Part 7
The next morning Beth called the store to ask for a little more leave while she decided what came next. Afterward she drove to the county animal shelter.
She walked past the puppies and stopped at an older black Lab mix lying on a blanket near the back. His muzzle was gray, his eyes a little cloudy. He raised his head when she stopped, then waited to see whether she meant to stay.
“Otis,” the volunteer said. “His owner died over the winter. The family couldn’t take him.”
Beth crouched beside the run. Otis got up slowly, favoring his hind legs, and came to sniff the place where her hand rested outside the gate. When the volunteer let them meet, he leaned against Beth’s knee with enough weight to make her shift her balance.
She read the notes about his arthritis and asked what his daily care would involve. Then she asked for the adoption form.
Otis needed breakfast whether she had slept or not. He needed his prescribed medication, short walks, and a place to lie where the floor didn’t pull at his feet. Beth bought a long runner for the hall, and soon it held a scattering of black hair she was forever meaning to vacuum.
She began going out in the mornings for a short run of her own, then came back for his slower walk. Some days she spent more time waiting for him to investigate a fence post than she had spent running. He seemed to consider that entirely reasonable.
That summer she resigned from the store and used part of her remaining savings to begin formal coursework in wildlife rehabilitation. Biology was harder than she had expected; she studied at the kitchen table while Otis snored beneath it, occasionally pushing her chair with one paw. She would need supervised experience as well, but first there were unfamiliar terms to learn and pages she had to read twice. When she wanted to quit for the evening, she often remembered how long Wren had taken to finish a feed and turned one more page.
Elena called in September while Beth was studying. They talked about the classes and Otis before Elena passed along a field report: two experienced hunters had found tracks of three wolves traveling together about thirty miles northeast of the release tract, with recent kills in the same area.
She couldn’t verify the animals’ identities, Elena said, but the report was consistent with Willow’s family. Beth wrote down the place and thanked her. After the call she stood for a moment with the pen in her hand, then heard Otis dragging his bowl and went to fill it.
Through the winter, Beth finished her first courses and began supervised volunteer shifts at a local wildlife center. June worked the same mornings and made room for her at lunch, where a missing fork or a leaking container could have them both laughing. By early spring they knew enough about each other’s lives for June to mention a friend who was also single. Beth heard her out and agreed to coffee.
The date was pleasant and awkward. Driving home, she felt the old guilt rise after remembering a joke she had enjoyed, and let it ride with her without turning the truck around. Otis was waiting beside his bowl when she opened the door.
On May fifth, five years after Danny’s death, Beth took the familiar highway toward the pass. Beside the sunflowers lay a new carving. This one held four wolves: a mother, two grown sons, and a small pup for Danny, cut from the remaining piece of wood.
She secured the flowers beneath the cross and placed the carving where she wanted it. The little pup sat slightly apart from the others because the wood had split when she tried to move him closer. She had sanded the rough place smooth and left him there.
Beth told Danny about Otis’s snoring and a test she had barely passed. She told him she still sometimes reached for a cereal box he used to like, then remembered halfway down the aisle. The wind moved the sunflower wrapping against the bark while she talked.
“It’s still hard,” she said. “I’m doing more, though.”
On her way back to the truck, Beth saw three wolves inside the opposite tree line. The female stood in the middle, silver along her shoulders, with a dark male to one side and a paler one to the other. Beth stopped with her keys in her hand.
Willow took one step out of the deeper shade. Flint stayed close to her shoulder; Wren stood slightly behind him, tall enough now that there was scarcely any difference between the brothers. Beth knew the familiar arrangement and raised her eyes from one face to the next.
She did not cross the road. She couldn’t know how often they used this stretch of forest, or what had brought them here that morning. They had a whole life among the ridges that she had never seen.
Beth raised her gloved hand. “Thank you,” she said, too softly for the words to travel far.
For another moment they remained where they were. Then Willow turned, and her sons followed her into the trees. Beth watched the place where they had stood until the wind moved a branch and the opening was only an opening again.
She cried in the truck, smiling as she tried to get the key into the ignition. By the time she pulled onto the highway, she could see clearly. Otis would need his walk when she got home, and she had promised June she would call.
Near Helena, Beth stopped for coffee. She sat by the window while a woman outside tried to open an umbrella and a delivery driver held the door with his elbow. Her hands had stopped shaking around the mug.
She finished the coffee and put on her coat. In the pocket beside her keys was an old dog biscuit, broken in half. Beth left it there and walked across the parking lot to her truck.