Lone Wolf A Novel (21 page)

Then he moved behind me, leaving the pups in front. I started to sweat—it just didn’t feel comfortable having a wild animal somewhere I couldn’t see him—and in that instant the wolf’s jaws closed around my neck from behind. I could feel his long teeth scraping against my jugular.

The female pup darted forward and took a sizable nip at my knee at that moment, just as the big male let go of my neck. When he sauntered back to the two remaining wolves that were waiting at the edge of the clearing, the pups in tow, I did something I still cannot believe I had the nerve to do.

I followed.

I was on my hands and knees, stumbling, awkward. Twice, the big male looked over his shoulder and clearly saw me behind him. I figured he could very easily teach me a lesson if he thought that was a bad idea, but instead, he just kept going. I had never been this close to the wild pack before; I could smell the mud caked into their paws and the wet musk of their coats.

Of the two wolves that had stayed back from me, one was the alpha female. She was smaller, with black lines marking her back and tail and the top of her head, thick as if she’d been striped with paint. Staring at me, she bared her teeth, curled her tongue.

I was about twenty-five yards away when she started growling.

Immediately, the pups ran to her side and glowered at me. The big male stepped between us, but she snapped at him and
he fell into line, too. The alpha female flattened her ears and barked, low and threatening. Then she turned and took the others back through the tree line.

The big male hesitated, capturing my gaze.

A lot has been said about the stare of a gray wolf. It’s level, measured, eerily human. A wolf is born with blue eyes, but after six or eight weeks, they turn golden. And if you’ve ever been lucky enough to look into a wolf’s eyes, you know that they penetrate. They look at you, and you realize they are taking a snapshot of every fiber of your being. That they know you better even than you know yourself.

The wolf and I sized each other up. Then he dipped his head, turned, and loped into the woods.

I didn’t see the pack for another six weeks. From time to time I heard them calling, but it wasn’t a rallying call to replace a missing member anymore—just a locating call to make sure they kept other packs and animals at bay. My invitation had been revoked. I had replayed in my mind what had happened between us, whether that last look from the big male had been his way of communicating to me that I had been given a chance, and clearly had not measured up. But the fact that he hadn’t chosen to rip out my throat made me believe this couldn’t be the case. That even if the alpha female wasn’t very fond of me, more than half her pack was.

They appeared on the first day that felt like spring—when it was warm enough for me to break through the ice of the stream to drink without having to use a rock or stick, when I had unzipped my coveralls so that the breeze could cool me. Just like before, they came silently, a wall of gray mist. I immediately dropped so that my body was lower than theirs. Even the alpha female inched closer.

They were energetic and rowdy, more active than the last time they’d come. I felt an overwhelming relief that they were back, that I wasn’t alone in this wilderness. The big male came running at me again, as he had weeks before, and pinned me on my back with his full weight. In this vulnerable pose, I was offering my life to him, and frankly I was so happy to see him again that I wasn’t even as terrified as I probably should have been.

Maybe it was because my guard was down, maybe it was because the world felt like it was thawing and I was cocky after surviving the winter—there are a dozen reasons why I did not anticipate what happened next. The big wolf was suddenly gone, and the alpha female had taken his spot. Her front paws held my shoulders down on the ground, her weight was on my lower body. She was an inch from my face, and she was snarling and snapping at me. When the male moved closer, she lunged and bit him, and he slunk away.

Her breath came in hot gusts; her saliva streaked my forehead, but every time I thought she was going to tear into my flesh, she pulled the punch. I stayed perfectly still for the five minutes it was going on, and then she released me. She loped away, but instead of vanishing into the woods, she lay down on a rock in the sun. The big male settled beside her.

I was amazed that they had chosen to keep company with me, instead of disappearing like usual. And then, to my shock, the other three wolves left the protection of the trees and came into the clearing. They stretched out on either side of me. The younger female yawned and crossed her front paws.

We weren’t touching, but I could feel the heat of their bodies, and I was warmer than I’d been in months. I did not move for over an hour. Lying between them in the pool of sunlight, I listened to the sound of their breathing.

Unlike the wolves, I couldn’t sleep. Part of me was too excited; part of me kept glancing at the alpha female.

I realized she hadn’t been trying to kill me.

She’d been teaching me a lesson.

In those five minutes, I could have died. Instead, I was getting a new lease on life.

CARA

I’m being discharged. Now that my fever’s down and it seems I will survive this shoulder surgery, they want the bed for someone more needy. The bad news is that I cannot go back to school yet because I still can’t do things like hold a fork or a pencil or unzip my own jeans to pee. The good news is that I will be staying at my mom’s, and will have plenty of time to research traumatic brain injury and other cases like my father’s. Other cases where the patients, against all odds, have gotten better.

My mother promises that as soon as she gets the final papers from the nurse, we can go downstairs so I can see my father before I leave the hospital.

For the past hour I have been ready to go. I’m sitting on the bed, showered and dressed, chomping at the bit. My IV line has already been removed. From what the nurses’ station has told my mother, the paperwork is ready; it’s just a matter of my orthopedic surgeon coming by to give me discharge instructions, and to officially sign us out.

My mom is on her iPhone with Joe, telling him that we’ll be coming home. Her eyes are dancing in a way that they haven’t the whole time we’ve been cooped up here. She wants to get
back to her old life, too. It’s just a little easier for her than it is for me.

