The Way of the Wolf

by David Archer

  “Well? What do you think?” Molly asked. Jerry and Jimmy were in the room, as well, and Lizzie was almost bouncing up and down in anticipation.

  “They seem okay,” I said. “My grandma looks a lot like my mom, just older. She kinda acts like her, too. My grandpa, he just seems like a real nice man. We're going out for a while, and I guess I'll be back later tonight. I gotta go get my jacket.” I stood there for another moment, but no one said anything so I went on down to my room, put on my jacket and headed back for the living room.

  We went out to their car, and I was really surprised to see a big, fancy Cadillac. My parents had never had much money, and my dad's old pickup truck was the only car I ever knew. Mom and I only got to ride in it on weekends, because he was using it for work all the time during the week. Most days, he would leave early in the morning and not get home until dinnertime or even later, so we didn't do much as a family except when he was off.

  Grandpa opened the back door for me, and I slid into the seat and buckled myself in. When my parents were alive, I didn't even know what a seat belt was, because, as far as I knew, there wasn't one in the middle of the truck seat. Once I got into the system, though, everywhere we went I had to be buckled in. By the time I met my grandparents, it had gotten to be a habit.

  “Well,” Grandpa said, “is there anywhere in particular you'd like to go, or anything you want to do?”

  I actually thought about it. Back when I’d lived at home, about the only thing we ever did was go to McDonald's for dinner once in a while, and I remember a couple of times where we actually went to a theater to see a movie. Other than that, the closest thing to going out and having fun that I could recall would probably be renting a movie and sticking a frozen pizza into the oven.

  Since I'd been in the foster system, though, and had an allowance from the estate, I’d gotten to go and do a few things. So far, my favorite had been going to the arcade at the mall, but somehow I couldn't see my grandparents having a lot of fun there. After a few moments of thought, I finally shrugged my shoulders. “Whatever you want to do,” I said.

  Grandpa turned and looked at me over the back of his seat. “Noah,” he said, “have you ever ridden in an airplane?”

  I'm pretty sure my eyebrows shot straight up. I'd never been in a plane, but I loved movies about flying, and had even bought some model planes to put together. “No, Sir,” I said.

  “Well, you see, your grandma and I live about three hundred miles away,” he said, “but I have my own airplane, so we flew down here today to come visit you. If you'd like to go for a ride in my airplane, we can go do that.”

  “I'd like that, Grandpa,” I said, while at the same time realizing that the fancy Cadillac must be a rental car. That was okay by me, though, because having his own airplane beat having a fancy car by about a thousand points! “That would be awesome!”

  My enthusiasm got me a pair of big, beautiful smiles, and then Grandpa started the car, and we were off to the airport. Our local airport wasn't huge, and didn't have major airlines flying in and out of it, but it was still a bustling place to an eight-year-old boy. We parked and walked several hundred yards to the area where private planes were tied down, and Grandpa showed me his pride and joy.

  It was a big twin-engine airplane, with six bucket seats inside. “Noah, this is Annabelle,” he said. “She's a nineteen seventy-nine Cessna 310, one that I bought a few years ago and then completely rebuilt. Your grandma and I have flown all over the country in this aircraft. Ready to take a ride?”

  “Yes, Sir!” I said, and he picked me up and set me on the wing. Grandma had already climbed on and held the door open, and she smiled at me.

  “Since this is your first time riding in an airplane,” she said with a smile, “I thought I'd let you have the copilot seat. You can sit up front with your grandpa, and I'll sit in the back.”

  She climbed in, then helped me get into my own seat and buckled me in. Grandpa had gotten in on the left side, and was already doing things that he said had to be done before he could start the engines. He explained to me about the start-up checklist, and then he flipped a switch and pushed the button and the big engine just outside of where I was sitting started turning and then roared into life. A moment later, the engine on the other side fired up, and only seconds after that, we were moving.

  “Tower, this is Cessna five five four eight Charlie,” he said into his microphone.

  “Four eight Charlie, you are number one for takeoff on runway two. Wind is out of the north at eight miles per hour, so you're heading right into it on takeoff. Happy flying.”

  We rolled slowly across the area where planes were parked, and then stopped at the beginning of the runway. Grandpa revved both engines up until it seemed like they were going to fly right off the wings, and then he let go of the brakes and we started rolling, going faster and faster with every second until I figured we must have been going more than a thousand miles an hour! The noise of the engines and the wheels was so loud that I could barely hear myself think, but then it suddenly lessened as the nose of the plane lifted up and pointed toward the sky, and a second later the wheels left the ground.

  I was flying.

  FIVE

  GOING UP IN that airplane with my grandparents was one of the most defining moments of my life, because I discovered that there was something different about me when I was in the air. Flying was exciting, but as I was looking out the windows and seeing the earth far below, I felt like I was simply standing on a table or something, looking down on a bunch of tiny toys. Little houses, cars, trucks, trees—none of it truly looked real to me, and I could never convince myself that I was truly thousands of feet above the ground.

