Page 7 of What We Keep
She ruffled his hair. “You’re a good egg.”
“Speaking of eggs,” Tommy offered, “the chickens are going crazy. We had a dozen eggs today.”
“Did we now? I’ll make omelets for breakfast,” my mom said.
Maggie Silver was the heart of Heartfire Falls, even if it was just now returning to its glory. I didn’t like to contemplate it too much, but the version of her for a few years after our dad passed, and the fire, had been faded, like those old photos where you couldn’t quite see what it might have been like in full color. She’d lost her spark for a while, and it pained me.
This resort was her heritage. Her grandparents had been the first to come to Alaska. They’d built something small, which her parents then turned into more and made it an official business. She and my dad kept it going. Between losing our dad and then Bree, the fire had burned away so much.
Somehow though, what had sprouted in the aftermath was my mom in her full glory—bright, sarcastic, warm, and bossy as hell. When we’d been trying to figure out what to do about Tommy after Bree died, I’d offered to formally adopt him. There was never any question we would keep him, but she was worried she was too old. We were all his family, and that would never change.
“You boys play napkin basketball. I’ll clean up,” she said, standing from the table.
“Mom, you don’t have to?—”
She glanced over. “I haven’t done a thing in the kitchen all day, Haven. Let me do this.” She gestured at the dishes. “It’s the extent of taking plates to the dishwasher and putting the pizza boxes in the trash bins.” Her eyes twinkled.
Cole, Jude, and Grady started with the trash talk once the napkin basketball began. Tommy was all focus.
“I’ve got this,” he announced after his third basket.
Jude got cocky and tried to do a bounce shot. Meanwhile, I just plain missed.
“You’re not gonna believe who I saw today,” I said after we paid Tommy his winnings.
Tommy piped up. “Oh, that’s right! There’s a lady next door.”
My mom hung the dish towel on the oven handle, turned to face me, and rested her hands on the counter. “Who?”
“Elsa Whitney,” I said.
My mom pressed her palm to her chest. “Elsa?” she breathed, eyes widening.
“Seriously?” Jude asked.
“Yeah. And she said she used to live there. But there’s just all that crumbled concrete.” Tommy shook his head, puzzled at this.
But then, he wasn’t born until after the fire. He had no idea how much had burned up in a single afternoon.
My mom’s voice softened. “Elsa Whitney… Good for her. It’s her property. I hope she makes something beautiful there. She was always a good girl.”
Chapter Five
Elsa
“Take your sweet time,” I said to the moose, who couldn’t hear me as it crossed the road in front of my car. She stopped to nibble on some alder by the corner. When I honked my horn, she slowly glanced over, giving me an ear flick, before making her way into the parking area of a gas station.
I laughed to myself, a fizzy sense of joy rising inside me. I had forgotten a lot of things, but I’d missed how often the moose were around. They had a deceptively ambling gait, but their legs were so long they could cover ground quickly, even when it looked like they were taking their sweet time.
As I drove down Main Street in Willow Brook, Alaska, much had changed, yet much remained the same. The mountains were ever-present, a towering backdrop against the bright blue sky. Snow-tipped and jagged, they were the steady presence of my childhood, unshakable and beautiful.
There were familiar storefronts and new ones, but the town still had the same feel with brightly colored signs, a mix of people walking down the street, and tourists standing out with their shiny gear. Although autumn was approaching, there were still RVs galore, slowing traffic.
Willow Brook was the closest town to where I grew up, but I’d mostly only come for school and the occasional errands with my mother. The town had one grocery store, one pharmacy, and one sort-of mini department store. Before moving to come home, I’d done a little research to see if Willow Brook had grown. Its proximity to Anchorage—forty-five minutes to an hour, give or take, and depending on the weather—meant that many large businesses were in Anchorage. Willow Brook was lucky enough to get the tourist overflow. The people who wanted the small-town Alaska experience could get it without going too far out of their way.
Large swaths of Alaska were entirely off the road system and only reachable by boat or plane. Any of the towns on the road system got a lot more visitors.
I knew exactly where I wanted to go, and my lips curled into a smile as I turned into the parking lot for Firehouse Café. After we moved away, Janet James never stopped reaching out. This was her café and, in a way, the town’s heartbeat.
