He turned to Freddie and laughed, as he challenged the boy to an arm-wrestling contest. But the looks from his siblings and guardians stopped the teenager from accepting.
They moved to the living room. The curtains were open to the final remnants of the evening light, as it filtered through the deep, multicolored foliage of the fall trees. Nancy looked at Ben. He seemed tired but also restless.
“It’s probably best if you get some early nap time, Ben. It’s been a busy day, and tomorrow we’d like to show you around the place. Bob and Galen will help you to your room.”
Galen and Edison guided their guest down the hall and helped him settle in.
“There’s an intercom button by your bed, Ben. Just press it if you need anything.”
Edison looked at Galen and grinned.
“It’s hooked directly to Doc Grumpy’s room.”
“I’ll help you with your exercise program in the morning,” Galen said, ignoring Edison’s jab. “We need to be sure your muscle tone remains intact.”
He felt that total exhaustion of mind and body that had overwhelmed him only twice in his life: in Vietnam after Bandana had been killed and when Irene had died. He lay back, resting his head on the homemade pillow and pulling up the patchwork quilt to ward off the slight chill. Nancy had made it from pieces of the children’s long-outgrown and worn clothes. She cherished it especially for the scraps she had salvaged from their first sets of clothes. To her it represented the beginning of a new life for herself, Edison, and Galen.
Ben didn’t know that. He only knew it comforted him.
The sky was dark now, but he could see just a glimmer of quarter moon peering through the top of his bedroom window. He heard the sounds of the house, the creaking and snapping, as its joints, like his, settled down for the night. The wind cast up some of the fallen leaves, and he heard, faintly, a tripartite howl.
What the hell was that?
Then he remembered Faisal and Akela.
Ah, maybe the wolves are welcoming me, too!
He smiled as he drifted off, and soon he was with his wife and daughter in the little house he had planned to buy after Miri was born. They were laughing and dancing around him. He tried to reach out and hug them, but they always stayed just beyond his grasp.
Why do they run away from me? Irene, it’s me, Ben. Miri, come to Daddy, come to Daddy!
They danced in circles around him, tantalizing him like forbidden fruit. The room turned, as his Miri looked at him—looked into his soul with those piercing eyes.
He cried out, “Daddy didn’t mean to leave you, Miri! Daddy didn’t mean to leave you!”
Galen heard him talking in his sleep and quietly stood outside Ben’s bedroom door. As the sounds subsided, he thought about his own losses.
That won’t happen to you, Ben. I promise.
He returned to his room and dreamed his own troubled dreams.
Sunday entered windy, cool, and overcast. There were six at the table for breakfast.
“Where’s Dr. Galen?” Ben asked, as Nancy brought out a platter of her special, multigrain pancakes.
Edison laughed.
“Hard to believe, him missing a meal, but he said he had to do something in town and that he’d meet us a bit later. By the way, Ben, we have another little ritual around here. I’ll tell you about it after we eat.”
Edison’s eyes had become as large as the pancakes, and he couldn’t wait to dive into them.
Soon the six sat satisfied at the table.
“Freddie, why don’t you tell Ben what we’re going to do next.”
And Freddie, usually seeking the center of attention, suddenly became tongue-tied. So Nancy took over.
“Ben, every Sunday that we can, we visit a special place on the mountain. We call it our Garden of Remembrance. It gives us a chance to recall and thank those who are no longer with us for who they were and what they meant to us. We always ask our guests, our friends, to accompany us. Will you?”
Edison looked at Nancy.
“Ben, do you think you might want to use the wheelchair? It’s a bit of a walk on the side of the mountain.”
“Nah, just one day here and I got my sea legs back already.”
He looked at Carmelita.
“Little lady, want me to sing some of those Polish songs I know?”
She smiled a yes.
They walked quite a bit more slowly than usual. The chilly wind gusted now. Ben took a deep breath. It felt so good to do that. Then his lopsided grin grew broader as he started to sing.
“Hej, górale, nie bijcie się. Ma góralka dwa warkocze podzielicie się!”
Edison and Carmelita both laughed. Nancy and the boys looked at them.
“What’s he saying?” Tonio asked.
Carmelita blushed, and Edison’s eyes took on a glint that Nancy knew all too well.
“Give us the clean translation, Bob.”
“Let’s just say it’s about two mountain boys fighting over one girl ... and leave it at that,” he replied.
They reached the special spot. The flowers were now frost-bitten and faded, but the surroundings still subdued everyone. Ben stood with the others, each gazing into wherever in the universe his or her loved ones resided. He thought of his Chicago friend and then his beloved Irene, and then the what-ifs: What if he had been more observant that day in Saigon? What if he had stayed home that day and driven Irene to the doctor? What if Miri had been born normally?
Footsteps, several different pairs, approached, disrupting the meditation.
Ben turned and saw a tall figure in uniform and two women, one leading the other. Galen, Faisal, and Akela were close behind. He wiped the tears away and stared at the latecomers: Lachlan and Diane and…
Miri! Miri is here!
