Nadia Nichols - Sharing Spaces

“Nope. Just Charlie. But unless you want Chilkat on your bed, better keep your door closed. That damn dog takes up most of the mattress. You’d better go up now. I don’t know what time morning comes in Maine, but in Labrador it comes really, really early.”

“Don’t worry,” Senna said, turning her back on him and starting up the stairs. “I’m an early riser. You won’t be needing to roust me out of bed.”

“Too bad. That might be kinda fun,” he called after her. Senna ignored his parting shot and took asylum in her grandfather’s room, closing the door behind her. She leaned against it for a moment, pondering the wisdom of sleeping under the same roof as that brash and arrogant man. His bedroom was just across the hall, and her door didn’t have a lock. Well, if he tried anything with her, he’d be sorry. Those three years of karate classes she’d taken in college would come in handy.

As long as the day had been, and as tired as she was, Senna wasn’t ready for sleep. She stood in the middle of her grandfather’s room, surrounded by his personal belongings, and tried to feel some sort of connection. Strangely, none of his things reflected his lifelong naval career. There were several pieces of vintage carved scrimshaw atop his bureau, a stack of old books, including several regional histories of arctic exploration and the Hudson’s Bay Company, a harmonica that looked well used, a beautiful meerschaum pipe, several old buttons that appeared to have been carved out of bone in a pewter salt, a rifle propped behind the door, a box of excellent wildlife photographs, mostly of wolves and caribou, and a pair of well-worn mitts and matching mukluks made out of some kind of fur and hide and decorated with elaborate beadwork. Being surrounded by her grandfather’s things was like being in a museum.

She touched each item, pondering the life of a man she hadn’t known at all, full of questions that could never be answered, and most of all, full of regrets. She was disappointed that she hadn’t yet stumbled across his journal. When she did, she hoped she would learn more about the enigma who was her grandfather, and why he had named her as his executor. At length she went to the window and looked out at the lake, its silken black waters reflecting the pale sliver of a new moon in a sky that wouldn’t know true darkness again until the far side of summer. The cove was as still as a mirror. She leaned her elbows on the windowsill and contemplated the vastness of the wilderness beyond the panes of glass, feeling a sudden pang of nostalgia for the two brief years she’d spent in the field as a wildlife biologist, fresh out of college and full of enthusiasm, truly believing she could make a difference.

A day didn’t go by that she didn’t miss tramping through the Maine woods with a pair of binoculars and a notebook. She’d particularly enjoyed the time spent checking on the radio-collared female bears in their winter dens, gathering data and counting cubs. Bears and coyotes had become her favorite animals to observe, and ravens her favorite birds. The difference she had hoped to make in educating the public about the coyotes’ place in the ecosystem never came to pass. The deer-hunters’ hatred for that little brother of the wolf was far too deep-seated. If wolves kill a moose in Alaska, or coyotes kill a deer in Maine, these were sins committed by predators that humans had little tolerance for. They shot the wolves from airplanes and wanted to snare the coyotes. That these predators helped the moose and deer population remain healthy by culling out the weak, old and the sick was a foreign and unwelcome concept. The only difference Senna had made in the department was purely statistical. For a brief period of time, she was their token woman field biologist.

Working for her aunt at the inn gave her an income far higher than that of her entry-level biologist’s wage at the state, but it didn’t come close to fulfilling her passion for wildlife and wild places. Here in Labrador she was sensing ever more acutely everything that she’d missed for the past five years.

Senna heard a faint rustling sound outside her door and opened it to see Chilkat waiting there expectantly. He stood and nosed his way into the room. Senna hesitated for a moment, listening to the murmur of voices from below. She closed her door again, quietly, then braced the chair beneath the door knob, just in case Hanson got any funny ideas in the middle of the night.

Meanwhile, the big husky leapt onto the bed with the grace of an athlete, curled up dead center, heaved a big sigh of contentment, and closed his eyes.

“Very well, then,” Senna relented with a sigh of her own, opening her bag and rummaging within for her pajamas, “but you’re going to have to share.”

EARLY MORNING, AND THE KITCHEN was cold enough to warrant kindling a fire in the woodstove. Jack wished there were bacon. He had a hankering to slice it into the frying pan, smell the fragrant hickory smoke and hear the fat sizzle. He searched the refrigerator twice before giving up. Yawning, he emptied the last of the stale coffee from the can into the pot and thought about all the mornings when the admiral had come down the stairs into the kitchen tamping tobacco into his pipe, reaching for his chipped mug and filling it to the rim. “Lots to do today,” he’d growl. “Long row to hoe.”

The admiral was used to being first man up. The fact that Jack had him beat every morning had been a bone of contention at first, but eventually the old man had come to enjoy the luxury of coming down to the smell of freshly brewed coffee. Always said the same thing. “Lots to do today. Long row to hoe.” Then he’d drink his coffee and smoke his pipe and plan the day.

Jack missed the old man. He wondered if anyone would miss him half as much if he dropped dead. Doubted it. Well, maybe Charlie, and the huskies out in the dog yard. For a little while, anyway. Time was a river that washed a person away. Memories faded, became dilute. The day would come when he wouldn’t be able to picture the admiral’s face or the way he’d smoked his pipe or paddled a canoe. Made him wonder about Senna. Why had the two of them been at such odds? Damn shame. They could’ve shared a lot, but it was too late now.

The coffee smelled good. Boiling now, perking along smartly and picking up speed. Let ’er rip. Charlie snored softly on the couch, the crackie stretched out alongside him, awake and watching. Always watching, that dog was. Her eyes never closed. Jack shut off the propane burner under the coffeepot and poured himself a cup, carrying it with him out onto the porch. He stood in his stocking feet, breath pluming into the frigid air. June, and the thermometer stood at thirty-two degrees. Not exactly gardening weather, but crisp and wonderful and completely free of mosquitoes. He stood in silence, watching smoke rise from the surface of the lake, watching the sky pale to the east and the stars slowly fade as he drank his first cup of the morning. He heard a noise behind him and turned, seeing movement through the open door.

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