At first I think the wolves are calling an alarm, because they can smell an intruder, even from this distance.
Then I realize it is an elegy.
A requiem.
A song for a pack member who isn’t coming back.
For the first time since I received that phone call in Thailand, for the first time since I’ve been home, for the first time in a long time, I start to cry.
It is a funeral. We just don’t have the body, yet.
I stand awkwardly next to my father’s bed. It is 9:00 A.M. on the dot. The transplant team is ready in the OR. Corinne is here, and two ICU nurses, and Trina. There’s a woman in a suit-I’ve been told she’s from the legal department. I guess the hospital needs to have all its i’s dotted and t’s crossed before they turn off life support.
Trina steps beside me. “Are you all right?” she asks softly. “Can I get you a chair?”
“I’d rather stand,” I say.
In five minutes, my father will be pronounced dead. And somebody else will get a new lease on life.
Dr. Saint-Clare slips into the room, followed by Dr. Zhao, the ICU physician. “Where’s Mr. Warren’s daughter?” Dr. Zhao asks.
All eyes turn to me. “Cara told me to take care of everything,” I reply.
Dr. Zhao frowns. “As of yesterday she wasn’t too keen on the idea to discontinue her father’s life support.”
“Edward assured me that she’d given her consent before he signed the paperwork,” Dr. Saint-Clare says.
Don’t they understand that this is what my father would have wanted? Not just for him to be released from this vegetative hell but for me to protect Cara. I’m saving her from having to make a decision that will break her heart. And I’m saving her from wasting her life as the caretaker of an invalid.
“That’s all very well and good,” the lawyer says, stepping forward, “but I need to hear it from Cara herself.”
Two days after the pack howled in reply to me, I was sitting beneath a tree untangling a trap when the big male wolf stepped out of nowhere and ran toward me at full tilt. The other four wolves appeared like ghosts between the trees, coming to stand like sentries in a line. I was defenseless, sitting down like this. I was certain this was the moment I’d die. I could roll onto my back and offer my throat, but I didn’t know if I had the time to ask the animal for trust before his jaws sank into my flesh.
At the last moment he stopped dead in front of me. He craned his neck, as if he wanted to smell me but didn’t want to get any closer. Then, without warning, he nipped at my knee in exactly the same spot I’d been nipped years ago by Arlo at the zoo. Abruptly he turned and walked back to the rest of his pack, which started licking him like mad around the mouth.
The next day, the big male returned, this time with two pups, a male and a female. They flanked him, watching carefully. The big wolf sniffed my boots, and then circled me, as if he was trying to suss out if there was anything new about me that might be a threat. The youngsters came closer to investigate, and the big wolf snapped at their muzzles. Three times he nipped at me, pinching the flesh under my knees, leaning into my shoulder. After each bite he looked at me, inscrutable. He rubbed his body against me, like a cat on a scratching pole.
Then he moved behind me, leaving the pups in front. I started to sweat-it just didn’t feel comfortable having a wild animal somewhere I couldn’t see him-and in that instant the wolf’s jaws closed around my neck from behind. I could feel his long teeth scraping against my jugular.
The female pup darted forward and took a sizable nip at my knee at that moment, just as the big male let go of my neck. When he sauntered back to the two remaining wolves that were waiting at the edge of the clearing, the pups in tow, I did something I still cannot believe I had the nerve to do.
I followed.
I was on my hands and knees, stumbling, awkward. Twice, the big male looked over his shoulder and clearly saw me behind him. I figured he could very easily teach me a lesson if he thought that was a bad idea, but instead, he just kept going. I had never been this close to the wild pack before; I could smell the mud caked into their paws and the wet musk of their coats.
Of the two wolves that had stayed back from me, one was the alpha female. She was smaller, with black lines marking her back and tail and the top of her head, thick as if she’d been striped with paint. Staring at me, she bared her teeth, curled her tongue.
I was about twenty-five yards away when she started growling.
Immediately, the pups ran to her side and glowered at me. The big male stepped between us, but she snapped at him and he fell into line, too. The alpha female flattened her ears and barked, low and threatening. Then she turned and took the others back through the tree line.
The big male hesitated, capturing my gaze.
A lot has been said about the stare of a gray wolf. It’s level, measured, eerily human. A wolf is born with blue eyes, but after six or eight weeks, they turn golden. And if you’ve ever been lucky enough to look into a wolf’s eyes, you know that they penetrate. They look at you, and you realize they are taking a snapshot of every fiber of your being. That they know you better even than you know yourself.
The wolf and I sized each other up. Then he dipped his head, turned, and loped into the woods.
I didn’t see the pack for another six weeks. From time to time I heard them calling, but it wasn’t a rallying call to replace a missing member anymore-just a locating call to make sure they kept other packs and animals at bay. My invitation had been revoked. I had replayed in my mind what had happened between us, whether that last look from the big male had been his way of communicating to me that I had been given a chance, and clearly had not measured up. But the fact that he hadn’t chosen to rip out my throat made me believe this couldn’t be the case. That even if the alpha female wasn’t very fond of me, more than half her pack was.
They appeared on the first day that felt like spring-when it was warm enough for me to break through the ice of the stream to drink without having to use a rock or stick, when I had unzipped my coveralls so that the breeze could cool me. Just like before, they came silently, a wall of gray mist. I immediately dropped so that my body was lower than theirs. Even the alpha female inched closer.
They were energetic and rowdy, more active than the last time they’d come. I felt an overwhelming relief that they were back, that I wasn’t alone in this wilderness. The big male came running at me again, as he had weeks before, and pinned me on my back with his full weight. In this vulnerable pose, I was offering my life to him, and frankly I was so happy to see him again that I wasn’t even as terrified as I probably should have been.
Maybe it was because my guard was down, maybe it was because the world felt like it was thawing and I was cocky after surviving the winter-there are a dozen reasons why I did not anticipate what happened next. The big wolf was suddenly gone, and the alpha female had taken his spot. Her front paws held my shoulders down on the ground, her weight was on my lower body. She was an inch from my face, and she was snarling and snapping at me. When the male moved closer, she lunged and bit him, and he slunk away.
Her breath came in hot gusts; her saliva streaked my forehead, but every time I thought she was going to tear into my flesh, she pulled the punch. I stayed perfectly still for the five minutes it was going on, and then she released me. She loped away, but instead of vanishing into the woods, she lay down on a rock in the sun. The big male settled beside her.
I was amazed that they had chosen to keep company with me, instead of disappearing like usual.
