“That’s okay. There’s this sensation, when you’re standing on the beach, your toes in the sand. The tide pulls at you as the waves rush back and forth. You’re standing in place, but it feels like you’re moving. And you are, in a sense. You’re sinking, the sand covering your feet. That’s what it felt like to me. I was immobile. And I was sinking, but it felt so right.” She cleared her throat as she sniffled. “Ox had this… presence about him, even then. He was the ocean. We were the sand. And Joe had seen it, seen fit to speak of it. Oh, he didn’t know what it meant. I don’t know what went through his head when he decided to gift Ox his voice after hiding it away for so long.”
“Candy canes and pinecones,” Gavin said. “Epic and awesome.”
Mom was startled into a laugh. “Yes. There was that. He’s told you?”
“I asked.”
“Did you?” She smiled at him, though it trembled. “How wonderful.” I loved her for not asking why he’d gone to Joe. I had a feeling she already knew. “I never wanted my son to stop speaking again. Which is why when he came to me and his father and asked if he could give Ox his little stone wolf, I was….” Her chest hitched. “I couldn’t say no. I wanted to. I should have. I should have told him that it wasn’t the right time. That he needed to wait. That it wasn’t fair to Ox to bind him in such a way without knowing what it truly meant. Joe was young. Ox was a teenager. We had time. But I was so scared that if I said no, that Joe would just… vanish within himself. That the fire that’d been rekindled within him would be snuffed out. So I made a terrible mistake. I told him yes. I told him he could.”
“But Ox still here,” Gavin said, brow furrowed. “Still with Joe. Always with Joe.”
Mom wiped her eyes. “He is, yes. But he should have been given a choice. First the wolf and then the tether. Ox only found out about what we were when Joe needed him the most. Under a full moon, caught somewhere in his shift. And I put this weight upon Ox because I didn’t know what else to do. Do you think that’s fair?”
“I don’t know.”
“It wasn’t,” she said, not unkindly. “And yet he didn’t hesitate. I did nothing to stop him. They came together, in the end. They found their way back to each other. But there were times we were no better than Ox’s father. We used him.”
“Mom, that’s not—”
She held up her hand. “We loved him, but our actions seen from a different perspective could suggest otherwise. That’s the power of hindsight. It shows just how selfish one can be when they think there’s no other choice. Do you understand that, Gavin? Do you understand choice?”
He said, “I do. I know I talk strange. But I’m not stupid.”
“I didn’t think you were. Never once. I just want to make sure you understand what I’m saying. Because what I have to say next is important. We were wrong in what we did to Ox.”
“You told him that?” Gavin asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I have. And if you want to know what was said, ask him. If he thinks it’s something to be shared, he will. Gavin, I want you to listen to me, okay? Really listen.”
He sat forward in his chair. He never looked away from her. He barely even blinked.
She said, “You are here. You are pack. There is always a place for you, no matter what happens in the future. You staying here is not dependent on what you might mean to my son or what he means to you. Do you understand that?”
Oh my god. I did not want to hear what she was going to say.
“Yes,” Gavin said.
“Carter is turning a bright shade of red,” Mom said, sounding amused. “So I will get to my point.”
“You do that,” I choked out.
“Do you know the significance of the stone wolf?”
Kill me. Kill me now.
Gavin said, “Yes. Special. Unique. Gift. None like it in all the world. I learned. Heard stories. Saw Mark’s that he gave to Gordo. And Robbie’s and Kelly’s.” He frowned. “I don’t have one.”
“I know,” she said quietly. “You were bitten. I often wondered how you survived, given the blood in your veins. Would you like to know what I think?”
He nodded eagerly.
“I think it was because of your mother. Whatever genetics you received from Livingstone, whatever magic was in his blood, it was diluted because of her. I don’t think she was anything but human. But here you sit. Alive, and as a wolf. This is my first gift to you. This is your mother.”
She reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a photograph. It was a Polaroid, and the edges were curled. She slid it across the desk toward Gavin.
He picked it up, holding it close to his face as he studied it. His hands shook.
“I found it,” Mom said. “At the library she used to work at. I asked them for anything of hers they still had. It was in a box in storage. As far as I can tell, it’s the only one that remained.”