good name/opposable thumbs
He stayed as a wolf.
I didn’t fight it, didn’t try to tell him to shift back.
He followed me as I walked down the dirt road. It was cold, but the sky was blue. The moon was growing fatter, and I could feel it pulling at me. It was different here, in this place. When I was on the secret highways, it always felt wrong somehow. I’d sung for all the world to hear, but I’d been alone. No one sang back to me, no matter how hard I wished it so. It’d felt like grief.
The gravel crunched under my feet as I let my fingers trail along the trunks of trees on the side of the road.
“There’s a history here,” I told him. He was walking next to me, pressed up against my side. I didn’t push him away. “It’s mine.” Then, “Or maybe it’s ours. Maybe it belongs to you just as much as it belongs to me. You’re a Livingstone.”
He growled.
“A name is just a name.” I wished I could believe that. “But if not a Livingstone, then a Walsh. Or whoever the people were who took you in.” I inhaled deeply, sucking in the scents of the territory. “Or anyone else you want to be. You could just be Gavin. It’s a good name.”
He tilted his head at me, ears twitching. I thought he was smiling.
My face grew warm. “Shut up. Just… take the compliment.”
Yeah, definitely smiling. My skin itched.
A bird took flight, calling, calling, calling me. I watched as it flew away. “I’m trying to say it doesn’t matter. You can be whoever you want to be. Gordo is a Livingstone still because he wants to change what the name means. I’m a Bennett still because it was a gift from my father.” I looked toward the sky. “Even if it can feel like a curse.”
He pressed his nose against my hand.
“There’s a weight on us,” I told him. “But we don’t have to carry it alone. I forgot that. I’m going to do my best to never let that happen again. Jessie says we’re self-sacrificing assholes. She has a point. We’re headstrong. We make mistakes. But that’s what pack is for. To pick us back up when we fall.”
He bent his head toward the groun
d. When he rose again, he had a pinecone in his mouth. He nudged my hand until I took it from him. It was glistening with his saliva, and I barely grimaced. “Thank you?”
He took off into the forest. I heard him crashing through the underbrush. A low thrum emanated from him. It almost felt like happiness, tentative and slight. I continued on, knowing he would follow.
When I reached the end of the dirt road, he reappeared.
He carried more pinecones in his mouth.
He gave them all to me.
I inspected each one as he watched. I didn’t know what the hell I was supposed to do with these, but he seemed pleased when I put them in the pockets of my coat.
He fell in step beside me. Every now and then, he’d nose my pockets as if to make sure his gifts were still there.
WHEN WE GOT INTO TOWN, the townsfolk swarmed around us. They came out of their houses, out of their shops, all wanting to stop and shake my hand, to welcome me home. You’re a sight for sore eyes, they said. You’ve been missed. You’re in so much trouble for being so foolish. “Hello, Mr. Mayor,” they said, and it sounded so ridiculous. “Welcome back, Mr. Mayor.” They overwhelmed me, but I still felt a queer sense of pride.
Gavin cowered at first, trying to hide behind me. It wasn’t until a group of elderly women came from the diner that he started to relax. They had loved him before, always stopping to fuss over him.
Which is what they did now.
They told him how big he was.
How bright his eyes were.
“So pretty,” they said. “Look at you. You were gone and we were sad. Please don’t leave us again.” They petted him. They pressed their faces against his. They laughed when he snorted in their necks. They flicked his ears, and he growled playfully at them, tail wagging.
And then they were gone, laughing as they walked down the street, looking back at us and wiggling their fingers.
The bell rang overhead as we entered the diner. Dominique looked up from behind the counter and smiled. She rolled her eyes when a group of men shouted in joy at the sight of us, Will standing with a grunt and walking toward me, hand already extended. His grip was solid as he pumped my arm up and down. “Look what the wolf dragged in! Our illustrious mayor.”