Her smile is wide and her eyes are soft when she looks up at me. There is a word in Alutiiq for what I feel as I gaze back at her. Qunumapiartua. It means, quite literally, I am lovestruck. And it only takes me a second to realize that I am.

  “Thank you, Gideon,” she says. “I say…thank you.”

  ***

  Addison

  It’s been four weeks since I arrived in Valdez and told Gideon that he was going to be a father.

  Four more weeks pregnant with the Orange, who is now the size of an artichoke but will always be called “the Orange.”

  Four weeks of having dinner at Gideon’s house every night.

  Four marvelous weekends spent exploring Valdez in springtime with the father of my baby.

  And here is what I have learned…

  Like most people who found themselves bound together because of circumstance instead of just choice, we have some similarities and some differences, but the father of my child is a good compromiser and puts the needs of his child before his own.

  On the first few evenings we dined together, our conversation was more stilted, but as the days passed, we were able to be more honest, crafting—perhaps even in an equal way to our married counterparts—the kind of family we want to be. We’re mature thirty-somethings who are being intentional about the choices we’re about to make, and that makes me happy.

  For instance, Gideon feels stronger about his Russian Orthodox faith than he originally led me to believe. As a result, I’ve read up on their beliefs and discovered that it’s not actually much different from Roman Catholicism. But there’s no Russian Orthodox Church in Valdez. The closest is in Tatitlek, and the next closest is in Anchorage, which means that regular attendance would be challenging, were he to remain in Valdez long-term. That said, I would not stand in the way of him exposing our child to his religion.

  Another topic that we seem to have sorted out is the fact that I want to work full time, preferably in a family law firm, whereas Gideon is happy to take a five-year hiatus from heli-tours and stay home with the Orange until he or she starts kindergarten. Likewise, I am happy to handle all financial burdens with my paycheck, including all household expenses and a salary for Gideon, such that I would have paid a day care provider.

  Gideon has also made it clear that bringing up our child to recognize and respect his or her Alutiiq roots and traditions is important to him. And I’m all for it. Honestly, I have nothing much to offer in that area. I have no family and no strong cultural traditions to share. I’m more than happy for Gideon’s heritage to take center stage.

  That said, it’s important to me that our child attends a top-notch private school, has tutors and instructors for tennis and golf, ballet, and/or languages, and the opportunity to go to any college in the world of his or her choice. At first, Gideon balked a little at this. He asked, “What if the Orange doesn’t want to go to college? What if he or she wants to start a band instead?” To this line of thinking, I was clear: the Orange will follow our lead. If we make it clear that academics and a college education are of paramount importance, our child will know no different, and Gideon—if reluctantly at first—agreed. College first. Starting a band second.

  The one big problem that we haven’t broached yet is proximity, a.k.a. where we’re going to live.

  He owns his house in Valdez, which is worth about $300,000, and I own a condo in Los Angeles worth about $1.8 million. But those two places are three thousand miles apart, and both of us want to be a daily part of our child’s life.

  Though I don’t want to be a stay-at-home mother, I’m not willing to abandon my baby to the sole care of his or her father while I live a six-hour plane ride away and deposit money in Gideon’s account for the Orange’s care. Nope. Ideally, I want to live together eventually. I want to be there at night when he or she goes to bed so that we can read a story together, and I want to be there every weekend for walks in the park and swimming lessons at a local pool. I fully acknowledge that having Gideon as the primary, at-home caregiver for our baby would be better than day care. I just don’t know what the answer is to living arrangements, because I don’t believe—no, that’s bullshit—I know I couldn’t be happy making Valdez my home.

  It’s too small and too provincial for my taste. It doesn’t have the cultural opportunities that I want for myself and my child—the symphony, shows, museums, and sporting events. I need more. I want more.

  And yet, for Gideon, who grew up in a town of less than one hundred inhabitants, I can understand why Valdez, with a population of approximately four thousand, feels like a city. And a big city, at that.

  It’s a major conundrum for us, and because we both seem to sense its power to befuddle and divide, we avoid it. At least, for now. We won’t be able to sidestep it forever. But in the meantime, I’m still learning tons about my baby’s father by spending so much time with him, and that’s worth everything to me.

  At first, I’d arrive each evening as a guest and we’d decide together what to do for dinner. But as the weeks rolled on, he gave me a key and told me to make myself at home whenever I felt like coming over. Some nights I’d have dinner waiting for him, testing out a new recipe about which he was always supportive. Other evenings, it would be quiet when I got there, and I’d take a nap on the couch where we made love for the first time, while waiting for him to come home. He’d wake me up three hours later to the smell of the Chinese food he’d picked up on the way home from running a tour out to the glacier.

  What I’ve realized most of all is how easygoing he is, how eager to please, how warm, kind, and thoughtful. I’ve become careful about mentioning things I like after realizing that if I indicate a preference about anything, he logs it in his head and acts on it as frequently as possible. He must have noticed that I always order cranberry juice when we go out to eat, and suddenly it was a permanent fixture in his refrigerator. I said I liked brown rice, and since then he’s always ordered it when we have Chinese. No matter how insignificant, if something makes me happy, it soon appears in our daily life.

