I Am Still Alive

The narrative shifts back to Jess’s time with her father. When Griff leaves, Jess spends several days keeping to herself and letting her father do all the work. When Griff finally returns, Jess reacts as though she has been stranded for months and immediately asks him to take her home. Griff has no answer to that, but he gives Jess a backpack, a notebook, and gel pens. Although the gifts are made for a young child, Jess appreciates the thought. Griff stays for a day, and Jess has the opportunity to show off her archery skills. When Jess approaches her father and broaches the issue of going home, he becomes irate. They argue, and Jess tells her father that she cares more about her mother’s boyfriend, Scott. She also expresses her anger at being brought to the middle of nowhere. Jess’s father is adamant that she must stay, and he promises that in a year he will take her back to the city and live there with her. He vaguely adds that he has promises to keep before he can leave.

In the present, Jess awakens after her second night alone. She has had a horrible nightmare about Griff being shot and killed. She wishes her dad were there, but she doesn’t know if she misses him or just his ability to survive. Jess wills herself to get up and eats a small portion of her one can of salmon, convincing herself to save the rest for later. She packs some jars to take to the lake and get more water and finds that the remaining planks of the outhouse are intact and can be used to add to her shelter. She uses her intelligence instead of her strength to make a lever out of her walking stick and pry some boards free to carry back with her. Jess reflects on her situation and realizes that “the wilderness doesn’t care and won’t remember” (107) if she lives or dies. She knows that her survival is entirely up to her.

The narrative shifts back to Jess’s time with her father. Griff spends the night, and he and Jess’s father tell wild stories of their past, making Jess laugh. After Griff leaves, Jess and her father spend the day collecting firewood and then have a conversation about why Jess’s father was never there for her in the past. Jess’s father admits that he wanted to be around, but because of some “trouble” he got into when Jess was young, he had to leave. He also believes that he and Jess’s mother were never meant to be together. Jess’s father likes to call her “baby bear,” a nickname that he gave her as a baby, but Jess finds it strange and unfitting. After resolving to hold out for a year like her father has asked, Jess feels better about staying and starts to get used to the lifestyle.

In the present, Jess and Bo make their way into the forest, hoping to find a berry patch that her father pointed out weeks before. Along the way, Bo stops and spots a rabbit, which Jess frantically shoots at and misses. She feels like Bo is disappointed in her, but when she finds a clearing full of berry bushes, she feels a sense of relief unlike anything else. Jess eats some berries and saves the rest, picking as many as she can and even finding some wild cucumbers. That night, she decides to go fishing tomorrow before building the rest of her shelter, because food is her top priority right now.

The narrative shifts back to Jess’s time with her father. One morning, Jess’s father invites her out to hunt, criticizing her for not pushing herself harder to learn the environment. Jess feels like she has been pushing herself hard enough, but she reluctantly agrees to go, and within minutes, she has shot her first rabbit with her bow and arrow. She feels sick about it at first but tells herself that the rabbit is just a food source. When Jess slips and hurts her knee, her father downplays it and tells her to “walk it off” (123), adding that doctors are only there to keep her sick. This angers Jess, who decides to stay behind while her father checks the rest of the traps. Jess waits, angry and hurt, after walking a few steps in an unknown direction. When her father finds her, he is upset that she wandered off. When a plane flies overhead, Jess can sense his agitation.

Later, Jess’s father apologizes for acting immaturely and tells Jess that if she cannot be physically strong, she must be smart. He promises to teach her how to survive in the wild. That night, Jess’s father finally explains that he and a group of friends initially wanted to live off the grid, but one man in the group, Albert, was intent on doing more than that. Albert wanted to infiltrate the government and take it down, and this caused Jess’s father to get mixed up in things he never meant to. Jess’s father also owed Albert money, so in return for Albert’s agreement to forgive his debt, Jess’s father agreed to safeguard some of Albert’s possessions. After the conversation, Jess feels strange to contemplate how much time lies ahead with her father. She starts to fantasize about everything they will do together, unaware that she only has six days left with him.

In the present, Jess manages to create a makeshift fishing rod out of a stick and some fishing line and finds worms for bait. She empties the water out of the canoe and sets out onto the lake while Bo goes off into the forest, likely in search of his own food. Jess spends hours on the water and catches nothing. She comes back to shore feeling defeated. Just then, she spots a squirrel and manages to shoot it on her second try. The squirrel provides little meat, however, and the meal is almost inedible. Jess is bitten by mosquitoes and spends the night alone, as Bo has yet to return. She shivers as rain pelts down and the wind picks up. When the wind carries her photographs of her parents away, Jess feels a sense of despair and utter loneliness. She has two nightmares: one in which she cannot find her mother, and one in which she shoots her own father.

Jess awakens to find the storm still raging around her, but she continues to build her shelter despite the bad weather. She alternates logs and planks and then weaves a rope between them to keep them together, creating a shelter decent enough to allow her to focus on food for a while. Jess changes into dry clothes just as Bo returns and soaks her again, but she is glad to see him. Jess curls up in her shelter and thinks about her next step: finding enough food to survive. She stares at her empty notebook and begins writing her story about what happened to her and her parents.

Realizing that she has written enough to be caught up with the present, Jess decides to finally reveal the nature of her father’s death.

On the day that Jess’s father is murdered, the two go out hunting and soon hear a plane approaching their camp. Jess’s father orders her to stay hidden with Bo. She creeps through the woods and watches as her father approaches two strange men. The men have a crate and seem to be negotiating with Jess’s father. He appears to disagree with them and eventually goes into the cabin with one man to talk further. After coming out, the two men have Jess’s father carry a large crate into the woods. He is then instructed to dig a hole large enough to bury the crate. At one point, he sees Jess watching him in the distance and tries to assure her everything will be alright. She hears something about her father owing the two men money; they plan to come back in the winter for the crate. In the next moment, the two men discuss their dissatisfaction with the debt that Jess’s father owes. Suddenly, one man shoots and kills her father.

Jess stares in horror, screaming internally and unable to move due to shock. Bo startles her back to awareness, and for his sake, she makes her way toward the cabin to retrieve her backpack and any other supplies before the two men get there. After hearing their plan to burn the cabin down, she knows that she must move quickly to avoid being seen. Jess makes it to the cabin and grabs her backpack and duffel bag and a few other items. She hides in the woods as the two men burn the cabin, shed, and outhouse and fly away. Bo stands on the shore and howls. Jess feels as though near-death experiences have defined her life. She feels like she should have done something to save her father’s life.