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Carter stood with Kelly next to a grill. They were close together. As I watched, Kelly laid his head on Carter’s shoulder. The timber wolf sat on Carter’s other side, stretching his nose toward the meat on the grill. Carter tapped the tip of his nose with pair of tongs. The wolf growled but didn’t try again.
“It’s Ox’s birthday,” I said.
“It is,” Elizabeth agreed. “A big one. He turns thirty tomorrow. We’re celebrating today because it seemed right. Tradition, you know.”
“I don’t have a present for him.”
“I think you’ll find that you being here is more precious than any gift he could hope to receive.”
“And besides,” Jessie said easily, “you can just put your name on what I got for him. Say it’s from the both of us.”
“What did you get him?”
She grinned. “A shirt I found online. Three wolves howling at the moon. It’s awful. I can’t wait to see the look on his fac
e.”
How easy they made it sound. “Last year.”
Elizabeth and Jessie exchanged a look. “What about last year?” Jessie asked.
I put my hands on the edge of the sink. “Did you celebrate then too?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” Of course they would have. I’d only been gone a few months, if what they’d told me was correct. And then, they wouldn’t have been looking for me. They still would have thought me a traitor.
Elizabeth was behind me. I hadn’t even heard her move. Her chin was on my shoulder, her lips near my ear. She said, “It wasn’t the same. Nothing was the same. No matter what happened, no matter everything that came before and everything that followed, it wasn’t the same. For any of us.”
I looked down at the sink. “I don’t know if it’ll ever be the same again.”
“Maybe not. But we start again. Because even if everything is burnt to a crisp, we can always try again and again. Jessie, I think the carrots are done.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jessie said.
I closed my eyes.
Joe and Ox came walking down the road, hand in hand. I was standing on the front porch, my nails digging into the railing.
“All right?” Joe asked as they stopped near the stairs.
I shrugged. “Happy birthday, Ox.”
“Thanks, Robbie. I—”
“The people in Green Creek don’t know what I did, do they.”
Ox tilted his head. He didn’t act surprised or like he didn’t know what I was talking about. “No. Why do you ask?”
“They weren’t scared of me. When I went there. They all seemed happy to see me.”
Joe nodded slowly. “We thought it was better that way. In case you ever came back.”
I laughed bitterly. “Why? You thought I was a monster. A murderer. And I guess that wasn’t too far from the truth. Who was he? The Omega I killed.”
Joe said, “Maybe we could do this later—”
“His name was Alan,” Ox said, and Joe sighed. “He’d been infected by another Omega in Kansas. His pack was small. He left them because he didn’t want to hurt them.”
