Memoirs of a Girl Wolf (27 page)

              A few days later it was Christmas morning and I was getting ready to leave Phoenix’s cabin. I hoped I’d get home before my family woke up, so that I could be there to open presents, but knowing my brothers, I predicted they were already awake and tearing into their gifts.

              Phoenix no longer had to walk with me to my car. I could make the walk with my eyes closed. We both knew I was growing stronger and excelling at a fast rate. I was more confident I would be reaching consciousness soon and decided to stop stressing about it.

              “What are you doing for today? I asked, before leaving.

              “What’s today?”

              “Christmas,” I said in surprise.

              Phoenix shrugged. “I don’t do anything for holidays.”

              Frowning, I tried to interpret his emotions, but as always, he was impossible to read. I closed my eyes and tried harder until he asked me what I was doing.

              “Shhh, I’m trying to feel your emotions,” I said.

              “Well, stop. Empathy only works on the people you care about,” he replied.

              I opened my eyes, feeling a little awkward, I quickly changed the subject and invited him to my house, partly out of concern that he thought I didn’t care about him just because I couldn’t sense his emotions.

“You’re welcome to come for dinner. We’ll be eating about one. There’s gonna be a ton of food and pie,” I said.

              He turned away from me and lifted his hair to tie it into a hair tie. When he did, I noticed for the first time a symbol on the back of neck that looked like some type of scar or burn. I didn’t have a chance to ask him about it because when he turned back around he asked why I was still there.  I almost retracted my invitation but instead I reminded him the time we were eating and then took off through the woods back to my car.

              I arrived home about seven and just as I predicted my brothers were awake, but Mom had made them wait for me. When I walked into the house, I found both my brothers sitting at the base of the tree starting lustfully at the shiny presents that had doubled since the day before.

              I heard Mom in the kitchen singing along to Jessica Simpson’s rendition of “Little Drummer Boy” and flipping bacon in an iron skillet at the stove for our breakfast. As soon as I came into the house, though, stomping my feet on the matt by the door so as not to track in snow, both my brothers squealed in delight and out to Mom, asking permission to open presents. This was of more importance to them than inquiring where I was arriving home from, but maybe Mom had told them an excuse or they didn’t care. They whined and whimpered when Mom told them to wait. They looked up at me with narrowed eyes, scowling as they blamed me for their impatience.

              I peeled off my coat and ran up the stairs to my room where I quickly changed into my flannel pajamas and pulled slippers on to my feet. I rushed back downstairs just as Mom appeared holding round plates with scrambled eggs, bacon, and waffles for us to eat while opening presents. After setting the plates on the coffee table, she walked over to me and hugged me.

              “Merry Christmas, sweetie, we missed you last night,” She said, gingerly stroking my hair.

              “No, we didn’t” Josh retorted, sticking out his tongue.

              “Let them open their gifts,” I said, plopping onto the couch and picking up the plate of food.

              Mom disappeared once more and returned with two mugs of coffee. She handed one to me and then sitting next to me, she nodded her head in permission to begin opening gifts.

For the next hour, we took turns opening our presents, and I tried my best to act grateful and enthusiastic, but really I didn’t care. It all seemed so trivial just like my school studies had become. Compared to what I was going through at the moment, a hair straightener didn’t really help anything. It didn’t help me gain consciousness, it didn’t help the strain that had been placed on my relationship, and it didn’t stop Orgon from tracking me—or trying to, I still couldn’t figure out why he was in Canada. All the sleek, hot pink hair straightener did was straighten my hair, and as I developed more in this new way, I cared less about my physical appearance. My hair looked fine brushed through a couple times. My face looked find with no makeup. My clothes didn’t need to be trendy or expensive. I felt for the first time, confident in what I looked like without all the maintenance I used to spend on myself.  Now, I just wished I could also be confident in what I was. But for Mom’s sake, I pretended to be a sixteen old teenager and I hugged the straightener to my chest and forced a big smile.

By mid-morning, my brothers had fallen asleep hugging toys. After Mom had showered and changed out of her coffee stained, purple robe and into a festive bright green sweater with gold sequin Christmas trees on the front, and I changed into a new cream sweater dress over black leggings, we started cooking Christmas lunch. She had prepared most of it the night before, so this allowed us time to drink hot mugs of cider and talk since all we had to do was stick dishes in the oven or baste the turkey.

“It makes me so sad,” Mom said, with her back to me as chopped ginger for a cranberry salad, “that you miss out on so much.”

“I don’t,” I replied. She had been doing this a lot lately. Making me feel guilty for spending my nights in the Upper Peninsula. I felt like I had surpassed Mom in my understanding of my new identity. In some ways, I regarded her as a naive child who thought that just by believing she could “cure” me I would magically wake up back to normal, but I knew that this wasn’t possible. I had to be clearheaded for the both of us and for the safety of my family. Phoenix was right. I had to stop pouting about it and embrace my new lifestyle, but Mom still resisted this in every way she could. Recently, it had been snide comments and pitiful looks out the window as she would watch me drive away in the early afternoon for my night of training.

“You missed Christmas Eve and now you’ll miss Christmas night. You’ll miss watching
The Christmas Story
with us, and eating left overs, and playing Apples to Apples,” she trailed off.

“I’ll take some left overs with me,” I said.

“I suppose you can take a movie too. You guys probably get bored out there,” she said.

Her comment irritated me. I knew it shouldn’t and that it was just Mom being naïve again, but I realized how completely ignorant Mom was of my life to think Phoenix and I would watch a movie when we spent all of our time working on me gaining consciousness. I found her to be ridiculous. The conversation confirmed any doubt I had left over that I had made the right choice when I picked Phoenix over her panic room in the attic.

