Chapter 1: The Wolf Returns
The bus doors hissed open, releasing him into a wall of wet, clinging heat. Garrett Vance shouldered his worn pack, its canvas stained with Alaskan mud and memories of cold, clean air. Here, the air tasted of diesel fumes and decay, of things growing and rotting in the same thick breath.
He saw her before his boots hit the cracked pavement.
She was leaning against the aluminum railing of the bus station’s overhang, one hip cocked, a cigarette smoldering between two fingers. Loretta. She hadn’t changed, or maybe she had just sharpened. Her honey-blonde hair, tangled and streaked with gray, fell over a tank top cut so low he could see the pale, freckled curve of her breasts. Cut-off denim shorts hugged her thin legs.
A slow grin spread across her face, a predator spotting familiar prey. “Well,” she drawled, her voice like warm honey laced with broken glass. “Look what the swamp dragged home.”
She pushed off the railing and was in his space before he could take a full breath. Her perfume—something cheap and floral—clashed with the smell of whiskey and cigarette smoke clinging to her. She pressed a damp kiss to his cheek. It lingered, a second too long, her breath hot against his skin. He didn’t move, didn’t breathe. His body was a locked door.
“My sweet boy,” she murmured, her hand coming up to pat his beard. “My little monster. All grown up and still so serious.”
He took a deliberate step back. “Loretta.”
“Mama,” she corrected, the smile not reaching her eyes. They were a faded blue, scanning him, calculating. “You call me Mama. Ten years doesn’t change that.” She took a drag of her cigarette, exhaling the smoke toward the hazy sky. “God, you’re big. All those mountains and moose.” Her gaze dropped to his pack. “That all you brought? No presents for your grieving mother?”
“The letter said it was sudden,” he said, his own voice rough from disuse. It felt alien here, too deep for the humid air.
“Heart attack. Just dropped in the Publix parking lot.” She said it with a theatrical sigh, but her eyes were dry and bright. “Probably the heat. Come on, your truck’s where you left it. Mostly.”
She led the way through the lot to an old, rust-bitten Ford pickup. It sat on flat tires, a yellow film of pollen coating the windshield. A parking ticket fluttered under a wiper blade, brittle from sun. “Battery’s dead, I’d imagine,” she said, waving a hand. “We’ll take my car.”
Her car was a compact sedan littered with fast-food bags and empty coffee cups. The interior was an oven. Garrett threw his pack in the backseat, amid a nest of discount store clothing tags and crushed beer cans. He rolled the window down, but the air that pushed in was no relief.
She talked as she drove, a steady stream that required no answer. Gossip about neighbors he’d forgotten, complaints about the landlord, a rambling story about a stray dog she’d tried to feed that had bitten her. “Ungrateful little shit,” she laughed, showing him a faint, faded scar on her wrist. She drove with one hand, the other tapping ashes out the window or gesturing wildly.
They turned into the familiar grid of the Palm Meadows Estates. The name was a joke. It was a trailer park, rows of single-wides baking under the Florida sun, skirts rusted, awnings frayed. Kids on cheap bikes stared as they passed. Something tight and furious coiled in Garrett’s gut.
Her trailer sat at the end of a cul-de-sac, under the skeletal shade of a sun-rotted pine. The concrete slab was cracked, littered with cigarette butts and the skeletal remains of firework casings. The porch light was on, though the sun hadn't set, casting a trembling, jaundiced glow over the peeling vinyl chairs.
The place sagged. It sighed with neglect.
He followed her up the creaking steps. The air here smelled specific: damp mildew from the perpetually leaking AC unit, that cloying perfume, and beneath it, the sharp, sour tang of whiskey left in a glass too long.
“Home sweet home,” she said, shouldering the warped door open.
The inside was a dim cave, blinds drawn against the punishing light. It was hot, the window unit rattling but producing only a feeble, warm breath. The living room was a clash of patterns—floral couch, shag carpet, a loud print of wolves howling at a moon that hung crooked over the TV. Every surface held something: knick-knacks, catalogs, mugs with residue.
She went straight to the kitchen counter, picking up a coffee mug. She took a long sip, watching him over the rim. Her eyes narrowed. “You gonna stand there like a ghost? Put your stuff in your room. It’s like you left it.”
