History of Wolves(33)

“Good for them!” he said, cheerlessly. Tucking a piece of graying hair behind his ear, like a girl.

At the trial, the prosecution asked, did you ask any questions in return?

The prosecution asked, weren’t you curious about him?

I was and I wasn’t. It was hard to explain how ingrained a habit it was to pretend I understood what was happening in other people’s lives before explanations were offered. How I took in information differently, how carefully I watched Leo pour a glass of apple juice for himself and swirl it around without taking a sip. I watched as he set the glass down on a magazine, as he lifted the juice container Patra had left behind and wiped the sweat from the bottom with his sleeve. I learned fast that he was finicky and earnest, his mind was not the marvel Patra had made it out to be, but exceptionally well organized, exceptionally disciplined. He could make small talk with me about my parents, ask a reasonable series of questions, without seeming to take in my answers. The pattern of the conversation, the rhythm of small talk he knew by heart—better than that, even. He put me on guard, without seeming very interested, without ever giving away his true aim.

“Do you have many siblings, then?”

“None.”

“But you’re fond of children?”

“Well—”

“Some, surely.” He raised his eyebrows, offering the correction to me. Then he smiled. As he did, his moustache changed shape, spread out across his face. “Paul says you’ve taught him to eat grasshoppers.”

“Ummm.”

“He’s grown attached to you it seems.”

“He’s gotten used to me,” I said.

“You’re being modest.”

I shrugged. “He doesn’t really have a lot of options.”

“He’s a pretty particular kid.” Leo swirled the juice around in his glass. “And Patra says you’ve been a big help to her, too. She says she can’t imagine what she would have done—”

I waited for him to finish that thought, but he was finally drinking his juice, drawing it down in restrained swallows. As his throat worked he seemed to be turning something over in his head. “How about this?” He set his glass down. “Why don’t you come with us this weekend to Duluth. It would be nice for Paul, and it might even give Patra and me a chance to have dinner out or something. I think she might need a little break. What do you think?”


By the time I went out with the soup pot of water, not even old Abe was waiting for me on the driveway. I’d been inside for more than twenty minutes. I’m not sure what made me think the dogs would just stay. I placed the pot on the front step for Patra to find and headed for the shore trail. I didn’t bother to go back inside to say good-bye. I’d already made arrangements with Leo for the morning, and home was an hour away. Even in the shade of the dense pines, the day was hot, so by the time I got back, I could feel sweat on my neck and in the wet patches of T-shirt beneath my armpits. My mother came out of the house wearing a smock that was smeared black with dirt. She was twisting a bud of loose skin on her elbow.

“Oh, here comes Madeline! Oh, she decides to come back!”

“They’re here?” I asked.

But I could see the dogs for myself, chained to their stakes by the shed. They were standing up stiffly as I approached. Four bushy tails wagged low and fast.

“You know how traffic is on the 10 in June, don’t you?” She squinted at me, let go of her elbow. “It’s lucky none of them got hit. What happened that you lost control of all of them at once?”

I was about to tell her about Drake—about rescuing the cat and returning him safe—but when I opened my mouth something else came out. “I was having a little adventure, Mom.” I watched her brown eyes squint at me. “And this is part of it, actually, but it’s the boring part between the exciting bits, where the girl does the same predictable dialogue with her mother.”

I got down on my haunches and roughed up Abe’s neck. I heard my mom go inside—a single flap of the tarp—and guilt swooped over me and away, like one of those birds of prey blacking the sun for an instant. Then I was just angry at the dogs, which felt better. I could see that their legs were covered in thistles and burrs. Their coats had dried in front with spikes of mud. “You’re getting wild,” I told them. Which was true I felt.


I waited until I was done drying the dishes that night before I told my mother I was going with the family across the lake to Duluth for the weekend. “Tell your dad,” she said to that, giving me a look I couldn’t read. So I went out to the shed after the dishes were put away and sat with my dad for an hour listening to a ball game on the radio. Twins versus Royals. As we sat together on overturned buckets, my father drank three Buds, methodically, measuring each sip, making them last to the final inning. Then he crushed the cans into disks, one after the other, as the announcers described the weather in Kansas City, the heat wave that was followed by a thunderstorm, which had knocked out so much power they’d almost canceled the game. Almost, but not quite.

I told my dad about going to Duluth just as he was standing up.

He nodded, turned off the radio, and then pulled one more dripping can of beer from the cold lake water inside the cooler. As if reconsidering his prospects for the evening, as if changing his mind about something. “That front’ll be coming east by tomorrow night.”