Diana led the child-woman toward her father. She stepped awkwardly, hesitantly. She emitted guttural sounds, low at first then rising. Akela’s ears went on point, and he started to do the same. The girl turned toward the wolf, staring. By then Ben had reached her and put his arms around her. He felt the resistance in her body and let go.
Galen intervened quickly.
“Everything’s strange and different for her, Ben. Let’s all go back to the house. It’s getting colder.”
The fireplace crackled, its flames a semaphore of warmth and comfort. Eleven humans and one wolf-dog crowded the living room. Miriam sat on the floor, staring at the flickering flames, humming to herself and moving her torso forward and backward. Faisal drifted toward her, guided by the sounds she made. He gently ran his hands over her face before she could react.
Miriam did not respond the way she normally did, when other people touched her. Instead of pulling away or pushing away the offending hand, she placed her own hand on Akela’s head, and the great canine sat down between the blind boy and the mute girl.
Galen watched the interplay carefully but said nothing.
“So that’s why you left so early,” Edison spoke up. “I knew it had to be something like the End of the World or the Second Coming to keep you away from Nancy’s breakfast. What other sneaky things have you been up to, big brother?”
The laughter from the group quieted down as Ben interrupted.
“How did this happen? How did you know about Miriam?”
“Are you angry with us?” Galen asked.
“No!” he replied. “I couldn’t have asked for a better surprise...” and he hesitated before adding, “or a better gift.”
He lowered his head to hide the welling tears.
“Ben, you did so much for Lachlan, Faisal, and me,” Diana said. “How could we not do this?”
Ben looked at his daughter, who stared intently at the flames.
“How can I get her to forgive me?”
There, he had said it out loud. What would the others think of him now?
Galen stood and walked toward the big picture window, hands clasped behind his back.
Strange, how many times had Papa done this when he talked
to me? Now I’m my father’s image.
He turned to the group.
“Ben, nothing that you did or didn’t do made Miriam the way she is. Yes, she’s autistic. But we don’t know what happens to cause the condition. So many possible causes—from vaccinations to trauma to food contamination—have been debunked. And if you think that being in the car with Irene that day…”
He paused at the astonished look on Ben’s face then spoke even more emphatically.
“If you had been in that car at that point in time, Miriam would have had no parents left to love her. Yes, she cannot communicate the way we do, but I want to show you all something remarkable.”
He left the room momentarily and returned with a large box. He set it down on the floor, opened it, and spread out the contents. Lifelike pictures of Ben in different poses and uniforms stared back at the crowd. And one special picture, a young woman wearing a tiara of mock orange blossoms, smiled radiantly at them.
Ben broke down.
“It can’t be!” he sobbed.
“This is your daughter’s voice, your daughter’s soul.”
Galen left again and brought back another box. It contained a large, amorphous gray lump. He walked over to the girl and placed the clay mass in front of her. She appeared to glance at it briefly then picked it up and began kneading and working it. Her hands moved faster and faster, no longer awkward and uncoordinated. They moved purposefully, fingers rivaling Faisal at his keyboard best, and suddenly the spirit of the clay emerged. Her hands stopped, lifted the piece, and placed it in front of Akela.
The clay had morphed into the life image of a boy and wolf lying side by side.
It was a three-day weekend for the kids. Founders Day at the academy fell on a Monday, and by tradition it was a school holiday. Faisal pleaded with Lachlan and Diana to stay overnight with his friends, and after a brief conversation and apologies for the perceived intrusion, he claimed his old bed in Tonio’s room.
Nancy and Carmelita agreed that Miriam would stay in her room. Carmelita set the drawing and modeling-clay supplies near Miriam’s bed. The staff at St. Ignatius had packed clothes for the girl, and they placed these few nondescript items—drab tans and faded greens—in a small side cabinet.
Carmelita placed a pair of her flannel pajamas on Miriam’s bed. Then she and Nancy helped to prepare the girl for sleep.
Four adults sat in the living room enjoying a late evening cup of bi lo chun tea. Ben was restless. He couldn’t seem to stay seated. Edison watched the younger man, prematurely aged by grief and sickness.
“What’s wrong, Ben?”
“That picture, it was Irene.”
He kept moving his hands back and forth over his forearms then stood up again.
“How could she draw a picture of Irene? She never saw her mother, and I never showed her any pictures, especially of Irene dressed like that. That was our wedding day. That was the only time Irene would have appeared like that.”
Nancy had just come in from getting Miri settled down.
“Are you sure that Miriam never saw any wedding pictures, Ben?”
He shook his head.
Galen wondered about the statue of the wolf Miri had made at the home but said nothing.
The night closed in with its mid-fall, Pennsylvania mountain chill. The moon was outlined in full clarity, unobscured by clouds or fog, and even the remaining crickets had quieted down. Ever so faintly, the sounds of howling echoed through the darkness. And ever so quietly, four paws and two feet padded through the house and out the back porch door.
As dawn began its slow rise in the east, two shouts rose simultaneously throughout the mountain house.
“Akela!”
“Miri!”
Four adults came running to find Carmelita and Faisal standing in the hallway, almost hysterical.
“She’s gone, Tia Nancy, I didn’t hear anything but she’s gone!”
Carmelita hid her head in Nancy’s chest, sobbing as she tried to tell the others what had happened.
