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That had broken the ice and allowed me to relax and make the first stitch.
Being able to practice again was a gift I couldn’t quite fathom. Before the valley, medicine had been something I’d had a certain knack for but not something I cared for passionately. I made a healthy salary, which I appreciated. I was good at putting patients at ease and had a talent for sorting through the mysteries of diagnostics. But I didn’t wake up in the morning and think, Oh, what a lucky girl am I!
In the valley, I rejoiced in the birth of every cub, mourned every death, and felt fortunate to help my patients through every stage in between. Through the pack, I found my purpose. I was able to feel like myself again, without the risk of being discovered. I could feel as if I was putting the very expensive education my parents had helped fund to good use. I had a place of my own making, a community that I’d earned. I built a calm, competent exterior that didn’t garner me any close friendships but kept me on good terms with my neighbors. While the people who greeted me so cheerily each morning may not have known the real me, they appreciated the me they did know.
Now that my time in the valley was over, I wondered if I would ever find that again. I would likely spend the rest of my life working at places like Emerson’s, where the people were friendly and the work was dull. I supposed I should be grateful for the time I’d had to use my education.
The big guy would be right as rain in a few hours. I, on the other hand, stood a really good chance of pulling a muscle trying to haul his enormous frame into a comfortable position on the bed. It took a couple of tries, but I managed to pull him by the shoulders until his head was near a pillow. Standing there, watching his chest rise and fall, I was suddenly very tired. I looked down and saw the fist-sized rusty-red splotch on the shoulder of my shirt.
Damn it. I only had one clean shirt left in my bag. And since I’d left behind everything I owned, I would probably be wearing that shirt for a while. I went into the bathroom, throwing the bloodied towels into a far corner. I dragged my stained shirt carefully over my head, rinsed it as best I could, and hung it over the shower-curtain rod to dry.
Swiping at my cheeks, I looked in the mirror. My hair had been all of the colors of the Clairol spectrum since I left home, from jet-black to white-blond. But after I reached the valley, I’d let it go back to its original reddish-gold. It was nice to be back to strawberry-blond, even if people did expect me to be wacky and/or zany, which was irritating on so many levels.
I looked as exhausted as I felt. I’d been born with open, happy features: wide eyes, a pert little nose, a determined chin. My skin had been peaches and cream, without dark circles under my eyes. My lips had curved into an easy smile for friends, strangers, anybody. And my eyes had been a clear, untroubled green. Now I didn’t even have the energy to offer my reflection an apologetic shrug as I stripped out of my clothes. I locked the bathroom door and took a few deep breaths as I ran the bath tap. I always dreaded motel showers. You never knew what you were getting into. This one had the perfect balance of hot water, just enough burn to bite, but all the pressure of a dime-store water pistol.
Shampooing with the cheap, splintering bar of motel soap, I prayed that one day I would stumble into a motel that stocked Garnier Fructis for its guests. I rinsed out my dirty underclothes, although I knew there was little chance they would dry before morning. Now that I was clean, I faced a dilemma. I had one change of clothes that I always kept in my tote. I had a backup bag, packed with clothes, cash, and spare ID, in my trunk, but that trunk was now a charcoal briquette.
I poked my head out the door to make sure the big guy was still out cold. I crept over to his bag and selected one of the few T-shirts, one that advertised the Suds Bucket in Fairbanks. My short, undernourished frame would swim in it, but it smelled OK, and it covered me, and that was enough. I slipped it on over my last pair of dry, clean panties.
I checked the locks again and surveyed my sleeping options: the bed, the floor, or the wooden chair currently propped against the door. The idea of sleeping on the nasty carpet was too repulsive. Sleeping on the chair would take a contortionist’s balance and flexibility. The bed won.
I repacked my bag and placed it on top of my clean jeans, socks, and sneakers, within easy reach of the bed. I pulled back the bedspread, no small task considering that he was lying on top of it.
“Hey, I’m going to get in the bed now. I’d like to point out that assaulting someone who’s provided you with medical treatment is tacky.” He snored on, a deep, rumbling sound spiraling out from his chest. “OK, I’ll take that as a tacit promise to be a gentleman.”
I slid under the stiff white sheets and tried not to think about the last time they’d been washed. I punched the flat pillow into shape and lay on my side, facing the door, which also meant being nose-to-nose with my practically comatose roommate.
Blinking at him sleepily, I finally had time to appreciate my bed partner’s face. He was definitely attractive in that rough-hewn, competent way. I sort of wanted to nibble on him, all of him. Was that wrong?
