Mark stormed out of the office. His footsteps were loud as he stalked down the steps. He didn’t even notice me as he left the house, slamming the front door behind him.
Above me, my father stood still.
And all I felt from him was blue.
IT WENT LIKE THIS:
Mom was setting up her studio.
Dad was putting books on the shelves.
Mark was upstairs, locked in his room.
Kelly and I were on the porch, his feet in my lap. He was reading. I closed my eyes, taking in the scents and sounds of the old-growth forest around us. In the driveway in front of us were three cars. Two trucks. An SUV. Two thirty-foot moving trucks. We were supposed to be moving more stuff in, but there was plenty of time for that later.
And then a voice came, one I hadn’t heard in a very long time.
He said, “Do you have your own room?”
My chest hitched.
Kelly sat up, eyes wet. “Is that—”
“Shut up. Listen.”
A deeper voice said, “Yes. It’s just me and my mom now.”
“I’m sorry,” Joe said, and his voice was rough and gravelly.
“For?”
“For whatever just made you sad.”
“I dream. Sometimes it feels like I’m awake. And then I’m not.”
Mom and Dad burst out onto the porch just as Joe said, “You’re awake now. Ox, Ox, Ox. Don’t you see?”
“See what?”
“We live so close to each other.”
My father put his face in his hands. Deep within us all, crashing and colliding, came three words.
packpackpack
The shadows stretched as the afternoon waned.
Mark came out onto the porch, demanding to know if that was Joe, was that Joe, was that—
They appeared around the blue house.
There, on the back of a large boy, was Joe, eyes alight.
My father dropped his hands and took in a shuddering breath.
We never looked away from Joe.
From this stranger who watched us with wide, dark eyes.
They stopped before us.
“Mark?” the boy said.
Mark smiled. “Ox. How lovely to see you again. I see you’ve made a new friend.”
Joe dropped from Ox’s back, stepped to his side and took his hand, dragging him toward us. Something was shifting, and I didn’t know what. It was massive, and I was overwhelmed. It felt like the day Kelly was born. The day Joe came back to us.
And Joe.
Joe, Joe, Joe.
He said, “Mom! Mom. You have to smell him! It’s like… like… I don’t even know what it’s like! I was walking in the woods to scope out our territory so I could be like Dad and then it was like… whoa. And then he was all standing there and he didn’t see me at first because I’m getting so good at hunting. I was all like rawr and grr but then I smelled it again and it was him and it was all kaboom! I don’t even know! I don’t even know! You gotta smell him and then tell me why it’s all candy canes and pinecones and epic and awesome.”
We were all stunned into silence.
We didn’t know then what he would become.
Had I known, I would have done everything I could to push him away. To tell him that the Bennetts were cursed, that he should stay as far away from us as possible. He was misunderstood. His daddy said he was going to get shit all his life. His mother, a woman underestimated in her own right, might have survived the coming of Richard Collins.
What would he have become without the wolves?
I thought about that a lot.
Once, long after my father had returned to the moon, it was just Kelly and me. We were too old to be sleeping in the same bed, but here we were all the same.
He lay facing me, his knees bumping into mine.
He said, “It’s all inevitable, isn’t it? Everything.”
I wanted to tell him no. I wanted to tell him that there was no such thing as fate, that we could carve our own paths, that a name was nothing but a name.
He knew what I was thinking. He knew what was in my head and heart. He said, “A rose by any other name….”
I closed my eyes and dreamed of wolves running under the light of a full moon.
IT WENT LIKE THIS:
I was seven and Kelly said, “I want to be big like you.”
I was three and my father picked me up in his arms, holding me close.
I was ten and I chose my tether.
I was twelve and Joe sat on my shoulders wearing a wolf costume our mother had made for him because he wanted to be a wolf like me. We were walking through the woods, Kelly’s hand in mine, Joe tugging on my hair, saying, “Faster, Carter, go faster.”
I was four and Kelly took his first steps, reaching for me, always reaching.
I was eleven and the moon was calling me, it was singing, singing, singing, and my mother said, “Here, my son, here, let it wash over you, feel it calling. I won’t let it hurt you. I won’t let it take you away.”
I was sixteen and close to murdering boys in a bathroom at school who dared put their hands on Ox.
I was thirteen and Kelly shifted into a wolf for the first time, and we ran together as fast as we could, the earth beneath our paws, the wind in our fur.
I was twenty-three when a monster came to town and tore a hole in our heads and hearts. My father died before I could get to him. The last thing he ever said to me was “Protect your brothers with everything you have.”
I was twenty-seven, bursting out of a bar filled with humans, claws popping and fangs gnashing, and there was a wolf there, a timber wolf bigger than any I’d ever seen, and it came for me, it came for me, and the moment before we collided, the moment before its body struck mine, I smelled something unlike anything I’d ever known before.
And I burned.
waiting for you/say my name
It was dark.
I was cold and stiff. My neck had a crick in it, and my head was pounding. I groaned and rubbed a hand over my face, trying to clear my head. I pushed open the door to the truck and stumbled out. My knees were weak, and I almost fell. I caught myself on the door.
Before me was farmland. In the distance, set on a hill, was a house. The porch light was on, but the windows were dark. I walked away from the truck, my boots crunching against gravel. I unzipped my pants so I could empty my bladder. I sighed as I looked up at the sky, the stars like chips of ice.
Once I finished I went back to the truck, pulling my coat tighter around me. It was getting colder again. I didn’t know exactly where I was. I thought I’d crossed into North Dakota before finally pulling over to get some sleep. I’d gotten used to spending the night in the truck.
I shut the door behind me.
I was tired, but I knew I wouldn’t get any more sleep. The sun would rise soon, and I didn’t want to get caught here.
I glanced at the picture on the dashboard. The edges had started to curl. I left it alone.
I pulled my duffel bag across the seat. In the side pocket was a cheap phone, a burner I’d picked up before I left Green Creek. It was something Gordo had taught me when we’d been on the road after Richard Collins. I doubted he’d ever thought I’d have use for one again after we’d come back.
I hit the Power button, stretching my neck as I waited for it to turn on. I winced against the bright light in the dark. It was just after five in the morning.