It didn’t do her any good when she was waiting for other people, though. Like now, waiting on Aran to arrive...
“Sorry I’m late,” Aran said from behind her, causing her to jump because she hadn’t been expecting him to sneak up behind her. He cocked an eyebrow. “You’re a bit jumpy?”
“I didn’t see you coming.” She took a deep breath and tried to calm her racing heart. “Where did you come from, anyways?”
“My cab was late. I had to go back to my hotel room and change.”
“Your hotel room? Aren’t you staying with your mother?”
“No,” Aran said quickly. “I’ve learned that my mother and me should not live together. I haven’t lived with her since I was about eight.”
“You had your own place at eight years old?” Ruby teased.
“No.” He chuckled. “My parents divorced and I lived with my father. My mother would come down to see me, and when I came up to Anchorage to see her my dad would usually stay in town so that I could stay with him.”
“Wow!”
Ruby knew Jessica was divorced, but she’d assumed Aran had stayed with her. And then she remembered Aran had told her he was from San Diego when he was doing his residency, and said how much he loved Southern California.
They’d been friendly with each other, but she was realizing now she really didn’t know much about him—and that worried her.
Why had she ever agreed to this sham of a marriage? She shouldn’t have, but Aran had been so persuasive. So insistent.
“You okay?” Aran asked.
“Why?”
“You seem a bit tense.”
“I’m fine. Sorry, I forgot you said you were from San Diego. I forgot you didn’t grow up here.”
And it was mistakes like this that made her worry about what they’d done.
“Don’t get me wrong—I love my mom. It’s just she does certain things a certain way.”
“Oh... That’s not going to bode well for us, then,” Ruby teased.
Aran cocked an eyebrow. “Why’s that?”
“I am a bit of a stickler when it comes to doing things a certain way—like being on time.” She pointed to her watch and hoped he’d get her joke. She was relieved when he smiled.
“I think it’ll be fine.” He shoved his hands in his jean pockets. “Where do you want to go?”
“There’s a little crab shack down by the water. Do you like crab?”
He nodded. “I do—and it’s been some time since I had Alaskan crab.”
“Good. I can drive—or we can walk? It’s not far from here.”
“A walk would be nice. Lead on, Macduff.”
She hadn’t heard anyone say that to her in a long time. Her father had used to say it all the time, and it brought a memory flooding back to her.
“And where did you see this footprint, Ruby?”
“In the woods. Just before the ice road.”
“The ice road is closed and that’s all muskeg.”
“I know, Papa. I didn’t go traveling through that. I was on my way back from the corner store and I saw the footprint. I want to show you.”
Her papa smiled. “Okay, show me. Lead on, Macduff.”
They walked the way she had taken back from the corner store. She always listened to her parents and kept to the paths she’d been taught to. She knew not to wander in the woods because of bears and other wild animals—not that many would be out in the middle of the day in the summer. Usually the heat and the bugs drove the animals further into the woods. Animals were most likely to come out during the early morning or when it briefly went to dusk.
It was a short walk along the well-worn path from her parents’ place, and they stopped when Ruby found the strange footprints she’d never seen before.
Her father knelt down. “Ah, this is a wolverine.”
“A wolverine?”
“Yep—and they’re nasty. You did good, showing this footprint to me.” Her father stood. “Let’s go inform the elders and make sure that the other kids keep away from this area. The wolverine has obviously found a food source and will come back, like a bear. A wolverine would attack a young child if it was hungry enough. Remember that, Ruby. Remember that sometimes in the north it’s a battle of survival. Eat or be eaten. But you must also respect the land.”
“Right, Papa.”
“What?” she asked quizzically now, trying to shake the memory away.
Her father had never learned a lot of stories, except what he had been taught when he had been forced to attend a school far from home. The residential school was something he didn’t like to talk much about to her. It had been an awful place where his culture and heritage had been forced out of him. Where his language had been stolen. All he had known was what the priests and nuns had taught him, but her father had liked Shakespeare.
“It’s ‘Lay on, Macduff’,” Aran remarked offhandedly as he held open the door for her. “‘Lead on’ is a popular misquote.”
“I know. It’s just... I haven’t heard someone say that in a long time. The way my father said it.” She cleared her throat and tried not to let emotion overtake her. She didn’t have time to deal with her grief or her sadness.
Aran didn’t say any more as they walked down the street from the hospital to the waterfront.
Because it was summer, it was nice to have sunlight so late. It made for pleasant evenings. And it was nice to have the sun because in the winter the sun wouldn’t be around long, and there would be a period of time where it just stayed dark, especially the further north you went.
“How long have you lived in Alaska now?” Aran asked.
“This is my sixth year.”
“Right!” He chuckled. “We got married five years ago—right after our residency finished. I’m sorry I forgot.”
“Well, now I’m going to have to hold it against you.”
“Hold what against me?”
“Forgetting our anniversary,” she teased.
He shook his head. “So, where in Canada are you from?”
“Behchokǫ̀.”
His eyes widened. “I have no idea where that is.”
Ruby laughed. “Well, it’s just outside of Yellowknife, in the Northwest Territories.”
“I do know where that is. So you’re from the north? That makes a lot of sense of why you love it up here.”
She nodded. “I went to university and then medical school in London, Ontario. That was a hard transition. I much prefer the north over the city. Although Anchorage is a city, so it must be the north I love.”
She was rambling. She knew that. But she really didn’t know what else to say to ease the awkward tension that had fallen between them.
“I prefer the south,” he said.
“Then why did