by Amira Rain
Alex looked at Jake, wide-eyed, and Jake bounced up to him and proceeded to lick his cheeks, not seeming to notice or care that Alex was a little smaller than the last time he’d seen him. Jake just seemed thrilled that his best friend was okay. Cooing, Alex reached out a hand to pat Jake’s furry face.
Watching them with a look of incredulity, Ryan said that Jake must have just been stunned by the light beams that had hit him. “Or…maybe he did even technically die for a moment, but he battled his way back to us. He’s a tough, tough dog.”
I looked at Ryan with my eyes filing with tears once again. “Yes, he is. And anyone who says golden retrievers can’t be good guard dogs is insane.”
After holding Alex and me to his chest again briefly, and after giving Jake a hug as well, Ryan soon went to check on his men, returning a while later to let me know that none of them had been killed. “Quite a few injuries, but nothing that won’t heal in time.”
Ryan also reported that despite the meadow looking like all of the Graywolves had been killed, some must have escaped the fray. “There are only eighty carcasses, and I’m positive that their full force came to attack us. Steb and I think maybe two dozen or so of them escaped into the trees.”
“Will you try to catch them?”
Ryan didn’t answer right away, looking out onto the sunlit field. “I’m not sure. The survivors have no doubt all made it back to Shadow Fen by now, which I now want to avoid attacking needlessly because of the women and children. It also doesn’t seem like it’d be right to kill the remaining twenty-some Graywolves, leaving the women and children with no men to hunt and provide food for them. I’m sure a new Graywolf leader will emerge, and probably soon, but with so few men at his command….” Ryan paused, still looking out onto the carcass-strewn field. “I think I might just wait to see if the Graywolves are going to continue to be a problem.”
He was right to wait. About two weeks after the battle, one of the women from Shadow Fen delivered a letter to Ryan’s guards at the outskirts of Briarwood, and the letter was a peace treaty of sorts. It was addressed to Ryan from a Graywolf named Connor Ridgeway, who was the new leader of the Graywolves. In the letter, he basically said that the remaining Graywolves, and their women and children, all just wanted peace. We know you don’t trust us, and rightfully so, but we’ll prove to you that we want no further trouble. If you’ll simply allow us to live in Shadow Fen, there will be no more attacks from us of any kind.
Ryan deliberated for a few days before writing a response, basically agreeing to the “peace treaty” but with a caveat. Break this truce even one single time, and I guarantee you, things will not go well for your remaining Graywolves.
Several weeks later, on the last day of November, I received a “peace treaty” of my own, in the form of an email from my mom. I’d heard nothing from her since our phone call in early July, the day after Alex had been born.
Dear Julia,
I know I’ve made mistakes, and I’m truly sorry. Please know that I’ve always wanted the best for you, but I’ve come to realize that what I see as “the best” isn’t the life you want. You’ve always wanted your own “best,” and maybe you’ve already achieved it. From some of the things you said during our last phone call, you have.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and I don’t want to lose my daughter. I don’t want MY “best” for you anymore; all I want now is your happiness. I want to try to change. Will you let me try? I can’t promise you that I’ll ever be the mother of your dreams, but I can promise you that I’ll try to change. If you’re open to giving me a chance, please either write back or call me.
Love,
Mom
PS- I hope you and your husband and the baby are all doing well. I’d love to see pictures. Also, I want to let you know that I’ve fallen in love for the first real time in my life, and I’m now engaged to be married. My fiancé is the Latvian rapper’s father, and his name is Ludis. He’s been an American citizen for five years, and he owns a very successful chain of restaurants here in Florida. He works very hard, but he strictly limits himself to a fifty-hour workweek, which I find fascinating and odd. However, Ludis tells me all the time that there’s more to life than money and accomplishment in business, and I’m starting to believe him.
Later that day, I had Hillary over to take some family pictures of Ryan, Alex, Jake, and me. Ever since the day he’d “reverted” back to a baby, Alex had been growing and developing at a perfectly normal rate, and he was now perfectly chubby, with rolls of chub on his inner thighs that I found absolutely adorable. What I found most adorable, though, were his gummy little smiles. Whenever I missed my “big boy Alex,” which I did sometimes, and sometimes even terribly, his gummy little smiles warmed my heart and reminded me that I would get to see my “big boy Alex” again someday. And now, he’d get to experience a full, normal childhood.
