Part 5
Nora pushed a loose piece of bark into the fire with her boot. It blackened at one edge before the flame caught.
“Where?” she asked.
“The release plan allows a site within fifty miles. Somewhere with cover, prey, and room to move away from roads.” Denise waited until Nora looked up. “You’ve spent months watching what they need. I want your choice.”
Nora looked past her toward the dark woods.
“There’s a place I know.”
The choice required more than marking a map. The department reviewed the site, revised the transport plan, and worked through approvals for a pilot that had no easy category on its forms. Weather closed the access road during one proposed window. Another date fell through before a vehicle could be assigned.
Nora stayed on under the program, maintaining the increasingly distant observation routine. The wolves no longer relied on regular feeding. Her work became mostly records and checks, keeping them under supervision while the formal release remained unsettled.
Summer passed. Snow returned to the high ground. By the time the last approval came, the date available to them was February ninth.
Four years since Caleb’s death. One year since she had stopped for the wolves.
Nora packed the cabin slowly. Among her notebooks and spare clothes was a small carving wrapped in a towel: three wolves, their backs rubbed smooth with fine sandpaper. She had made it during the long evenings by the stove, cutting a little, stopping, and trying again until the three bodies stood together on a single base.
On release morning, the state team helped secure the transport crates in her pickup. The yearling males filled theirs now. Nora checked the fastenings with Denise, listened to the final instructions, and drove toward the highway.
The day was cold but clear enough to see the slopes above the road. She pulled into the turnout near mile 62, where the approved opening led directly into forest on the memorial side of the highway.
The pine stood where it always had. Snow rested along the top arm of the white cross.
Nora lowered the tailgate and positioned the unloading ramp. Her gloves fumbled at the first fastening, so she stopped and held her hands still against the crate until she could manage it.
Then she opened the doors and moved away.
Vesper came first. She paused at the threshold, taking in the air, before descending to the packed snow. Her head turned toward the road and then toward the trees. She stood for a moment near the ground where Nora had found her.
Flint followed with an impatient shift of his shoulders. Reed came after him, his pale coat thick and clean. They moved easily down the ramp, no longer needing to be lifted, warmed, or coaxed through another breath.
At the edge of the opening, all three stopped.
Nora stood beside the truck with her arms at her sides. She wanted to say their names. She wanted to tell them what those months had been, how many mornings she had risen because she had work they needed her to do.
She pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth and stayed quiet.
Vesper took a step toward the forest, then turned her head. Her eyes met Nora’s across the short distance. Nora knew she could make anything she needed out of that look. She didn’t try to sort it out.
The wolf lifted her muzzle and howled.
Flint answered first, Reed a moment later. The three voices carried over the roadside and rose against the slope beyond it. Nora’s hands opened inside her gloves.
Then Vesper turned. Her sons went with her, and the trees received them one at a time.
Nora kept watching until there was nothing left to follow.
Light snow had started by the time she walked to the cross. She knelt and laid the sunflowers beneath it, then unwrapped the carving. A little dust from the towel clung to one wooden back. She brushed it off with her thumb and placed the three wolves beside Caleb’s flowers.
She rested a hand against the pine, below the cross.
As she rose to leave, a distant call came through the trees. Two more joined it. Fainter now, farther up the mountain.
Nora stayed beside the tree until the last note faded.
She expected the familiar struggle when she pulled onto the highway: the tight chest, the cold sweat, the need to get past the curve before she could breathe. Instead she found herself keeping an ordinary grip on the wheel. She took the turn slowly and let out a long breath on the straightaway.
Twenty miles later, she stopped at a truck plaza.
She parked away from the pumps, left the engine running, and sat with her coat unzipped in the warm cab. For three hours she watched snow gather on the vehicles around her. Once she picked up her phone and looked at Denise’s number, wanting someone to tell her she had done the right thing.
She put the phone back down.
When she finally drove home to Alderwick, the sky was dark. She unlocked the house, set her keys on their hook, and walked past the kitchen without turning on a light.
At Caleb’s bedroom, she stopped.
She had kept the room unchanged for four years. Until now, she had left its door closed and managed its preservation from the hallway, asking for nothing to be moved, nothing to be put away. The brass knob was cold when she closed her hand around it.
She turned it and went inside.
The room smelled of paper, dust, and the laundry soap she had used when his bedding was still in the weekly wash. His books leaned against one another on the shelf. An action figure lay on its side near the bed, one arm pointing beneath the dresser.
Nora sat on the mattress.
For a while she covered her face and cried. She didn’t struggle to stop, and she didn’t look at the clock. When she could breathe easily again, she lowered her hands and looked around her son’s room.
“I’m always going to miss you,” she said. “But I have to stay alive, Caleb.”
She sat a little longer, then straightened the fallen action figure before leaving the door open.
Her leave from the hardware store was nearly exhausted. The next morning she called the owner and asked for more time, explaining only what she could explain without losing her nerve. Afterward, she drove to the county animal shelter.
The front runs were full of motion. Puppies bounced against gates, and younger dogs hurried forward at every passing footstep. Nora walked slowly, speaking to the volunteer who showed her through, until they reached a quieter section at the rear.
A black Labrador mix sat on a thin blanket in the corner of a run. Gray covered his muzzle, and his eyes had the cloudy look of an old dog. He watched her without getting up.
Nora stopped.
“That’s Barney,” the volunteer said. “His owner died a few months ago. The family couldn’t take him.” She glanced at the clipboard. “He’s gentle. Has some arthritis, but his medication helps.”
“How long has he been here?”
The volunteer told her, then added that most visitors wanted puppies. She didn’t say the rest until Nora looked at her.
“At his age, we may not find anyone.”
Barney shifted his front paws and rested his chin over them.
Nora reached for the adoption form.
“He’s coming with me…”
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