Chapter 15
15
Ruth couldn’t stop staring at the fake ID Gunnar had gotten her. He’d snapped a photo of her and sent it to his buddy, and now she held her own image on a plastic card that looked very official.
It was the first piece of identification she’d ever had in her life. None of the younger Chilkoots had birth certificates or social security cards, which she’d only learned about recently. They didn’t have driver’s licenses or state ID cards; there was no need, living out in the wilderness.
The social services caseworker had strongly suggested that Ruth start the process of getting identification, but it was so daunting that she hadn’t gotten very far with it. Would she get in trouble for using a fake ID to get into a correctional center?
It made no sense. She was who she was, whether a plastic card said so or not. But so many things in the world didn’t make sense. Just roll with it , she told herself. That was Martha’s constant advice. One step at a time, you’ll get there, she’d add.
Something had shifted with Gunnar after they left Blackbear. He became much more businesslike and focused on the drive. That could be because there were more cars around them than she’d ever imagined possible. Or maybe it was the story she’d told him about Daniel. Maybe he thought she still loved him. Or maybe he thought getting close to her would be dangerous.
And maybe it was. Maybe all of this was dangerous.
They decided to drive as far as they could until Gunnar got too tired. At that point, the closest inn—a family-run bed and breakfast—was closed, so he pulled onto an abandoned logging road and they slept in the truck. He pushed her seat all the way back and tucked a blanket around her, and she fell asleep to the sound of his soft breathing.
She was surprised when the morning sun filtering through the surrounding cottonwoods woke her around seven. Having never slept next to a man before, not even Daniel, she’d expected to have trouble sleeping. Not so.
Gunnar was already awake and out of the truck. She caught sight of him through the trees, taking a piss in the woods. His strong back was to her, his legs braced apart, and the sight sent a tingling thrill through her. So silly, she scolded herself. You made a fool of yourself once with Gunnar, let’s please not do so again.
He grinned at her as he swung back into the truck, while she pretended that she’d been combing her hair and not eyeing his rear end. “Sleep okay?”
“Surprisingly, yes. Thank you for the blanket.” She’d already folded it up for him.
He tossed it into the backseat. “Well, don’t get used to it. Tonight we’re staying in a hotel. I got a crick in my neck.”
“I can help with that.”
She massaged the knot in his neck, feeling the tight muscles ease, until he groaned with relief and pulled away.
“Better stop or we might not make it to prison.” Then he grinned. “Now that’s not something I say every day.”
Ruth felt a sense of power that she’d caused that reaction with just a neck rub. She didn’t often feel powerful, and it took her a moment to adjust to it.
As they headed back down the highway, keeping their eyes out for coffee kiosks or any place that might serve breakfast, she thought about the few times in her life when she had felt powerful. Responsible—that was familiar. With the kids, she felt responsible, but not necessarily powerful.
Tossing those homemade firebombs into the storage shed had made her feel gleeful, and maybe powerful too, but not in a sustainable way. That was a flash in the pan, not something to build on.
Where did power come from?
It comes from inside, she thought. It comes from standing up for yourself. Believing in yourself. Knowing that you’re important. She’d been raised to feel the opposite. Luke and Naomi hadn’t wanted her to feel that she had any power. They were power-hoarders, that’s what they were. They kept it all to themselves and doled out tiny crumbs of it to manipulate other people, even their children.
“What’s on your mind?” Gunnar asked when they’d finally spotted a coffee shack just outside Palmer, and were waiting in the drive-through line.
“Luke and Naomi.” She tucked her hands in the pockets of her sheepskin jacket. “It’s hard to believe I’m about to see Naomi again after all this time.”
“Nervous?”
“Oh yes. Naomi is very…intimidating. I was always afraid of her. She thought I was a…boring little mouse, basically.”
“A what ?” Gunnar just about exploded. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Not really. I acted like a boring little mouse around her because she scared me so much. She was never like a mother, you know. My aunties were kinder to me than she was. I thought all mothers were like her—very critical and demanding—until I found some—” She broke off, amazed that she’d nearly revealed one of her biggest secrets to Gunnar. Her stash of paperbacks had shown her a different concept of motherhood, a loving one that she hadn’t recognized. But no one knew about those, and she wasn’t nearly ready to mention them.
“Some what? You can’t leave me hanging like that.”
“Yes, I can.” Her face was heating up like a solar flare. “Just move on. I’m not going to tell you and if you keep pushing me I won’t ask Naomi a thing.”
He lifted his hands from the steering wheel in a defensive gesture. “Ouch. No need to pull out the nuclear weapons. If you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to tell me. End of story.”
Slowly, she relaxed, her breathing returning to normal as they reached the order window. A teenage girl with a pierced eyebrow and blue lipstick took their order. Ruth decided she liked the look. It was fun seeing all the different ways people presented themselves out in the real world.
The closer they got to Eagle River, the tighter her stomach got. The towns grew bigger—Palmer, Wasilla, so many houses, cars zipping past, everyone so busy, such huge supermarkets that seemed to extend for acres. She couldn’t keep up with it, and had to close her eyes after a while. It was too much. She longed for her paperbacks and her chicken coop, for Maisie. She missed Maisie, missed Martha’s flock of sheep, and her funny sheepdogs, and the short-eared owl that hooted in the valley at night, and the rays of the morning sun that hummed to her as she awoke.
The guests in the ballroom were abuzz with curiosity. The Queen had been closeted in the throne room for weeks now, refusing to receive visitors. Would she finally open her door to the stunning newcomer? Who was this mysterious new woman in town?
The truck came to a stop and a hand settled on her knee, warm and reassuring. “You okay?” Gunnar murmured.
She opened her eyes to find that they’d arrived at the Hiland Mountain Correctional Center, according to the bland lettering above the double entrance doors. The beige-painted structure didn’t look like her idea of a prison at all, which involved armed guards and iron bars.
“We’re here?”
“We are. You all right?”
“Yes. Just overwhelmed. The world is very big, isn’t it?”
“It’s big and small at the same time. There’s all that out there,” he gestured widely, “and there’s us, right here. You know me. You know this truck. You know this silly sparkly unicorn sticker Nelson put here. This is the world, too, just as much as the rest of it.”
She was nodding along to his words, which made sense to her on a visceral level and helped bring her back to some sense of normalcy. Not that anything was normal anymore. But she was still Ruth, and Gunnar was still Gunnar, and she’d offered to help him and that was why she was here right now, on the other side of a prison wall from her mother.
“Okay, let’s go,” she said firmly. “You’re coming in with me, right?”
“Oh hell yes. I’ll go as far as they let me. I’m not family, so…I guess I’m not sure how that works. I’ve actually never visited anyone in prison before.”
Her stomach dropped. Seeing Naomi was one thing, but alone…somehow, she’d assumed the whole time that Gunnar would be with her. She wasn’t even sure what to ask her mother. Gunnar was the one with the questions. What if this entire trip was pointless because she didn’t know how to get the answers he wanted?
“You’re my fiancé,” she said, inspiration striking. “We’re in town to get our marriage license, and we wanted to tell my mother before we do the deed.”
He burst out laughing. “Well, we did kiss, so…”
That got her laughing too, and by the time they walked through the doors of the correctional center, she felt…if not powerful, at least strong enough to face the force of nature known as Naomi Chilkoot.