I groaned and rolled away, putting my back to him. Yes, it was wrong. These were bad thoughts, bad thoughts that led to bad things. Bad things that would probably feel pretty good but would ultimately bite me on the ass. Of course, with that little overbite of his, being bitten on the ass might not—
I groaned again, pressing my face into the pillow. This was not like me. For the first few months after I ran, I was too scared of my own shadow to let a man within three feet of me, much less see me naked. Sure, I’d been attracted to other men. Hell, the valley had been packed with handsome, eligible fellas who basically threw themselves at anything female and single that they weren’t related to. But I’d been able to stay unattached. I hadn’t dated. I just couldn’t open up to anyone else like that. I didn’t want to give anyone else that sort of power over me.
There’s no such thing as a one-night stand when you live in such a small community. You see that person over and over, and the awkwardness can be deadly. I hadn’t engaged the services of a no-strings-attached “bounce buddy,” no matter how dark and lonely the winters got.
And it just felt wrong, starting any sort of relationship when I was still technically married. Lying to someone about my name was one thing. Letting someone think I was a normal, available human being was another.
Clearly, years without sex had disrupted the important responsible-decision-making neurons in my brain.
I scooted across the bed as far as I could. I shoved what would have been his pillow between us. That would provide an impenetrable measure of overnight security, right? I switched off the bedside lamp and pulled the covers up to my chin. I closed my eyes, waiting for sleep to take me.
I was going to be all right, I told myself. It took a while to learn to live without a cushion, with no safety net.
The rush of desire to be still again, to go back to the life I’d made, caught me off-guard. Having friends again, a home, a job I didn’t have to settle for, these were dangerously beautiful lures that sent me right back to square one. Square one sucked.
I knew I wasn’t exactly happy in this gray zone, but I was safe. And for a long time, before the valley, safety was the only happiness I needed. The idea that it might not be enough anymore made my chest ache with the effort to breathe.
I used to have backup plans and savings accounts, credit cards, and a skin-care regimen. I arrived home from work promptly at 5:25 every night to start dinner. If I arrived after 5:30, Glenn started to worry. And that would mean panicked voice mails on my cell, calls to the state police and the emergency rooms to see if I’d been in an accident, and a lot of fuss and fuming over nothing. I’d learned quickly that it was just easier to leave work ten minutes early every day than to try to convince Glenn that he was being unreasonable.
When we first started dating, I thought that sort of concern meant that I was important to him, that he was afraid of something happening to me. It’s what I told myself, even when I was assuring my supervisors at the hospital that my husband was a big practical joker after he left threatening voice mails for the head of cardiology. He spotted the two of us chatting at a colleague’s retirement dinner and was convinced we were sleeping together . . . which pretty much guaranteed I would never attend another staff party, just to avoid the potential humiliation. That was, I imagine, the whole point. I lost so many friends, any sort of personal relationships with the people I worked with. I was slowly pared out of their lives, until all I had was Glenn. Just the way he wanted it.
I’d made so many mistakes, so many exceptions to protect my pride, to prevent admitting, even to myself, how bad my situation had become. My road to hell was paved with rationalizations.
“Stop it,” I whispered into the dark. “Stop thinking about it.”
It was the shock of the parking-lot confrontation, I told myself. The yelling and the flames and then all that adrenaline and blood. That sort of upheaval was bound to bring up unpleasant memories. Tossing under the scratchy sheet, I found myself pressed against my bedmate. The pillow between us had been nudged down on the mattress, so that his face and shoulders were visible. I curled toward him, toward the heat of his body. He smelled of the woods, earthy and wild. Wasn’t that funny? Someone who spent his time in dive bars and honky-tonks smelling like fresh wind and moss? It wasn’t a werewolf thing. I’d spent enough time around the species to know that they weren’t all “April fresh.” He just smelled right, which in itself was a little alarming and prompted me to shove the pillow between us a little higher.
Sniffing lightly, he rolled toward me, his hand sliding over my shoulder and resting near my neck. Somehow, I’d expected it to be uncomfortable, being touched like this again. But while I certainly had some lingering werewolf-gunshot-wound-related questions, it didn’t feel wrong to have this man’s hand on me. I felt warm, down to the tips of my toes, comfortably, blissfully warm. I leaned closer until my forehead was resting against his arm and just lived in that warmth for a moment. In my head, I was basking in the summer sun on my parents’ back porch, knowing my mother would come out any minute to fuss at me about putting on sunscreen. I hadn’t heard my mother’s voice in such a long time. What I wouldn’t give just to hear her fuss at me about wrinkles and sun spots once more. But she was gone.
