by Laura Del
We lay there holding each other, both of us unwilling to accept the truth: that this Saturday I would die, and there was nothing either one of us could do about it. Then there was the ever-present fact that if I died, our baby would die with me. And that was something both of us could not begin to bear.
chapter
FIFTEEN
Stage One: Denial
Perhaps it was because I kept telling myself that I wasn’t going to die or because it was Christmas, but I felt positively uplifted, and the world seemed to have this luminescent glow about it. I actually thought that I was going to live out my life in six days. And I don’t know what made me so certain, but I had this feeling that I was going to survive this battle, just as I’d survived everything else. Still, I knew I was a ticking time bomb waiting to explode.
As I walked out into the living room around eleven in the morning, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Mike had created this gorgeous winter wonderland with fake snow and everything. There was a small tree on the coffee table with the most stunning ornaments on it, while underneath were all of the presents that I had bought the day before, and quite a few more. Our whole living room and kitchen was decorated with tinsel, holly, and there was even mistletoe right above where Mike was standing, between the kitchen and the living room.
“Mike.” I was in awe. “It’s beautiful.”
He gave me that sparkling, green-eyed grin. “Thanks. It took me all night to get it like this. Ya know, with a little help.” He gestured to his right and Angel walked out from the kitchen.
“Do you really like it, fleshy girl?”
My lower lip began to quiver, but I kept it together. “Like it? I love it. This is the most wonderful thing anyone has ever done for me. Thank you. Both of you.” A tear made its way down my cheek, and I tried to wipe it away, but not before the wolves could see it.
Mike frowned, walking over to me in a reindeer sweater, jeans, and his white Converse. “Bébé, did we do somethin’ wrong?”
I shook my head as I grabbed hold of his hand. “No, you did something absolutely right.”
“That was a tear of joy, Wolfman.” Angel walked up behind him. “Isn’t that right, Patty?” she asked, and I nodded, looking up into Mike’s face.
He smiled again as he leaned down and kissed me. Then he wrapped his arms around me, hugging me so tight that I almost couldn’t breathe. “I think we should open presents,” he whispered in my ear. “Don’t you?”
I nodded again. Then he pulled me over to the couch, sat me down, and played Santa. That’s when I began to wonder if that jolly old elf was real. After all, stranger things had happened.
Mike pulled out a package from underneath the coffee table, reading the tag. “This says it’s for Pat, from Santa.” He winked.
I grabbed the present, opening it as quickly as possible. It was a new pair of black Birkenstocks, and I smiled up at Mike and Angel. “Well, Santa sure did good on this one.”
“I knew you’d like it,” Mike said, sitting next to me on the couch while Angel sat on the floor in front of us. “Do you want another one?”
I shook my head. “No. It’s your turn.” I rummaged through the presents and found the one I had for him. “This is for you.” He took it from me tentatively, and then I handed another present to Angel. They ripped them open at the same time.
Angel smiled as she pulled out the leather jacket. “Fleshy girl.” She looked stunned. “This must have cost you a fortune. I love it. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I said as I turned my attention toward Mike. He was sitting there stone-faced, and I could tell something was wrong. “Mike, what’s the matter?” I asked softly.
He shook his head, trying to smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. I had given him the painting Samuel had made of me, because I didn’t know what else to give him that was both personal and meaningful. Besides, I figured he would like seeing me naked every day.
“It’s beautiful,” he finally managed to say.
“It was the only thing I could think of that you didn’t have already,” I explained. “I know it was done by Samuel, but I wanted you to remember me in the best possible way.”
He put his head in his hands, and I wondered if he was angry, until his shoulders started to shake. He sobbed quietly, and I wrapped my arms around him. “It’s okay. Let it out.”
“It’s not fair,” he cried into my shoulder as he placed his arms around me. “It’s just not fair.”
“Wolfman,” Angel said, placing her hand on his knee. “She’s still here. All you can do is just be with her now, okay?”
He looked up at me, those eyes of his red from crying. “You’re right,” he said, sitting up. Angel handed him a tissue and he took it, wiping his face and blowing his nose like a horn. “Thank you, bébé,” he smiled at me. “I’ll hang it up right now.” He got up off the couch, went into the kitchen to get a pushpin, and then brought the painting into the bedroom, leaving Angel and me alone for a bit.
“He’s goin’ in there to cry some more, isn’t he?” she asked me, as she sat on the couch.
I nodded. “Yes, he is. Sometimes he can be such a girl.”
Angel laughed a little. “I say that all the time, but never to his face.”
“I say it all the time to his face, so…” we both smiled, and then all of a sudden, Angel frowned a little.
“Mike told me about your predicament. I’m so sorry, Patty,” she said, placing her hand on my shoulder. “But if you need anythin’, you just tell me, okay?”
“Okay.” I smiled. It was very nice of her to offer her services, but I kept telling myself they would not be needed. I was not going to die. Well, the tiny voice in my head said, at least, not today. “Angel?” I whispered, looking at the Christmas tree.
“Yeah,” she answered, and I could feel her eyes on me.
