History of Wolves(55)

Then, over her head and without the singing: “Linda, will you help me with something?”

I’d assumed he was ignoring me, so his question took me off guard. I frowned at him and prepared to shake my head. I felt my shoulders lift up defensively, but when he let go of Patra and turned, I found myself following him out.

I was curious. I couldn’t help it.

“Patra,” he said, when she started after us. “Some cocoa. Then the litter box, get dressed. Maybe read the lesson? It really is a beautiful day.”


In my dream, Paul had been so wily and quick. He’d seemed both mischievous and manic, which had amused and irritated me in turns. In my dream, I’d become furious with him at last. There had been something very devious about the way he’d wiggled across the ice on his belly. So when I followed Leo into Paul’s room, I felt some residue of resentment waiting for him. I took one look at him lying in bed and felt my resentment go dry. He was only a kid, after all. A little kid, sleeping. It was relieving to see him flat on his stomach, to see him tucked to his neck in covers, his golden head poking out. His chapped lips were open, his eyes closed.

“Now, Linda, don’t be afraid,” Leo murmured from behind, and it wasn’t until he said it that I was.

“Now, Linda. It’s okay.” He seemed to want to pat my shoulder.

Leo closed the door behind us and my first thought was to back away. My second thought was to look for a way out. I wasn’t sure what trap I’d been led into. I felt my calves tense up, my fingertips tingle.

Leo’s face looked lopsided. He was pushing out one cheek with the tip of his tongue, and I knew without thinking it through that this was something he only did when alone.

“We’re playing Candy Land,” he told me, almost bashfully, gesturing toward the floor.

“What?” But it was clear enough. The pastel board was spread out over the carpet, a path of colored squares snaking across.

“Paul’s blue. I’m red.”

“Okay.” But Paul was asleep.

“Just move his piece when it’s his turn.” Leo nodded at me, encouragingly. “I’ve got to use the bathroom, quick, and make one little call. If you could let me know if he—”

He was painfully apologetic about it. He was stacking a Bible and some other books on Paul’s nightstand in a low embarrassed tower. He was glancing at the full plate of pancakes on the dresser, hastily and without turning his head, as if he didn’t want me to notice it but couldn’t keep from looking himself. Then he just stood there. Eyes bloodshot, tongue tenting one cheek. “Leo—?” I asked him.

He started tucking in his shirt with his fingertips.

“Don’t be afraid,” I found myself saying. Leo tucked in his shirt again—and again. He pushed the fabric down deep. He hitched up his shorts and shoved in his shirt. The fabric strained against his shoulders, and he looked like he wanted to tuck in his whole torso and his arms up to the elbows. He was going to tuck his whole self in.

To stop him, I knelt on the carpeted floor next to the Candy Land board.

“Paul,” I said, to get Leo to leave. “It’s your turn.”


Actually, I didn’t know how to play Candy Land. I’d never played games like this when I was a kid, so the rules, the way to move from square to square, eluded me. There were no dice or one of those arrows you spin. I could sense Paul in his lump of covers on the bed but I didn’t try to wake him. Without thinking, I pulled a card from the stack. I moved Paul’s blue Gingerbread Man toward the yellow square the card matched. Then Leo’s red man. Blue, then red. With a sinking heart, it came to me that I didn’t need to know how to play. It was obvious. It was a race. Gingerbread Leo plodded past the Crooked Old Peanut Brittle House. Gingerbread Paul took a shortcut through the Gumdrop Mountains. After only a few turns, I felt the deep drudgery of having played this game too many times before. I slid the pieces steadily along the pastel track. Leo wound through the Lollipop Woods, and Paul got stuck on a licorice space. Just when Leo’s man was closing in on the Molasses Swamp, just when the outcome started to seem inevitable, though still a long way off, I happened to look up. “Paul?” He was watching me from his bed. His breathing deepened, then paused. Half his face was smashed against the pillow, but one eye looked out. Unblinking, blue as anything. “Paul?” I asked.

His pillowcase darkened with spittle as he started breathing again.

I cheated then: I set Gingerbread Paul on the final space.

The eye tracked over my shoulder and past my head.

I scrambled to my feet.


In the hallway, I ran into Leo, whose hands were dripping from the bathroom. “Umm?” he asked, still buckling his belt, leaving huge wet handprints on his blue cotton shirt.

I didn’t know what to say. “He won” is what came out, and I felt my voice hack through a crust of panic to say it.

“He did?” Leo looked truly relieved to hear me say it—as if winning Candy Land were an achievement, as if watching someone else move your piece around a board counted now as victory. “That’s a lucky break. He’s got to be happy about that. He’s got to be. He’ll be back to his old self before we know it. It won’t take much. He’ll be ready for kindergarten in a few weeks.”

“He’s only four!” It felt like a protest to put it like that.