The last of the family photos that Hillary took was of Alex curled up asleep at Jake’s side, with half of his chubby-cheeked face buried in Jake’s golden fur. It had gotten to the point that Alex wouldn’t take afternoon naps in his crib anymore; he had to be sleeping next to Jake, right on the living room floor. I was just waiting for him to start fussing when I put him down in his crib at night, wanting to fall asleep with Jake even then, but so far, this hadn’t happened.
When Hillary was putting on her coat to leave after we’d shared some cookies and coffee, I thanked her again for taking the pictures.
Zipping up her coat over her large baby bump, she smiled. “Well, I was glad to…and it’s the least I can do…after what I did.”
She still hadn’t forgiven herself for “allowing,” as she said, Alex to escape the house and head to the battle on her babysitting watch. She still felt like this, despite the fact that she’d been sleeping and ill with morning sickness. Also despite the fact that Ryan and I had all but begged her to forgive herself because what had happened hadn’t been her fault at all. Not to mention that everything had turned out well in the end. But nonetheless, she brought up the subject every now and then. But now, I just couldn’t stand to hear her beating herself up one more time.
Telling her we needed to have some “real talk,” I told her I’d decided to forgive my mom, who she’d heard plenty about. “The pictures I had you take today weren’t just for Ryan and me; I’m going to send them to my mom, too, and I might try to give her a call later, something I’d never thought I’d do again. So, if I can forgive my mom, and send her pictures and call her, don’t you think you can try to forgive yourself, especially for something that wasn’t even your fault?”
Smiling sheepishly, Hillary said she’d try, and I gave her a hug, saying that she owed it to herself. I had the feeling I was never going to hear her blame herself for what had happened again, and I never did.
Later on that afternoon, I sent my mom the family pictures via text, then followed that with a message asking if it was a good time to give her a call. Within a few minutes, she responded by saying yes, and when she answered the phone, I was surprised to hear her sniffling.
“The pictures are beautiful, Julia. Thank you. They’re just really, really beautiful. You have such a beautiful family.”
I couldn’t remember when, if ever, I’d last heard my mom sniffling. And I definitely couldn’t remember her complimenting me as warmly and sincerely as she just had.
Now sniffling just a little myself, I thanked her, and we proceeded to have a nice conversation. She asked all sorts of questions about Alex, Ryan, and Briarwood, and she made appropriate, thoughtful comments. I asked her about her new fiancé, Ludis, and she told me a bit more about him, saying that he was a “good man” and a “total hoot.”
“He likes to do handstands in the ocean. Now, mind you, this is a man who is fifty-seven years old. But he likes it. He just likes doing things like that. He made me try to do a handstand in the water the other day…said he wouldn’t treat me to dinner unless I tried, the bastard.”
“Well, d
id you?”
“Well, I did. And I didn’t do a great handstand, what with the waves trying to knock me down and all, but I did one. Then we got to laughing ourselves silly like we do, and Ludis said that when I laugh, it takes ten years off my face. I said, ‘Well, what do I look like, then? Fourteen? Because I look like I’m in my twenties normally, right?’ And he said, ‘Right, honey. You do.’ ‘Smart man,’ I said. ‘Now I’m not going to dunk your head beneath the waves like I was going to.’”
Before we got off the phone, my mom asked if I would mind if she called maybe every month or two, just to check in, and I said I’d like that.
“Good. And then, who knows? Maybe someday Ludis and I will come visit you and Ryan and baby Alex. If you ever want us to, sometime.”
I said I’d like that, too, and I really meant it.
That evening, after I’d put Alex to bed, Ryan and I had a late dinner together, sharing a bottle of wine while we ate. About halfway through my second glass of wine, I just sat back to savor it and take a little break from my food.
Ryan looked at me with his eyes twinkling. “You look so unbelievably gorgeous with that smile on your face right now. I think we should start having wine with dinner every night.”
I smiled harder, having not even been aware that I’d been smiling in the first place. But then, after I thought for a few moments, my smile faded, and I looked at Ryan with my eyes a little misty for the second time that day.
“No…if you saw me smiling, it wasn’t from the wine.”
“Then, what?”
Swallowing a lump in my throat, I didn’t answer right away. “It’s you. It’s Alex. It’s the fact that my mom and I have made a fresh start, and the Graywolves aren’t causing trouble anymore. It’s just everything. And sometimes I think about what if I hadn’t put that envelope in the mailbox…the one with my application to come here to be a ‘population growth partner.’ What if I hadn’t taken that leap?”
After setting his fork down, Ryan took my hand, looking deeply into my eyes. “I’ll always be eternally grateful that you did.”
Blinking back a few tears, I managed a smile. “Me, too.”
{{**}}
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