“Thanks. I’ll eat in a bit.” He nods toward my computer, sitting open on my lap. “What’d you do today?”

“Lots of very important things,” I say with mock seriousness. We are two weeks into the new year and have fallen into somewhat of a routine, where Jonah goes off to Aro well before sunrise and I take breaks from toiling away on my computer to stoke the woodstove with logs that Jonah cut. Last week I focused on website design for the charter plane company, which is now ready for final touches and then launching, once he stops arguing with me about the fact that The Yeti is the perfect name for it.

This week, it’s real estate and a crash course in business operations from Agnes, who has basically been running the administrative side of Wild for years. I’ve taken copious notes about nautical miles, basic pilot jargon, radio frequencies, topography maps, and flight itineraries. Just a scratch in the surface of this exciting world, Agnes promised.

I flip to one of many website tabs I have open to show Jonah the house listings. There aren’t many this time of year. “What do you think about Eagle River?”

“Eagle River,” Jonah echoes.

“Fifteen miles northeast of Anchorage. A nineteen-minute drive. They have an airport and all the basic amenities. They even have a Walmart. And, look, they’ve got some nice houses.” Modern, new builds that surprised me, with high ceilings and tile floors and Corian countertops—all things I’d never given a moment’s thought to before I suddenly found myself entering the house-hunting market. “Look at this one. It’s got an extra-wide, two-car garage, and the view outside the kitchen window with the mountains is to die for. Or this one …” I flip through to another house, a few streets over, and show him the pictures.

“How much land?”

I scroll the cursor downward to reveal the details. “Almost an acre?”

Jonah laughs. “That’s nothing, babe.”

I frown. “But look at the yard. It goes way back.”

“What about the planes?”

“The airport’s like five minutes away. See?” I zoom out on the map. “It’s the same distance as Wild is to you here.”

He rolls onto his back, his gaze settling on the ceiling tiles above us. “I’d love to have my own airstrip.”

“What do you mean? Like, a private airport?”

“Nah. Just a simple airstrip. A gravel stretch on my own property with a hangar to keep the planes, so I can come and go as I please, not have to deal with all the bullshit of using public airports. No one tellin’ me what to do.”

“Do places like that even exist?”

“In Alaska? Sure. All you need is enough land.”

I know without checking that none of the listings I’ve looked at have enough property to land a plane. “What would something like that cost?”

“Around Anchorage?” He sighs. “Too much.”

“Well … we can always rent a place and invest in some land for later?”

“I told you, Calla, I don’t wanna pay anyone’s mortgage for them, not when we can afford to buy. Do you?”

“No, but …” Simon has now jumped onto the “rent first, buy when you’re sure about Alaska and Jonah” train, whether upon my mother’s insistence or because he felt obliged. Regardless, it’s more difficult to dismiss his advice than it is my mother’s.

But I’m turning twenty-seven this year. When will I stop letting them influence me so much?

Especially when Jonah doesn’t seem to have any doubts about us.

Neither should I, I realize, because how can this work if I keep making contingency plans for it not working? “No, I think I’d rather buy, too.” I consider alternatives. “So maybe in a few years, after The Yeti is established, we can look at moving to a house on more land?”

He shoots a severe glare my way. “We’re not goin’ with that name.”

“We’ll see …” I mock in a singsong tone, closing out the tab, ready for Jonah to begin disturbing my clothes. That’s become his pattern, within five minutes of his body hitting the mattress, no matter how long his day has been—me, naked.

My blood races with anticipation.

But he doesn’t make a move yet. “Aggie had an interesting conversation with Barry earlier today.”

It takes a moment to connect. “The farmer down the road?”

“Yeah. He’s interested in buying our houses. This one and Wren’s.”

“Really?” They’ve already got a nice two-story home.

“Business is booming and he wants to expand his crops.”

“Well … that’s good, right? We were afraid it’d take forever to sell.”

“He wants the land, Calla. He might demo the houses.”

It takes a second to process. “What, you mean, like, tear them down?”

“Yeah.” I feel Jonah’s gaze on me. “What do you think about that?”

Houses where my father and grandparents lived for decades, where my mother and father lived and loved, where I lived, a place that still wears my mother’s hand-painted flowers from almost twenty-seven years ago. These two simple modular houses on this cold expanse of tundra—one a mossy green, the other a buttery yellow—that meant nothing to me when I first saw them, now feel like a lost childhood somehow rediscovered.

And Barry Whittamore wants to make them disappear?

But do I even have a right to be upset? Jonah and I are leaving Bangor, starting our lives elsewhere.

“Honestly, I don’t know what I should think. What do you think?”

He bites his bottom lip in thought. It’s a moment before he answers. “I’ve got no use for this place if we’re moving. Still … I guess I always saw another family living here.”

“Right. Same. And Agnes? What does she think?”

He snorts. “Well, of course she doesn’t like it. The damn woman is driving around in Wren’s shitty-ass, beaten-up truck with bald tires because she’s so nostalgic. But she doesn’t need two houses to look after. She told Barry he should rent the houses out and farm around them. He sounded open to it. And selling to Barry would be the smart move. Otherwise who knows how long we’ll be sittin’ on these listings. And who’s to say that whoever buys them doesn’t tear them down, anyway.”

“Right.” I wait for him to continue, sensing a “but.”

Jonah shrugs. “It seems wrong, you know? Wren’s gone, Alaska Wild is gone. And now even his house might disappear. It’s like he’s being erased.”

I feel what he’s saying. My dad said there’d always be a home for me in Alaska, and yet it won’t technically be true.

Silence lingers, and I study the struggle in Jonah’s features—his jaw tensing, his eyes tracing the lines of the ceiling tiles as if my dad set them there with his own bare hands. What is he really asking me?

Perhaps he’s looking for my permission to let someone possibly level my family’s history.

“What would my dad say if he were here?” I hate that I can’t confidently guess, that I didn’t know him that well.

But Jonah did. My father was more a father to him than he ever was to me.