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The sight of the plaque now, as he entered the heavy, gilded doors made his stomach bunch and twist, the ghosts of his forebears crowding into the marble-floored foyer, aghast at every decision he’d made thus far.
“To what do I owe the pleasure of this unexpected hour? We didn’t push breakfast up, did we? Don’t tell me you’re ready to take up your mother’s offer and move back home.”
He wasn’t sure what expression his face had pulled automatically, but his father’s deep laughter set his clenching guts at ease, at least somewhat. Lowell dropped into the armchair in front of the mahogany desk, the anxiety of the previous months leaving him exhausted.
That he and his brothers all had the Hemming look was not news to him — his mother had often joked about merely being a conduit for a superior bloodline, and the cluster of family photos atop the piano in the front room of his childhood home showed the six of them looking like clones of varying ages and hair lengths — but it wasn’t until he’d been forced home this past year, the fatigue of the road and his lifestyle and the stress over being sidelined showing on his face, that Lowell appreciated just how much he resembled his father.
He and his brothers shared the same dark eyes and dark hair, and Lowell had noticed with startling clarity how their eyes crinkled identically, smile lines creasing his forehead and around his mouth in just the same way, and had found a handful of silver hairs at his temples, in the same pattern as Jackson and Grayson, exactly the same as their father.
He wondered if his own son or daughter would bear the Hemming look, and tried to imagine a little girl with Moriah’s sparkling green eyes, her dark hair pulled into a ribbon.Why does it matter? You won’t be around to see it, you won’t have anything to do with it. They’ll probably figure a way to make her blonde.
“I need your advice,” he blurted before he could second guess his reason for coming in early, before their breakfast date, hands tightening over his knees. “I’m–I’m trying to help a friend, and I don’t want to tell them the wrong thing. It’s. . . important.”
His father cocked his head, holding Lowell’s eye for an interminable moment, just enough time for him to shrink, before gesturing for him to continue.
“So . . . I have this friend. She wants . . .” He sucked in a deep breath, forcing himself to get it over with. “She wants to have a baby. With a werewolf. But not to co-parent or anything, just a baby. She’s had trouble conceiving before and I guess she’s, um, read that her chances at conception are higher or something.”
Another dark chuckle came across the desk, and Lowell took a moment to swallow hard.
“Yes, I know all about that. Believe me, six of you eating me out of house and home was never the plan. So what sort of advice are you trying to give this friend?”
Heat burned up his neck at his father’s cocked eyebrow, and he steeled his nerves before continuing.
“She doesn’t want to raise the baby as a wolf. You know they have all those suppression drugs now, and she said her doctors told her it’s completely safe. She’s pretty sold on the idea, but I just . . .” his hands raised in a gesture of helplessness, voice breaking off, feeling his composure fishtail, “I’m just not sure it’s right. She wants me to tell her she’s doing the right thing, wants me to reassure her, but I just don’t know that itisthe right thing.”
Across the table, Jack steepled his fingers, pressing them to his mouth. His forehead had creased as he listened, the same way his own did, Lowell thought. An image of Jackson’s little boy passed through his mind, sharp dark eyes and messy dark hair; ice cream-smeared face and gap-toothed smile, and he knew his nephew would one day feel the freedom of packed earth beneath his feet and the wind rushing in his ears, freedom that came with the monthly turn. It was a preposterous, unthinkable thing in a family of werewolves.But this child won’t be family.
They won’t have anything to do with you or this community.
“You already know my feelings on artificial suppression,” Jack began slowly, and Lowell nodded, knowing well. “So I’ll spare you the lecture. I’m assuming this friend of yours is—”
“Human,” Lowell supplied, wincing when his father grunted.
“I suspected as much, that’s typical. Well . . . I would caution her that raising a werewolf is no easy feat, whether she’s medically suppressing the turn or not. Trapp and his temper nearly broke me. When you and Owen came along, if it hadn’t been for your mother, I would have left you in a box next to the river.”
Lowell huffed in outrage, but his father only shrugged unapologetically.
“You were monsters. All of you. Always getting up to something, breaking something, jumping out of trees, burying each other. Jackson pushed you off the roof when you were five, do you even remember that?”
Lowell laughed, thinking of the text received on their group chat just a few days earlier from Jackson.
On this day in history, I pushed Lowell off the roof and he broke his leg.
If I hadn’t, you’d probably be a gym teacher.
You’re welcome
Jack scowled at his laughter.
“Trapp convinced Owen he could grow a money tree in his stomach if he swallowed a fistful of dimes. Grayson fucked theentiretown when he was in high school. And you?Youare the reason I drink. And this isn’t even getting into the pranks. The five of you have collectively broken nearly every bone a single body contains. The full moon was the only time Ididn’tworry. Your friend might have the best doctors, and it’s true that suppression technology has come a long way . . . but you can’t harness the wind. If she’s not ready to raise a werewolf, she shouldn’t be having one, because she’s going to have her hands full, with or without chemical intervention. This isn’t some nebulous thing that exists on a spectrum. The wolf will always be there, just under the skin, only now it doesn’t have an outlet.”
Lowell let out a shuddering breath at his father’s words, nodding. It was what he already knew, but it was good to hear the reinforcement of what he suspected.
“What else?” A note of familiar impatience crept into his father’s voice, and Lowell felt his fists bunch, felt himself shrinking to that frustrated 10-year-old all over again. “You didn’t come here for me to tell you what you already know, Lowell.”
“How do you know?” He demanded, feeling his hackles raise in aggravation. “Maybe that’s all I came for. You don’t know.”
“I know, because I know you. I know you because you are as transparent and predictable as all of your brothers, and just as big of a pain in my ass, if I’m being honest. Do you know what your problem is, Lowell? You think you’re special. You think you’re different. You think you’re the only person in this family who has wanted to get away from this name, you think you’re the only one who feels crushed under it. Do you think I don’t understand the impulse to run? Do you think I wanted to stay in this town? That I wanted to raise my boys here, under this microscope for these jackals?”