  That’s not to say, however, that he’s a pushover.

  He’s not.

  He has his own opinions and thoughts, and he’s not afraid to fight with me, even though I view verbal combat as an art form. And maybe I like that about him too: like a Roman orator of old, he’s bright and succinct in his arguments, often leading me down a logical rabbit hole that I don’t see coming until he’s won his point. He could have been an amazing lawyer, and that’s the truth.

  Another truth? I’m falling in love with him. Head over heels. And our agreement to keep sex on the back burner while we figure out co-parenting is becoming harder and harder for me to bear.

  “A penny for your thoughts,” says Gideon.

  I glance to my left, grinning at him. We’re in the Ad Astra van, and he’s driving us to the helicopter hangar where we’ll fly from Valdez to Tatitlek, and I’ll have a chance to check out his home town for the first time. Today’s the last day of Tatitlek Cultural Heritage week, and I know he’s excited to go home.

  “Oh, nothing really,” I say. “Just thinking over the last month. We’ve covered a lot of ground.”

  He nods. “I’ve gotten used to having you around.”

  “I’ve gotten used to being around,” I say, and it’s the truth.

  I love being around Gideon. I feel safe and protected, but I also feel respected and heard. My relationship with him is totally unique in my life because it feels equal. We come from different places, have different educations and followed different career paths, but he’s just as intelligent as I am, just as strong, but in different ways. We complement each other, and I think that’s a good thing in a partnership.

  Plus, the way his smile takes over his face when he comes home in the evenings to find me waiting? Oh, my heart. Oh, my ovaries. My body craves his in ways I didn’t even know were possible. It’s like I bloom when he’s around, my skin practically humming, every cell longing for his touch, though I play it cool. I don’t want to confuse things. I don’t want for us to get romantically involved with each other and put the needs of our child second.

  But I feel the magnetic pull to be with him. I feel his eyes on my body. I hear the deep timbre of his voice when he speaks sweetly to me. The touch of his hand, warm and broad, across the swell of my stomach, makes me want to sigh. And when we bump into one another while setting the table or washing dishes, I want to lean back into him and feel his arms around me. I want his lips, hot and sweet, brushing against the skin of my throat. I want the weight of his body—

  “Are you nervous to meet everyone?”

  I mewl softly with regret as my daydream disperses. “Not really.”

  This is a lie.

  I’m scared shitless.

  He’s told me what to expect, of course: tonight, at the school he attended where his mom works, there will be a potluck dinner, native dancers, a volunteer and sponsor appreciation ceremony, and a dance with a DJ. Afterward, we’ll stay the night with Gideon’s mother and head back to Valdez via ferry tomorrow afternoon.

  “My mom will love you,” he assures me.

  And thus we come to the crux of my worries.

  If my own mother didn’t love me, why in the world will his?

  “Mm-hm,” I murmur as he pulls into the hangar parking lot.

  “I mean it,” he says, cutting the engine and turning to look at me. “Everyone’s going to be excited to meet you. I promise.”

  Whatever you say. I somehow manage a queasy smile, but I’m forcing it, and Gideon’s spent enough time with me to know it.

  “We don’t have to go,” he says, tilting his head to the side, his expression grim.

  “No,” I say, knowing how much it would disappoint him if I crapped out now. “It’s fine. We’re going. We already told them…”

  He looks away from me, out the front windshield. “I’ll tell them you weren’t feeling well and we had to change our plans.”

  It’s a fact that no one in my life—even my mother and brother—has ever put me first. My feelings have traditionally been unimportant or even irrelevant to those closest to me. So it’s this gesture—Gideon offering to put me first, before his family and even before himself—that touches my heart in a way altogether new to me. It makes me fall more madly in love with him every single day.

  I lift the arm of my seat, turning to him, and as though he can sense my intent, he lifts the arm of his seat as well, pivoting to face me. I reach for his face, palming his cheeks as he falls to his knees in the narrow space between us.

  “We’re going,” I whisper, closing my eyes as I lean forward.

  My lips touch down on his tentatively at first, but his groan of desire makes me spread my knees, and he rises up on his, his chest pressed against the side of my seat as he wraps his arms around my waist. I run my hands through his hair, clasping them around the back of his neck as he deepens the kiss, sliding his tongue between my lips to find mine.

  I arch my back, pushing my sensitive breasts into his chest and reveling in his growl of satisfaction. He skims his lips down the column of my throat, pushing my blouse and bra aside so he can suck one of my distended nipples into his mouth.

  I’ve never felt so alive, so flush with nerve-endings everywhere. My body rushes wet as he suckles in the same place where I’ll feed our baby in a few short months, and the thought turns me on even more than I would’ve guessed.

  I cradle his head against my naked skin as he frees my other breast, licking slow, torturous circles around the nipple before clamping his lips around it.

  “Gideon,” I cry, feeling my pussy muscles contract then explode without warning. “Oh, my God,” I murmur, leaning my head to the side, against the back of the seat. I’ve never orgasmed from nipple stimulation only, but I’ve been reading about how sensitive my body is now, which makes me wonder…

  What would sex be like?