“If this thing actually does happen, and I’m not saying it will, but if it does, I want you to look after Mike for me. I don’t want him going through this alone.”
I saw her nod out of the corner of my eye. “Sure, fleshy girl. Anythin’ you say.” She was quiet for a minute, and then asked, “Pat, are you scared?”
“No,” I answered, looking at her. “I don’t know why, but I have this feeling that I’m not going to die.”
“But what about—?”
“I don’t care what Kathryn said, I’m not going to die, and that’s final.”
She went quiet again, but only for an instant. “You’re not like other women, are you, fleshy girl?”
I smiled slightly. “I get that a lot.”
“I see why all these men fall all over you.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Really? Could you explain it to me, because I still can’t figure it out.”
She shrugged. “You’re really smart, funny, and you have this no-nonsense thing about ya. You tell it like it is, and I like that. You don’t pretend to be somethin’ you’re not.”
I rolled my eyes. “Thanks, I try.”
“Ya see,” she laughed. “You’re totally being sarcastic. I love that.” She paused, taking a deep breath. “So Wolfman was tellin’ me that you were a little different when he met ya. He said that you never used to swear or cry. What happened to change all that?”
I sighed. “Well, I was raped by my vampire husband, so I figured I deserve to swear a little.”
Her eyes widened. “He raped you?”
“Yes, he did.”
“Fuckin’ blood-suckin’ piece of shit!”
I nodded. “Pretty much.”
“I don’t blame ya for snappin’ like that. But what about the crying thing? How did that come about?”
I laughed a little. “Mike made me cry.”
“What’d he do?”
“He broke his arm, and I had to fix it. At that point, I think I would have cried no ma
tter what. I was just so overwhelmed. To tell you the truth, I miss not being able to cry. It makes me feel so weak when I feel tears coming.”
Angel looked at me with her black brows pulled together. It was definitely a look of utter confusion. “You think bein’ able to cry is a sign of weakness?” she asked, and I nodded. “You are so wrong, fleshy girl, so wrong! You have courage to show that kinda emotion. It tells everybody around you that you don’t give a shit what they think, and really you have a right to cry. I mean, shit. If I went through half of the crap you went through, I’d cry every fuckin’ day.”
“Thanks for that,” I said, and I wasn’t being sarcastic; I really meant it. “But my mother always used to tell me ‘Never let them see you cry.’”
“You don’t cry all the time,” she stated. “Do you?”
I shook my head. “No. But it has been hard to hold it back lately.”
“Well, you are pregnant!”
I laughed loud and hard at that. Angel had a point. “I guess that’s an excellent excuse, huh?”
“You bet your sweet ass it is. Besides,” she nudged my shoulder, “you still don’t cry as much as Wolfman, so that’s gotta be a plus, right?”
“Right.” Then I thought for a moment and figured I might as well ask, even though I knew the question was dumb. “Why do you call Mike, Wolfman? I understand his last name is Wolf and he’s a werewolf; it’s too good to resist, but is there any other reason behind it?”
“He didn’t tell you?” she asked, and I shook my head. “Well, ya know how we were a couple, right?”
“I figured.”
“Okay, so when we were together, Mike was very different than he is now. He was majorly depressed and hated bein’ a werewolf. So one day he finds this thing about a cure, and he tries it. Well, it turns out that this cure was making a tea out of wolfsbane.” My eyes widened. “Exactly,” she said. “But back then we didn’t know that it could bring on the change, until Wolfman drank a whole bunch of it.
“I was with him when he started to transform and it was horrible. It wasn’t gradual; it was the fastest any of us had ever seen somebody turn into the wolf, and it was so violent!” She shook her head. “Anyway, the pack didn’t know what to do with him, so they decided to chain ‘em up in the woods outside Big Bears. This was before I owned it, so I didn’t give a shit about the diner. But I did give a shit about Mike.”
“What happened?”
“It took him three days to change back to normal, and when he did, he became known as the Wolfman. He had done what no one else had the guts to do, not even afterward. He had really become a wolf for three whole days and nights. I gotta tell ya, fleshy girl, he’s still a legend because of it.”
“He’s a legend for being a dumbass?” I asked, and she nodded. I couldn’t help but laugh until I cried.
“Thanks so much, Angel,” Mike said as he walked back into the living room. “She really needed to know that.”
“Stop bein’ sarcastic,” Angel huffed, smiling. “At least, I got ‘er to laugh.”
“Oh, look,” I managed to say through the heaps of giggles, “it’s the Wolfman.”
“All right,” Mike said, holding up his hands, “get it outta your system.”
I cackled for another minute until something moved in my lower stomach. “It can’t be.” I sobered up so quickly that both Angel and Mike looked at me funny.
“What is it, bébé?” Mike asked, and that something moved again.
“I think I’m feeling the baby move.”
“What?” both Angel and Mike said at the same time. Being confused seemed to be the general consensus at the moment.
Mike ran over to me, kneeling by my legs. He put his hands over mine, and I moved them out of the way so he could feel better. That’s when Angel looked at me with a puppy-dog face, and I nodded. She eagerly placed her hands next to Mike’s, and all three of us waited with baited breath. Nothing happened.
