Michael had not meant to tell him.
Or maybe he had.
Adult children are messy when guilt is fresh.
Tom called that night.
“A cabin?” he said, as if the word were indecent.
“Yes.”
“You bought land and now you’re building a cabin?”
“That’s generally how land works when one wants shelter.”
He ignored that.
“With whose money?”
Maggie looked at the estimate on her laptop.
“Mine.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it keeps being true.”
His breathing sharpened.
“You are spending our retirement.”
“No, Tom. I am spending my savings. You spent our retirement when you opened debt without telling me.”
Silence.
Then he said, “I did that for the family.”
“No. You did it for the image of the family.”
That landed.
She could tell by the silence.
After a long moment, Tom said, “I don’t know who you are anymore.”
Maggie looked around the rented cabin.
At the map.
The boots by the door.
The mug of coffee gone cold beside her laptop.
“Maybe that’s because you never spent much time asking.”
She hung up.
Then, for the first time, she blocked his number for the night.
The sky did not fall.
Part 6
Tom came to Alaska in March.
Uninvited.
Of course he did.
Men like Tom often mistake access for authority and distance for a logistical error.
He arrived in Anchorage wearing a wool coat too polished for the weather and shoes that slipped immediately on packed snow outside the rental car office.
Maggie learned he was there when Ruth called.
“There is a man in my office insisting he’s your husband.”
Maggie closed her eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
“No need. He’s not the first husband Alaska has disappointed.”
Maggie almost smiled.
“What does he want?”
“To know the location of your property.”
“Do not give it to him.”
“I wasn’t planning to. He called me young lady, and I have a strict policy.”
Ruth was sixty-eight.
Maggie drove to Anchorage with Hank because he insisted.
“You don’t meet an angry husband in a city with rental cars alone,” he said.
“I’m not helpless.”
“Didn’t say you were. Said men are stupid in unfamiliar climates.”
Fair enough.
Tom was waiting outside the escrow office, red-faced from cold and embarrassment. He looked smaller in Alaska. His courtroom voice did not carry well under a sky that large.
