The Heir’s Hidden Heirs

The airport smelled like wet carpet and jet fuel. I knew that smell. It meant I was home. Six years gone, and my nose still remembered before my brain did. It was almost ten at night. Snow blew sideways past the runway lights. I pushed our cart past the baggage belt, past a man selling coffee, past a family hugging like they hadn't seen each other in a hundred years. I wished somebody was hugging me. Ollie was asleep on top of the biggest suitcase with his mouth open. He still had one mitten on. I had no idea where the other one went. June was awake. June is always awake. "Mama, my feet are cold." "Your feet are always cold." "That's because Canada was warmer." "Canada was not warmer." "It felt warmer." I laughed, even though my chest hurt. I knelt down and pulled her hood up over her ears. Her cheeks were red from the cold air at the doors. "Hold the cart for me, okay? Don't let go." "I never let go," she said, like I had insulted her. She was right. She never does. I stood up and checked my pocket for the hundredth time. My passport was still there. The little blue book that said I was Eliza Peterson. Thirty-one years old. Born in a town I had never lived in. I had practiced that name in the mirror for months. I said it to the bus driver. I said it to the lady at the grocery store. I made it legal, with a lawyer and a stack of forms and a fee that ate my whole tax refund. It still felt like wearing someone else's coat. "Hazel Andrew," I whispered, just to hear it. "Hazel Andrew. Hazel Andrew." No one looked at me. That was the point. We rolled out into the big open hall near the exit. The ceiling was high, and the lights were yellow, and the wall in front of us was covered by one giant sign. I stopped walking. The sign was forty feet wide. Big white letters across the top said, Tidewater Provisions. Forty-five Years of Feeding Alaska. Under the letters stood two people, grinning like they owned the sky. The man was tall, with a perfect haircut and a good dark coat. His smile was soft and kind. I knew that smile. I used to think it was the safest thing in the world. Carter Olson. My first real boyfriend after college. The man who used to bring me coffee at the cannery at five in the morning. The man who told my mother he loved her cooking. Beside him stood a young woman in a long white coat, with her dark hair blowing like she was in a movie. My sister. Tessa had been nineteen the last time I saw her up close. Her braces were gone now. Her cheeks were thinner. She looked older, and she looked pretty, and she looked happy. Then I saw what was around her neck. A little carved knife, shaped like a half moon, on a leather cord. An ulu. My mother's ulu. My legs went weak. I remembered that knife so well. Mama used it to cut fish. She used it to cut birthday cake. She used it once to cut a tangled kite string while we were running down the dock, and she laughed so loud that a seagull fell off a post. She never took it off. Not once, not even to sleep. "Who's that lady?" June asked. I swallowed. "Nobody." "She looks like you." "No, she doesn't." "Yes, she does. She has your chin." "June." "And your mad face. Look. She's doing it." I looked again. June was right. My sister was smiling, but her eyes were somewhere else. Tired. Far away. Like someone standing in a house with all the lights on, wondering where everyone went. Maybe I was imagining it. Maybe I only wanted her to be sad. A hot, ugly feeling climbed up my throat. I wanted to run up to that sign and rip it off the wall with my bare hands. I wanted to scream, You stole it! You stole Mama's whole life! Instead, I reached into my wallet and pulled out an old plastic badge. It was worn at the corners. The picture was of a twenty-four-year-old girl with a big laugh and a ponytail. Under her face, it said, Hazel Andrew, Operations. I had carried it for six years. I don't know why. Maybe it was proof that I used to matter. I held it in both hands, and I bent it. The plastic cracked right down the middle. It made a small, sharp sound, like a knuckle popping. "Mama?" June said softly. "Are you okay?" "I'm fine." "You said fine, but you don't look fine." "Fine is fine, baby." "Fine is what grown-ups say when it isn't." I almost cried right there in the airport. My five-year-old had me figured out like a puzzle. "Okay," I said. "I'm not totally fine. But I will be." "Is that a promise?" "It's a plan." "Plans are not promises." "Where did you learn that?" "From you." I had no answer for that. I dropped the two halves of the badge into the trash can beside the cart. They hit the bottom with a tiny clink. I felt lighter. And sicker. Both at once. My phone buzzed in my coat pocket. I almost ignored it. It was probably Joy. She said she would be waiting at the curb in an old brown truck, and that if the airport police yelled at her, she would just tell them she was a very sad aunt. I pulled out the phone. Not Joy. It was a number I had never seen before. No name. Only a row of digits. The message was short. Welcome home, Hazel. I read it once. I read it again. My mouth went dry. Nobody knew that name here. Not one person. I had been so careful. I had not told a single soul in Alaska except Joy that I was coming. I booked the tickets under Eliza. I paid in cash for the taxi from the Vancouver bus stop. I did not post a picture. I did not call my old friends. So who? I turned in a slow circle, holding the cart handle so hard my fingers hurt. People rushed around me. A teenager in a hockey jacket. A grandma with a cane. Two pilots in white shirts, laughing at something. Then I saw him. He stood by the coffee kiosk near the far wall, in a long dark coat with the collar turned up. His hands were in his pockets. His face was in shadow, but his head was pointed straight at me. He was not looking at the sign. He was not looking at the snow. He was looking at me. Our eyes met across that big yellow room, and for a second, the whole airport seemed to hold its breath. I didn't move. He didn't either. "Mama?" June whispered. "Why is that man staring at us?" "I don't know, baby." "Do you know him?" "No." "He knows you." "Stop," I said, too sharp. "Please. Just hold the cart." Her little hand closed tighter around the metal bar. Ollie stirred on the suitcase and mumbled something about dinosaurs. My heart was banging so loud I thought the whole room could hear it. Then, very slowly, the man in the dark coat lifted one hand. He didn't wave. He touched two fingers to his forehead, like a small salute. And he turned around and walked away. No hurry. No fear. Like a person who had just finished a job. I stood there frozen, with the cold air pouring in through the sliding doors and my own name still glowing on the screen of my phone. Welcome home, Hazel. Who already knew I was coming, and what did they want from me?