“Maybe it was just my—” I was interrupted by more movement.
“Whoa,” all three of us exclaimed.
“How is that possible?” Angel asked what we were all thinking.
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
The baby moved again, and when I looked at Mike’s face, he seemed beyond worried. “I’m gonna go call Maryanne.” He began to get up, but I put my hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t ruin this for me, Wolfman,” I scolded. “You are not going to freak out on me, especially since we don’t know if I’m going to live past Saturday! Do you understand?”
He nodded, looking like a scared, little rabbit. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Good.” I took a breath. “Now, what’s this I hear about other presents?”
His scared look was quickly replaced by a huge smile. “Should we give ‘em to her, Angel?” He winked.
“Hell yeah,” she said, and they proceeded to hand me the rest of my presents all at once.
I opened them in size order, and was amazed at all the things the pack had gotten for me. Maryanne bought me a charm bracelet, Nathan bought me a scarf, and one of the elders—as Mike put it—bought me a teddy bear for the baby. They were all wonderful presents, and I knew that I would have to send them all thank you cards. But before I could finish that thought, Mike stood up from the couch, getting my coat.
“Come on,” he said, helping me up. “We got a little surprise for ya.”
“We?” I asked, cocking an eyebrow.
“Yup,” Angel replied, stretching as she stood.
“You know how I hate surprises,” I protested, as Mike walked around to help me with my coat.
“You’ll like this one,” Angel said, while she put on her new leather jacket over her already bulky cream Christmas tree sweater.
“Are you going to be okay in that?”
She nodded, smiling. “Yeah, if I get too hot, I’ll just take off the sweater.”
My eyes widened. “Do you have anything on underneath it?”
Her smile widened. “Maybe.”
“That means no,” Mike said from behind me.
Angel narrowed her eyes at him, and I laughed. They were like teenagers around each another. I could only imagine what would happen if I actually did die, and wasn’t the buffer anymore…God, I didn’t want to think about that. All I wanted to focus on was the fact that they had a surprise for me, and that was enough to get my mind off dying.
They lead me outside, and before we took two steps off the stoop, Mike walked in front of me. “Close your eyes.”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Bébé,” he huffed. “Don’t be a spoiled sport. Close your eyes.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Spoiled sport? What are you, five?”
“Please,” he begged, giving me his best pout.
I sighed. “Fine. But if something comes out and bites me, I am holding you fully responsible.”
“That’s my girl,” Angel said with a smile.
I shook my head again, closing my eyes in the process. Both Angel and Mike helped me move around without bumping into things. It wasn’t a long walk, because about ten second later, Mike said, “Okay. Count to ten, and then open your eyes.”
“Fine,” I huffed, feeling them both abandon me. Then I counted silently in my head, and when I reached ten, I blinked.
I had to wait a minute for my eyes to adjust against the sun, and as the spots cleared, I saw that the whole pack was standing in the parking lot.
“Merry Christmas, Pat,” they all said, and I just couldn’t believe it. They had outdone themselves. The black tar lake was dressed to the hilt with green and red streamers that seemed to sparkle in the daylight. There were tables and chairs on either side of me where the cars used to be, and in the middle was the most beautiful Christmas tree I had ever laid eyes on. It was decorated in gold and silver tinsel
with ornaments of white, and at the very top was a star that almost seemed to have been brought down from the heavens, it shone so bright.
As I looked into their eager faces, each wolf appeared to be proud to have done their very best to cheer me up, and when I smiled, they all smiled with me. “This…” I paused, trying to find the right words, “this is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. You have all made my Christmas. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” big, burly Nathan boomed from behind Angel, and they all laughed.
“How did you do this?” I asked Mike as he walked over to me.
He shrugged. “We paid the landlord a shit load of money to have the tenants move their cars this mornin’.”
“Thank you,” I whispered, kissing him on the cheek.
“Will ya sing for us?” he asked, loud enough for everyone to hear.
I narrowed my eyes. “If we weren’t in the middle of a pack of werewolves, I would hit you so hard.”
He smiled. “So that’s a yes, right?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“No,” Angel said, and everyone laughed again.
“Okay,” I sighed. “But just one.” Mike moved out the way so everyone could see me. They all became very still, and when I took a deep breath, I could almost feel the anticipation rise. I began to sing my favorite holiday song, White Christmas, and the werewolves just loved it. They swayed to the music and a couple of them even danced to the sound of my voice. Finally, the song came to the last verse, and every one of them lifted their voice in harmony with mine.
After it was over, we all clapped and I felt so happy. We ate, laughed, and played games until the sun went down; that’s when the wolves started to go home. Angel was the last to leave, giving me a hug, kiss, and another thank you. I smiled at her and she winked before she got in her car, leaving Mike and me alone at last.
“What are we going to do about this mess?” I asked, as he hugged me from behind.
“Landlord said he’d get somebody to clean it up.”
I gave a contented sigh, leaning my head against his chest. “Good.”