“I’m thinking, though, of sending the boys to Grandma and Grandpa’s,” Mom said, she turned from the counter and held the knife. she had been using to chop ginger, tightly in her left hand as she scanned my face for my reaction.

“Fun. For the rest of break?” I asked. I walked over to her and stole a couple pieces of the ginger which sat in a pile at the end of the cutting board, and dropped the sweet pieces into my open mouth.

“No, for the rest of the semester,” she said.

Coughing, I stared at her perplexed. “Why?” I finally managed to ask after my choked coughing had ceased.

She set the knife down and picked up the cutting board; tipping it slightly over the mixture for the salad and gently dumping the pieces of ginger into the bowl. “I think it may be best just while you’re training and I’m traveling.”

My heart dropped and tightened. I could hear in her voice the real reason she wanted to send the twins away. She didn’t trust me. Had she heard about the attack?

“Mom, I’m not going to hurt you guys,” I said, firmly.

Mom shrugged. She didn’t believe me. “It’s not you, honey. I’m gonna be traveling a lot and I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”

“Traveling? You mean you’re gonna see Viktor,” I asked, trying to hide my disgust when I said his name.

Mom held up her finger and said, “I need to call him. Thanks for reminding me, but no I have another lead on a—”

“Mom,” I groaned. “It’s not gonna be anything.”

“Stop being negative. It is a solid lead and I am close to finding this Shaman. Anyway, I think it just makes sense for them to go stay with my parents.”

“But school,” I said.

Mom shrugged again. She had it all figured out. They would homeschool. Grandma was a retired teacher and grandpa still taught Literature at Saginaw University so mom decided that between the two of them they could handle homeschooling my brothers. I thought the whole thing was a little impulsive, but Mom’s obvious concern about me caused me to feel a little insecure about myself. Maybe I was still unpredictable and dangerous and maybe this was a situation where I needed to swallow my pride and respect Mom’s decision as a parent, so I smiled a tense smile and nodded my head in support.

Eric came into the kitchen to announce that someone was at the front door. Mom and I looked at each other.

At the same time, I said, “Phoenix,” as she said, “Reign.” We looked at each other with wide eyes.

“Reign?” I asked.

“I kind of know you’ve been dating him and I thought if you’re gonna date him then I should get to know him, right? I invited him for lunch. Why did you say Phoenix?” she asked, trying her best to hide the disgust when she said his name.

“I invited him for lunch,” I said, my voice was high in concern.

“Without asking me?” Mom accused.

“Mom, Reign?” I hissed.

We stared at each other a moment longer then left to answer the door. My heart thudded in my chest and my forehead started to perspire. For weeks, I had successfully kept my two lives separate. Reign during the day and Phoenix at night. Neither knew the other existed. Phoenix knew I had a boyfriend, but I saw no reason in introducing him to Reign or for Phoenix to be a part of my normal life. I kept Phoenix from Reign for the obvious reason that I had no idea how to explain Phoenix to Reign and now they were possibly both coming over for Christmas dinner and I was freaking out.

I held my breath as Mom opened the front door and when I saw Reign standing before me holding the Christmas tin I had left at his house days before, now filled with fudge he had made, I released a relieved sigh and lurched forward, wrapping my arms around him and then quickly pulling away embarrassed because Mom was still standing by the door. She adopted her fake hostess voice and ushered Reign inside introducing herself and thanking him a thousand times for the fudge even taking a bite of one and rubbing her stomach, complimenting him on the chocolate fudge all the way to the kitchen where she disappeared and didn’t return.

Josh and Eric attached themselves to Reign and hovered around us, spotlighting the conversation and ignoring me completely. They idolized Reign and monopolized him and I sat on the floor of the living room and played with a motorized car that Josh received from Santa while they asked Reign if he liked video games.

Soon Mom called to us that it was time to eat. We took our seats around the table decorated with red and green skinny candles adorned with dancing flames and in front of us on the snow flake patterned table cloth was a spread of fine china filled with appetizing hot food.

“What are you smiling about?” Reign asked, leaning toward me. He took my hand from under the table and laced his fingers through mine.

“Just happy,” I said, and I was. It was a beautiful snowy afternoon. The sun was out and bright. Reign was next to me. The food looked great. My family surrounded me, and best of all Phoenix hadn’t taken me up on my invitation. I would avoid having my two worlds colliding, but then just as I released my hand from Reign’s warm hold in order to unfold my red, cloth napkin and place it in my lap, the doorbell rang.

26

              Oblivious to the others, Mom and I exchanged a look. Hers was a stressed smile and mine I’m sure was a look of dread.
Maybe it wasn’t him
, I told myself as I pushed back from the table and ran to the front door while Mom tried to engage Reign in forced chatter to distract him, or herself, from the very clear fact that a visitor we hadn’t exactly planned on had arrived ringing the doorbell.

              It was him, and I knew before opening the heavy, wooden door because I could hear his heat pounding. He was nervous, and I could smell him. He had his own smell like an old library book with tattered, worn pages and small black print that had been read and loved over and over again, but never owned only borrowed. His nervousness, though, made me giddy and distracted me from how nervous I was because this was the first time I had ever known Phoenix to experience any type of emotion other than his cold stare and blank expression with his chin raised and his arms crossed. He was always closed off.

              So I opened the door with a smile which slid off my face into a soundless gasp as I took in the surprising appearance of Phoenix who wore wrinkled navy blue suit pants and a button up collared white shirt, the sleeves of which were rolled to his elbows, and carelessly tucked into the waist of the navy blue pants. His hair was combed, parted, and tied back in a low pony tail. Little beads of sweat could be seen above his frown.