When the door opens, she stands up. “Gotta go, honey,” she says, hanging up. We both turn, expecting my doctor, but instead Trina the social worker walks in with a woman I’ve never seen before in a pencil skirt and a kelly-green silk blouse.

“Cara,” Trina says, “this is Abby Lorenzo. She’s a lawyer for the hospital.” Immediately I panic—thinking of the two cops, and the blood test that showed I’d been drinking that night. My mouth goes dry, my tongue feels as thick as a mattress.

Does this mean they’ve figured out what happened?

“I wanted to ask you about your father,” the lawyer says, and in that instant I am sure that I’ve turned to stone, that I can no longer escape.

“You seem upset,” Trina says, frowning. “Edward said you two had talked.”

“I haven’t talked to him since yesterday,” I answer.

My mother puts her hand on mine, squeezes. “My son told me that he and Cara decided that Edward would make the medical decisions for their father from here on.”

“What?” I blink at her. “Are you
kidding
me?”

The lawyer looks at Trina. “So you
haven’t
given consent to terminate your father’s life support today?”

I don’t even think. I just stumble off the bed, barefoot, and use my good shoulder to shove my way between the two women. And I run. To the stairwell, down to the ICU floor, clutching my bad arm to my chest and fighting off the pain I feel with each jostle and turn.

Because this time, when I save my father, I’m not going to screw it up.

LUKE

My Native American friends call it the dance of death: the moment that two predators size each other up. For a wolf in the natural world, the brain doesn’t have a choice. It doesn’t get to say,
There’s a bear coming and I’m going to die.
Instead, it thinks,
What do I know about this bear? What do I know about my environment? What members of my family do I need to protect myself?
Suddenly the bear is no longer a threat. He knows that you’re a predator, and you know that he’s a predator. You respect each other’s ground, turning very slowly, eyeball to eyeball. The space between you is the difference between life and death. Does he see you as a prey animal? Or does he see you as something that can injure him as he comes after you? If you can put that doubt in his mind, chances are, he will leave you be.

EDWARD

She is a five-foot, three-inch storm: red-faced, tear-streaked, hair flying out wild. And she’s coming right for me.

“Stop!” Cara says. “He’s a liar!”

The doctors have gone, ready to be paged once we get the attorney’s permission. Corinne has been anxiously pacing; there is a narrow window of opportunity for organ donation that is slipping away moment by moment. I was just doing what Cara had asked. She wanted this to be over, but she was too close to my father; I understood that. It was like the little kid who holds out his arm for a vaccination and shuts his eyes tight, because he doesn’t want to look until it’s all over.

But apparently Cara’s changed her mind. Before she can scratch my eyes out, a nurse grabs her around the waist. Corinne steps forward. “Are you saying that you didn’t give consent to the organ donation?”

“It’s not enough to kill him?” Cara yells at me. “You have to cut him into pieces, too?”

Maybe I should have asked my sister if she wanted to be here. Based on what she’d said yesterday, I figured she wouldn’t have been emotionally capable of it. This outburst only reinforces that.

“It’s not what Dad wanted. He told me so.”

By now, the hospital lawyer and Trina and my mother have reached the room. “Well, that’s not what Dad told
me,
” I say.

“When?” she scoffs. “You haven’t lived with us for six years!”

“All right, you two,” the lawyer says. “Nothing’s going to happen today, I’ll tell you that much. I’ll ask for a temporary guardian to be appointed to review your father’s case.”

Cara visibly relaxes. She falls back against my mother, who is staring at me as if she’s never seen me before.

What I do next, I do because I have a letter burning in my breast pocket that’s validation.

Or because I know better than Cara how you have to live with the choices you make.

Or because, for once, I want to be the son my father wanted.

I lean over, bracing my hands on my knees, as if I’m disappointed. Then I dive down to the linoleum, pushing aside the nurse who is sitting beside the machine that’s breathing for my father, waiting for a cue that isn’t going to come.

“I’m sorry,” I say out loud—to my father, my sister, myself—and I yank the plug of the ventilator from its socket.

If you call one wolf, you invite the pack.

—Bulgarian proverb

PART TWO

CARA

At first, when the alarm goes off, I don’t even realize what’s happened.

Then I look up from my mother’s shoulder and see Edward on his knees, still gripping the electrical cord that trails from the ventilator. He is holding the plug in his hand as if he cannot believe it is actually there.

I start to scream, and all hell breaks loose.

The nurse near Edward stumbles upright as another nurse calls for security. A burly orderly rushes into the room, shoving my mother out of the way as he tackles Edward. He slams Edward’s hand against the floor, and the electrical cord flies free; immediately, the nurse plugs the machine in again and hits the Reset button.

Maybe all of this takes twenty seconds. It’s the longest twenty seconds of my life.

I hold my breath until my father’s chest starts to rise and fall again, and then I give myself permission to burst into tears.

“Edward,” my mother gasps. “What were you thinking?”

Before he can answer, security arrives. Two guards stuffed like sausages into their uniforms grab Edward’s arms and haul
him upright. Dr. Saint-Clare runs into the room, short of breath. He bends over my father, immediately assessing the damage Edward’s done, as a nurse brings him up to speed.

I can feel my mother tensing behind me. “Where are you taking him?” she demands, trailing the officers as they start to drag Edward off. Abby Lorenzo, the hospital lawyer, follows them.

“Stop! Please. He’s been here round the clock, hardly sleeping,” my mother begs. “He wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“I can’t believe you’re defending him!” I say.