Chương 4
“And Dad?”
“He worked for them.”
“Doing what?”
“At first? Construction. Fencing. Feeding. Transportation.”
“At first.”
Claire inhaled sharply.
“Then he started buying animals himself.”
Maya stared at the snow.
“Wolves?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
“You lived there.”
“That doesn’t mean I knew everything.”
“You lived there with me.”
“I know.”
“You had me around illegal animals.”
“I know.”
Maya slapped the steering wheel once.
The horn sounded.
A passing truck flashed its lights.
She ignored it.
“What happened?”
Claire’s voice broke.
“There was a raid.”
Maya looked toward the darkening highway.
“When?”
“November of 2002.”
Maya calculated.
She had been five.
The timeline did not fit Ethan’s intake story.
Not even close.
“Koda came to the sanctuary seven years ago.”
“What?”
“The wolf. He came there seven years ago.”
Claire was quiet.
“So it can’t be the same wolf.”
“No.”
Relief hit Maya so quickly she almost laughed.
Then her mother said, “Unless he came from Leonard.”
The relief vanished.
“Who is Leonard?”
Claire whispered the name.
“Your father’s brother.”
Maya felt the world shift, not dramatically, but with the slow wrongness of a floor settling under weight.
“I don’t have an uncle.”
“Yes, you do.”
“You told me Dad was an only child.”
“I lied.”
The bluntness left Maya with nothing to say.
Claire continued.
“Leonard disappeared before the raid. Your father always said he went to Canada. I never believed him.”
“And you think he took animals.”
“I think he took whatever he could sell.”
“Koda?”
“I don’t know.”
“How would a wolf recognize me after twenty-four years?”
“I don’t know.”
“He would’ve had to be alive then.”
“I know.”
“He’s not that old.”
“I know.”
“So what are we talking about?”
Claire started to answer, stopped, then said, “There was a female.”
Maya leaned forward.
“What female?”
“A wolf.”
The heater blew warm air across her boots.
Maya barely felt it.
“She had pups that summer.”
“And?”
“You found them.”
Maya closed her eyes.
Something moved behind them.
Not a full memory.
Wet dirt.
A smell like hay and blood.
Tiny bodies making soft sounds.
Her own hands.
She opened her eyes.
“I found wolf pups?”
“Yes.”
“You never told me that.”
“I didn’t want you remembering any of it.”
“That’s not how memory works.”
“I know that now.”
“What happened?”
“One pup was weak. You kept sneaking food to it.”
Maya laughed once.
It was an ugly sound.
“I was five.”
“You were impossible.”
Despite everything, Claire almost sounded fond.
“You named him Button.”
Maya put a hand over her eyes.
“Button.”
“You were five.”
“Fantastic.”
“You cried whenever anyone called him a wolf.”
“What did I call him?”
“A puppy.”
Maya lowered her hand.
“Mom.”
“Yes.”
“Did he bite me?”
Claire was silent.
Maya looked at the scar.
“No.”
“Then what happened to my wrist?”
“You cut it on fencing.”
“So that part was true.”
“Yes.”
“Trying to get to the pups?”
“Trying to get one out.”
Maya stopped breathing for a second.
“Why?”
Claire’s voice became very quiet.
“Because your father was going to kill it.”
Maya stared at the road.
Cars passed in both directions.
Ordinary people going somewhere.
She wished she were one of them.
“What?”
“The pup was sick. Your father said it wasn’t worth feeding.”
“And I tried to take it?”
“You opened the lower gate.”
“I was five years old.”
“You used to watch him.”
Maya could hear Claire crying again.
“You copied the way he lifted the latch.”
“And the wolf?”
“The mother went wild when she saw you bleeding.”
Maya’s stomach tightened.
“She attacked me?”
“No. That’s the thing.”
Claire’s voice changed.
“She came to you.”
Maya said nothing.
“You were screaming. I thought she’d kill you. Your father came running with a rifle.”
Maya’s hand began shaking.
“What happened?”
“You put yourself between him and her.”
“I was five.”
“I know.”
“What happened?”
“Your father hit you.”
The words were simple.
No emphasis.
That made them feel more real.
Maya stared at the dashboard.
“With what?”
“The rifle stock.”
Her mouth opened.
No sound came.
Claire rushed on.
“Not hard enough to— I mean, hard enough, obviously. God. I don’t know why I’m saying it that way.”
Maya looked into the rearview mirror.
Her own face looked unfamiliar.
“What did you do?”
“I took you.”
“Then?”
“I drove.”
“You never went back?”
“No.”
“And Dad?”
“He found us twice.”
“What?”
“He found us twice before the raid. After that, he disappeared for a while.”
Maya pressed her fingertips against her forehead.
“You said he left.”
“He did.”
“You said he died when I was nine.”
“He did.”
“How?”
Claire did not answer.
Maya laughed again, more bitterly this time.
“Another lie?”
“No.”
“How?”
“Car accident.”
“Where?”
“Idaho.”
“With Leonard?”
“I don’t know.”
Maya leaned back.
The windshield blurred.
She realized she was crying only when she wiped her face and saw wetness on her fingers.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you stopped having nightmares.”
“What nightmares?”
Claire said nothing.
Maya lowered her hand.
“What nightmares?”
“Wolves.”
The word should have frightened her.
Instead it made something inside her ache.
“You used to wake up crying because you thought the mother was calling for the pup.”
Maya looked down at her wrist.
For the first time in years, a detail returned whole.
Not a scene.
A sound.
A low, broken howl at night.
She had been under blankets.
Her mother had been holding her.
Somewhere outside, something had kept calling.
Maya whispered, “I remember that.”
Claire began to cry harder.
Maya hated that part of herself softened.
She hated it because she wanted to be angry.
Anger was easier than imagining Claire at twenty-six or twenty-seven, running with a child, afraid of a husband, afraid of men with guns and animals behind fences.
But sympathy did not erase lying.
Both things could exist.
Maya said, “I need to go.”
“Come home.”
“I can’t.”
May you like
“Where are you going?”
Maya looked at the highway behind her.
