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Even if he was the sort of man who I’d find playing guitar on the steps in front of Cork’s in the afternoons, the sort of man who’d learned the chords to “Fireflies,” who sang it to me in a hesitant but very nice voice, who seemed to light up when he arranged for musical acts at Cork’s, who was exactly the sort of man a woman would get obsessed with.

There was evidence that my life was better because of other things, after all.

Being back in Riverside, being back in touch with my wolf, being close to my dad, quitting my soul-sucking stressful job, starting to paint again…

There were a lot of things besides Vincent that were better about my life.

When I talked on the phone with my mother, I highlighted all of that. I was worried she’d feel betrayed, maybe, since she had never really wanted me to live there, never really liked the wolf side of me.

But she only said, “I always thought you were happier out there, my sweet girl. I have to say, I’m glad you’re not with that Damian boy, not after what he did to you.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“I know it was all fated and terribly dramatic and like some gothic novel,” she said. “But I’ve always thought that the best foundation for lasting love was choice.”

I agreed with her. Of course, what did my mother know about lasting love? She had divorced my dad and never remarried.

Still, I agreed that we’d come to her place for Thanksgiving, and Vincent was happy enough about that since he and Damian still weren’t doing family holidays together.

But we were spending time with his nephews.

I was not going to be in a relationship with Damian, but I wanted to honor the requests that Opal had made of me in her memoir. I wanted to be good to her boys. They’d lost their mother, and I wanted to be there for them.

Henry was easier than Jace, admittedly. Jace had seen the whole argument with me and Damian, knew that I was with Vincent instead of his dad, knew that his dad was angry with me… it took a while for Jace to allow me to tag along when Vincent took him out for ice cream after his soccer practices and things like that. At first, I hung back because I wanted Jace to have time with his uncle and I didn’t want to create any unpleasantness until Jace was ready.

It took a few months, but by the winter, by the time Christmas rolled around, we took both Jace and Henry out to eat and Henry was such a little gentleman, sitting up on his booster seat and telling the waiter he would have chicken nuggets and fries.

But by that time, we had been taking Henry to the playground weekly for the entire fall, and then picking him up to take him to a little indoor jungle gym that was located in a nearby mall—a dinosaur, really, last of its kind. I wasn’t sure that the place didn’t stay in business primarily because people came to walk in the mall in the winter, and they ended up shopping while they were there.

Afterwards, we always took Henry out for fast food, and he always got chicken nuggets and fries, and we always told him stories about his mom, which he lived for. I was determined to keep Opal alive for the little boy. We had videos and pictures and we would send them to him. He had a tablet—maybe he was young for a device, but the connection to his mom was important—and he had a whole folder of his mom. She had recorded a bed time message for him, her singing him goodnight songs, a message to play when he skinned his knee, all sorts of things like that.

It wasn’t the same, because she was gone.

But it was a blessing that she’d known, that she could prepare, and that Henry would always have a video of his mom telling him how much she loved him. That the memory of her face and her voice would not fade for him. That she was present for him as a memory, anyway. It wasn’t enough, but it was something.

Henry was my friend right away.

Jace took some time to warm up.

And Damian…

At first, I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to have anything with Damian at all. There were so many things that seemed raw and sore when I poked at them, hidden things that made me feel angry and sad. I had not dealt with the depths of my feelings towards this man. Every time I thought I was done with it, I’d turn over some new stone in the soil of my heart, and I would feel fresh pain.

So, for a time, neither of us made any effort.

But then there were just little overtures. At first, he’d never be around when I came to pick up Henry. But then, he started to be there to hand off his son, and he would smile at me and say that he was glad that I was doing this, that Henry looked forward to it.

And then one day, he asked if he could read Opal’s memoir, and I handed it over to him.

He called me three days later.

I didn’t pick up. I remember being in the studio, working on something in acrylics, the river reflecting the sunset, and seeing it and thinking I couldn’t talk to him and also that I needed to mix the colors before everything dried.

I hated how long it took oils to dry, but I was often annoyed at how quickly acrylics dried. I knew there was some other medium somewhere in between, some kind of slow-drying acrylic paints? But it was an investment to buy a whole new set of paints, really, and I kept telling myself I’d do it when my other acrylics ran out. Which, of course, they kept doing at different intervals. I’ll just replace the black for now, I’d tell myself. At this rate, I was never going to try the other kind of paint.

Point being, I didn’t answer it.

He left a voicemail.