Faisal stood bewildered beside Tonio and Freddie.
“He’s never done this! He’s always been by my side, even at night. Akela would never leave me.”
Galen turned to Edison.
“Go turn on the outside sensors. If they’re still on the mountain, we’ll pick up their sounds.”
The seven quickly converged on Edison’s communications lab, as he and Freddie sat at the consoles of the remote-sensor units, changing the inputs from location to location.
“There,” Edison said, “something’s going on down by the pond. The wolves seem overly active. Freddie, bring up video. Let’s see if we can pick up what’s happening.”
Two large overhead monitors lit up, one showing an optical image, the other infrared.
“There she is!” Nancy called out, and the sighted ones saw the shadow image of the girl sitting near the pond edge. Surrounding her in apparent council style sat seven of the wolves.
Galen threw a coat over his pajamas and headed for the door, followed by the others.
“Hold on to me, Fai.”
Tonio reached out for the other boy’s arm, but Faisal shrugged it off.
“My ears can guide me better than your eyes, my friend.”
The group headed down the path to the migratory bird pond at a rapid pace, but they slowed when Galen raised his hand and signaled for quiet.
Seven sets of green eyes watched the approach. They remained seated b before the strange one. By scent they knew it was a female and two-legged like the others, but it was different. It spoke to them as one of the pack, and they responded in kind.
“Listen,” Faisal whispered. “She’s talking to the wolves!”
In the morning stillness, lit by the first salmon-pink rays of sunlight, they heard the guttural exchanges between wolf and human.
Akela rose from his position at the edge of the pack and padded slowly to Faisal. The gray wolf seemed apologetic in its behavior, as it resumed its place at his side.
A small, brown-gray wolf, female, rose and moved to the girl. It looked at her then placed its head and muzzle on the girl’s lap.
The air was suddenly perfumed by the scent of orange blossoms.
CHAPTER 5
Genesis Two
“C’mon, Carmie, get out of the bathroom!” Freddie yelled.
“Yeah, you’ve been in there for hours!” Tonio wailed.
The two stood there, still in pajamas, towels in hand, waiting and waiting. Their voices resonated with the timbre of young adult males, as they complained loudly about a certain sister.
Freddie was now seventeen, with a full head of jet-black hair and what a past generation would have called bedroom eyes, which flashed dark brown when he smiled. Once frail and small, now he towered over his brother and sister and had developed a muscular physique from working out with weights. At six feet, two inches, and one-hundred-fifty-five pounds, he possessed enough olive-skinned good looks and tight butt to drive his female academy classmates wild.
Unfortunately, he knew it, and he flaunted it confidently. Freddie moved from one conquest to the next. If Lilly didn’t want to go out, that was fine with him. There was always Patti, or Mary, or Beth.
But Tonio took rejection hard, perceiving it as an assault on his very existence. Younger by one year, he was still growing. Standing almost six feet, at one-hundred-seventy pounds and wearing glasses, he didn’t have quite the sex appeal of his brother, but his piercing dark eyes conveyed thoughtfulness, and his dark hair and eyelashes were the envy of the girls who dated him. And despite not lifting weights regularly like his brother, Tonio’s body was supple, with enough speed and balance that he could beat Freddie at wrestling.
And both boys were smart—too smart in some ways.
Dealing with two active teenagers tried the souls of their aging uncles, particularly because Nancy wisely stayed clear. When it came to laying down the law about curfews or escapades, she would walk away, laughing inside a
nd leaving Edison and Galen to deal with the Lothario or the brooding Werner.
“Isn’t there some sort of manual we can buy … you know, ‘Raising Teenagers for Dummies?’” Edison would gripe. “If I had known parenthood would be like this, I would have entered a monastery!”
Galen understood all the physiology that motivated Freddie’s behavior. He also understood all too well the emotional trauma that underpinned Tonio’s melancholy nature. A lot of good it did. Much of the time, their actions left him clueless.
Edison had no formal training in such matters, but he thought he knew the best way to deal with young males.
“I’ll reason with them,” he had told Nancy before the teen years began. “I’ll just calmly explain my point of view to the boys, and they’ll recognize the logic of it and follow it.”
She immediately shot him a “What planet are you from?” look.
Of course, she was right. They were good boys, but they were still boys. The only saving grace was that their antics often forced Galen and Edison to reflect on their own youthful indiscretions. And doing so made the old men shake their heads in wonderment at how they had managed to survive.
As Nancy watched the men grapple with the problems of the boys, she conceded she had not been spared entirely the angst, or Sturm und Drang, as her own mother would have put it, of raising her adopted niece.
Carmelita was eighteen, legally an adult, but still with the cherubic, olive-skinned face of her childhood, and highlighted by iridescent black hair and penetrating dark eyes. Her five-foot-nine-inch height and one-hundred-twenty-five-pound body made the other girls hiss in jealousy. But no one ever said a misplaced word against her character. Carmelita was growing up to be the proverbial oil on water, seeing both sides of any problem and calming tensions before they erupted on the surface. Maybe that’s how she survived the two boys, who called her “sister” but treated her like another brother. She was the grandee of the house.
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