  Just the thought brings on another round of aftershocks as Gideon gently redresses me, covering my breasts with my bra and smoothing my T-shirt over my bra. He leans down to press his lips against the smooth, flushed plane of skin at the base of my throat.

  “Jesus, that was hot, he murmurs, nuzzling me with his nose and lips.”

  I finally open my eyes, leaning up in my seat. “Mm-hm.”

  He looks up at me, and I can see the hunger there, the longing. He lifts his chin. “I know you don’t want to be distracted by starting a relationship with me while we’re figuring out how to be parents for the Orange…but I’m falling for you, Addy. So hard. I can’t help it. I wish I could slow it down, but I can’t.”

  “I know.” I run my knuckles against his cheek. “I’m falling for you too.”

  “Would it be the worst thing?” he asks me. “For our baby’s parents to fall in love?”

  Oh, God, I want him so bad, but…but…“If it puts our child’s needs second, yes. If it creates drama between us when we need harmony, yes.”

  “It could make us even stronger,” he says. “How will we know unless we give it a try?”

  “I don’t know.”

  And I don’t. I really don’t. I’ve never been in love before. It’s unchartered territory for me, which is part of what makes me nervous. There’s already so much newness in my life. Would it make sense to add something else? But when I look at his face, which is so beautiful to me, I feel my feet sliding, my grip slipping. Falling is a function of gravity, and sooner or later, my fears will be no match for its power.

  His eyebrows crease. “I don’t mean to push you. I’m just being honest.”

  I nod, leaning forward to press my lips tenderly to his. “Just give me some time?”

  When I draw back, his lips are tilted up and he gazes back at me like I’m more precious to him than anything else in the world. He takes my hands and kisses the back of them reverently. “As long as there’s a chance for us, aa’icagaq, take as much as you need.”

  Chapter 11

  Gideon

  Last Friday, we were headed to Tatitlek.

  Today, we’re flying to Los Angeles.

  Visiting our home bases on back-to-back Fridays somehow makes the comparison that much more stark, and as we walk side by side down the LAX arrivals concourse toward baggage claim, jostled by people hurrying in the opposite direction with the cacophony of announcements pinging off marble floors and glass windows, I’m reminded of how much I despise big cities. The energy is exhausting. I feel drained, and we’ve only been here for ten minutes. I can’t wait to get back to Alaska.

  “This way,” says Addison pointing left. “We’ll get an Uber.”

  She takes out her phone as she’s walking, typing in the request without messing up the rhythm of her quick steps. In her black leggings and chic gray top, she fits in here. I don’t.

  As I follow her to the Uber pickup area, I think back to last weekend. As predicted, my family embraced Addison wholeheartedly, my mother proudly showing her off to friends and family and enthusiastically explaining the meaning behind the native dances and songs in Alutiiq. We were teased good-naturedly about having a baby before a wedding, and my mother offered to take a week off from work to help after the baby was born. I was gratified when Addison seemed open to this offer because I know it would mean the world to my mom and she’d gladly travel anywhere in the world to meet her first, and possibly only, grandchild.

  For her part and in consideration of her nerves as we were leaving Valdez, Addison was warm and gracious, letting my older aunts and cousins touch her pregnant belly and listening to their stories and advice with patience and kindness. Not that I had a right to be, but I was proud of her. It felt so good to have her standing beside me. It made me want things that we’ve decided to put on hold…for now.

  “He’ll be here in six minutes. Silver Tahoe,” she says, striding through the automatic doors that lead to the pickup area outside of baggage claim.

  “What time is the appointment?” I ask.

  “Two o’clock.”

  We’ll find out today if the Orange is a he or she, and we’ll also find out if there’s anything obviously wrong with him or her. And that’s been a heavy burden for us to bear. We’re both hoping and praying that everything turns out okay.

  Addy sits down on a bench and looks up at me. “Did I tell you that Kieran Flanders’ case is being heard in Anchorage next month?”

  “What happens at this hearing?”

  “Well, as you know, I motioned to freeze Howard’s assets in April after talking to Kieran. At the hearing, we’ll present evidence about what happened, and if we’re lucky, the judge will decide on the amount to award.”

  “Have any of the other families stepped forward to contest Kieran’s claim?”

  For a while, Addison was worried about one of the other families filing wrongful death lawsuits that would compete with Kieran’s claim to Howard’s money. But she spoke to the families personally, explaining that Kieran needed to pay medical bills and promising that she, herself, wouldn’t be seeking damages from Howard’s estate in memory of Elliot. The other families agreed to support Kieran’s lawsuit and not pursue their own.

  “Nope. Nothing’s changed.”

  “So Kieran should get everything.”

  “Hopefully,” she says. “Howard’s brother Sid called me at one point, asking for details about what happened, but he said he wouldn’t contest Kieran’s case.”

  “Sid’s good people,” I tell her.

  “Speaking of good people, did you hear from your mother this morning?”

  Her tone is a mixture of cautious and hopeful, and it breaks my heart a little.

  “Yep. She wished us luck today and sent her love. I’m supposed to call or text as soon as we leave the doctor’s office.”