He walked down the short, paneled hallway. His old room. When he opened the door, the smell of closed-in dust hit him. Trophies from a childhood he didn’t cherish sat on a shelf. A model airplane, its glue yellowed. A poster of a sports car, faded to blue. The twin bed still had its thin, Star Wars comforter.
It felt like a museum to a boy who had died. He dropped his pack on the floor.
When he returned to the living room, she was on the couch, her legs tucked under her, the mug cradled in both hands. The whiskey smell was stronger now, radiating from her.
“Sit,” she said, patting the cushion too close to her.
He took the vinyl chair opposite, its surface sticky. He could feel the sweat gathering under his shirt, in the dense thickness of his beard. His father’s absence was a physical thing in the room, a silence where there should have been the old man’s grumbling, the click of his crossword pen.
“Tell me about Alaska,” she said, her head tilting.
“Not much to tell.”
“Bullshit. You lived in a cabin. You tracked bears. You must have stories. Or did you just sit in the silence, like you do now?” She leaned forward, her tank top gaping. “Did you get lonely, Garrett? Out there in all that nothing? You must have. You’re my son. We’re not built for being alone.”
“I was fine.”
“Were you?” She took another sip, her eyes never leaving his. They were growing moist, but it was a calculated dampness. “I wasn’t. It’s been hard. Real hard. The money from his life insurance… it wasn’t much. And the bills.” A tear traced through her foundation. It looked painted on. “I’ve been so alone.”
Here it comes, he thought. The turn.
“But you’re here now,” she said, brightening suddenly, the tear wiped away with a quick, jagged nail. “My big, strong boy is home. You can help. You can fix things. The roof leaks when it rains hard. And the toilet runs. And that bastard landlord, Gene…” She set the mug down with a sharp click. “You’ll talk to him. You look… capable. You look like you could make a man listen.”
Garrett said nothing. He watched a fly batter itself against the window blind.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you.” Her voice hardened, the honey gone, just the glass now.
He turned his head, met her gaze. His own eyes, he knew, were cold. Flat. The eyes of a man who had watched storms roll across tundra for a thousand miles.
She flinched, just a tiny twitch at the corner of her mouth. It thrilled her, he could see it. She leaned back, reclaiming her mug, smiling again. “You always did have your father’s eyes. Cold bastard. You know he cried at the end? In the ambulance. He begged. Not for me. For you. Kept saying he was sorry he let you go.”
The coil in Garrett’s gut tightened. A lie. It had to be a lie. It was her specialty, stitching truth and fiction together until the scar was all you could feel.
“Don’t,” he said, a single low word.
“Don’t what? Tell you the truth? He’s gone, Garrett. All that’s left is the truth. And me.” She uncurled herself from the couch and drifted over to him. She stood too close, the heat of her, the smell of her enveloping him. Her hand came up, and her fingers, dry and sharp as twigs, brushed the tattoo on his inner forearm—the faded wolf’s paw he’d gotten his first year north.
He jerked his arm away.
She just smiled, wider. “Still a monster,” she whispered, almost lovingly. “My little monster. But you’re my monster. And you’re home now.”
She turned and walked toward the hallway, swaying slightly. “I’m gonna lie down. My head. The grief, you know? Make yourself useful. There’s baloney in the fridge if you’re hungry.”
She disappeared into the dimness. A door clicked shut.
Garrett sat perfectly still in the sticky chair. The window unit rattled. The fly buzzed. Outside, a child shrieked, a sound of pure, careless joy. He slowly rolled his sleeve back down over the tattoo, covering the mark. He looked at his hands, broad and scarred, resting on his knees. They were the hands of a man who could track a wolf over stone, who could field-dress an elk, who could build a shelter that would withstand a blizzard.
Here, in this vibrating, overheated box, they felt useless. They felt like weapons waiting for a reason.
He stood, the chair creaking in relief. He walked to the door, stepped back out onto the sagging porch. The humidity wrapped around him like a fist. He stared out at the cracked concrete, the litter of forgotten things, at the dying light bleeding from the sky.
He was back.