I opened the box. There was a black felt cloth carefully tucked and folded. It felt like a great secret lay hidden underneath and I wanted to know it more than anything else in my life.
I unfolded the cloth and inside was a wolf made of stone.
The detail felt miraculous on such a small and heavy thing. The bushy tail curled around the wolf as it sat on its haunches. The triangle ears that I thought should be twitching. The individual paws, sharp toenails and black pads. The tilt of the head, exposing the neck. Eyes closed, snout pointed up as the wolf howled a song I could hear in my head. The stone was dark and I briefly wondered what color it would be in real life. If it’d have white spots on its legs. If its ears would be black.
The birds had stopped singing overhead and I wondered if it were possible for the world to hold its breath. I wondered at the weight of expectations.
I wondered many things.
I picked up the wolf. It fit perfectly in my hand.
“Joe.” I sounded gruff.
“Yeah?”
“You… this is for me?”
“Yeah?” Like it was a question. Then, more sure, “Yeah.”
I was going to tell him it was too much. That he needed to take it back. That there was nothing I could ever give him that would be so beautiful because the only things I owned that were beautiful were not mine to give away. My mother. Gordo. Rico, Tanner, and Chris. They were the only things I had.
But he was waiting for that. I could see it. He was waiting for me to say no. To give it back, to tell him I couldn’t accept it. His hands were twitching and his knees were shaking. He was pale and he gnawed on his lip. I didn’t know what else to say, so I said, “It’s probably the nicest thing anyone has ever given me. Thank you.”
“Really?” he croaked.
“Really.”
And then he laughed. His head rocked back and he laughed and the birds came back and laughed right along with him.
THAT DAY was the first time I went inside the house at the end of the lane. Joe took me by the hand and talked and talked and walked and walked. He didn’t even pause as we came up to my house. We passed it right on by without a single stutter to our steps.
The moving trucks were gone from the front of the bigger house. The front door was open, and I could hear music coming from inside.
I came to a stop as Joe tried to pull me up to the porch.
“What are you doing?” Joe demanded in that way I already recognized.
I didn’t quite know. It felt rude to just walk into someone’s house. I knew my manners. But even the bottoms of my feet were itching to take a step and another and another. I was often at war with myself over the little things. What was right and wrong. What was acceptable and what wasn’t. What my place was and if I belonged.
I felt small. They were rich. The cars. The house. Even through the windows I could see nice things like dark leather couches and wooden furniture that had no scuffs or cracks. Everything was sweet and clean and so wonderful to look at. I was Oxnard Matheson. My fingernails were gritty and black. My clothes were streaked with grime. My boots were scuffed. I didn’t have much common sense, and if my daddy was to be believed, I didn’t have much in the way of anything else. My head didn’t know its way out of my heart and I was poor. We weren’t on-the-county poor, but it was close. I couldn’t bear the thought that this was charity.
And I didn’t know them. The Bennetts. Mark was my friend, and maybe Joe too, but I didn’t know them at all.
But then Joe said, “It’s okay, Ox,” and I said, “How did you know?”
He said, “Because I wouldn’t have given my wolf to just anyone.” He blushed again and looked away.
And I felt I’d missed something greater than his words.
ELIZABETH WAS singing along with an old Dinah Shore song that spun on an ancient record player. It was scratchy and the song bumped and skipped, but she knew the exact places it did and would pick up the song right where it began again. “I don’t mind being lonely,” she sang in a breathy voice, “when my heart tells me you are lonely too.”
My god, I ached.
She moved about the kitchen, her summer dress spinning around her light and airy.
The kitchen was lovely. All stone and dark wood. It’d been recently cleaned and everything shone as if brand new.
I could hear the others moving around out in the backyard. They laughed and I felt almost at ease.
Dinah Shore stopped being lonely and Elizabeth looked over at us. “Do you like that song?” she asked me.
I nodded. “It hurts, but in a good way.”
“It’s about staying behind,” she said. “When others go to war.”
“Staying behind or getting left behind?” I asked, thinking of my father. Elizabeth and Joe stilled, their heads cocked at me almost in the same way.
“Oh, Ox,” she said, and Joe took my hand back in his. “There’s a difference.”
“Sometimes.”
“You’re staying for Sunday dinner,” she said. “It’s tradition.”
I didn’t have many traditions. “I wouldn’t want to bother anyone.”
She said, “I see you opened your gift,” like I hadn’t spoken at all.
Joe grinned at her. “He loved it!”
“I told you he would.” She looked back at me. “He was so worried.” Dinah Shore picked up again in the background as Elizabeth began to cut a cucumber into thin slices.
Joe flushed. “No, I wasn’t.”
Carter came in through the back door. “Yes, you were.” His voice went high and fluttery. “What if he hates it? What if it’s not cool enough? What if he thinks I’m a loser?”
Joe scowled at him and I thought I heard a rumble come from deep inside him. “Shut up, Carter!”
“Boys,” Elizabeth warned.
Carter rolled his eyes. “Hey, Ox. Do you have an Xbox?”
Joe laughed. “Ha! Rhymes. Ox and Xbox.” He let go of my hand and began to pull silverware from a drawer near the stove.
I rubbed the hand against the back of my head. “Uh. No? I think I have a Sega.”
“Dude. Retro.”
I shrugged. “Don’t have much time for it.”
“We’ll make time,” he said. He took plastic cups down from a cupboard. “I need to ask you about school, anyway. Kelly and I will be starting up with you next year.”
“I wish I could go,” Joe grumbled darkly.
“You know the rule,” Elizabeth said. “Homeschooled until you’re twelve. It’s only one more year, baby.”
This did nothing to ease his mind. But I’d never been homeschooled before, and I didn’t know if it was a good thing or a bad thing.
“Ox, invite your mother, would you?” Elizabeth asked as she spun back and forth between the countertops. Back and forth.
“She’s at work,” I said, unsure of what I should be doing. They all moved like they’d lived here forever. I was the elephant in the room. Or the Ox. I wasn’t sure which.
“Next time, then,” she said as if there would be a next time.
“Because it’s tradition?”
She smiled at me and I saw Joe in her. “Exactly. You catch on fast.”