narrows her eyes. They’re blue and piercing and slightly terrifying in their intensity, but I find I can’t look away.
“You love him?” she asks me.
“Completely,” I say without hesitation.
“Does he know that?”
“I think so,” I say. “But I haven’t said the words. Not exactly.”
“Make sure he hears them before you go.”
“I will.”
“And Isabella,” she says, “of course we’ll miss him if he leaves, but we’ll survive if it’s what’s best for him.” She reaches for my hand and squeezes it. “If you’re what’s best for him.”
“I can’t take him away from all of you.”
“You can,” she says gently, “if he chooses to go.”
“Won’t you hate me for it?” I ask, my voice thin with emotion.
“No,” she says. “We could never hate you for making him happy. And besides, we won’t really lose him if you two come back every summer.” She lets go of my hand and slides off the bed, looking at her watch. “I’ve got to get home. Joe’s got an early start in the morning.”
“Hey, Harper,” I say, grateful beyond measure for her wise and loving counsel. “Thank you.”
She smiles at me. “Just love him as hard as you can, okay?”
“I will,” I say, knowing in my heart that it’ll be an easy promise to keep.