  Still, there was a thrill involved, something that I could actually feel. It wasn't really anything I could call emotional, and that Vulcan side of me, the logical side, was constantly trying to analyze the sensation. Part of me wondered if it could be the simple knowledge that if the engines failed, then we were probably going to crash and die, as if maybe what I was feeling was just a response to the inherent risk involved in flying.

  Whatever it was, it appealed to me. Most of the time, I was unable to find any sort of “feeling” in myself, so this tingling thrill that seemed like some sort of vibration right in the center of my chest was a welcome change.

  That first ride in an airplane also laid the foundation for a bond with my grandparents. While I didn't know them, and hadn't even known they existed until just a few days before, the fact that they could enjoy this sensation of flying any time they wanted to made me want to be a part of their lives, and to have them as part of mine. We spent a couple of hours up in the air that day, and they probably saw me at the most animated I had been since the night my parents died.

  After we landed, they took me out to see a movie, and then we went to a restaurant and had dinner. My experience with restaurants was mostly the fast food variety, so this was sort of another new experience for me. The food was very good, and I got a kick out of the people coming to the table and asking me if everything was okay. Grandpa made a big point of telling everyone that I was his grandson, and several people made a bit of a fuss over me, but all I knew was that I had some sort of family again.

  I had to be back at Mrs. Connors' house by nine, so they took me back a little before that. They came inside for a bit, and I got to introduce them to my friends, and we all sat and talked for a little bit. I told all my friends about riding in my grandfather's airplane, which made them all pretty jealous, and then Grandpa told all of us a funny version of the story of David and Goliath. Of course, I laughed when the other kids did.

  Then it was time for them to go. Ms. Gamble had told them that they could come every Saturday for a while, if they wished, and spend time with me, so they told me they'd be back the next week. I told them that I'd be looking forward to it, got hugged by both of them, and then they were out the door.

  There was a small room off of the living room that Mrs. Con
nors used as an office, and Ms. Gamble took me into that room to talk, once my grandparents had gone. Mrs. Connors made me hot chocolate, and even offered some to Ms. Gamble, and we sat down in the little office together.

  “So, Noah,” she said, with a slightly goofy expression on her face. “So you like flying, do you?”

  I shrugged. “It was exciting,” I said. “The world looks so different when you're up in the air. It doesn't look real, and it doesn't look like it could have all the problems that it's got.”

  Her eyes went wide, and the goofy look turned to one of curiosity. “Wow, that's a pretty intense comment, coming from a little guy like you. Of course, I know you've seen your share of problems in the world, but I hate hearing you sound so cynical about it. Okay, then, other than that, how did the visit go?”

  “It was okay,” I said. “It's nice to know that I have some family, and I'm glad they want to get to know me. I'm still not sure about going to live with them, though.”

  She grinned at me, the kind of grin that said she might know something I didn't. “You want to give it some thought,” she said. “I'd have to say it's pretty likely that the judge is going to think their home would be a good place for you.”

  “Won't the judge ask me what I think?” I asked. “Shouldn't I have the right to say what I want to do?”

  “I think he probably will, and you'll get to talk to Mr. Albertson about that. He's your guardian ad litem—that's the lawyer who looks out for your best interests. Before the hearing, you'll get to sit down and talk with him and tell him what you want, and then he'll make a recommendation to the judge. Your grandparents' lawyer will make his recommendation, and then the judge will make the decision.” She looked at me as if she were a little worried about how I was taking it all. “Noah, this is our job,” she said. “DCFS is all about trying to find the best situation for the kids we take care of, and in just about every case I've ever seen, the best possible situation involved getting them back with members of their own family. We always go for that if we get the chance, as long as doing so isn't going to put the child at greater risk. I don't see anything about your grandparents that would ever make me think you'd be in danger at their house.”

  I picked up my chocolate and took a drink, looking into her eyes. She was being honest with me, I could tell that, but what she was really saying was that it wouldn't matter much what I wanted. Unless something happened to change the judge's mind, I would almost certainly be taken away from the few friends that I had and thrust into yet another environment to which I would be a stranger.

  By that time, it was starting to get pretty late, so Ms. Gamble had to go. It was close to ten o'clock, and bedtime for most of us, so Jerry and I went to our room. He tried to make conversation, but I didn't feel like talking, so he finally picked up a book and started reading. I lay back on my bed with my hands under my head, staring at the bunk above me as I thought about whether I should try to avoid going to live with my grandparents.

  Over the next four weeks, I came to the conclusion that living with them might not be so bad. I still didn't like the idea of leaving Jerry, Jimmy, Molly and Lizzie, but I was fairly sure that it was inevitable. The worst part about being a kid was that, no matter how certain I was of what I wanted, no one believed I was old enough to be able to make a decision.

  Our visits were fun, or at least as close to it as I could imagine. Grandpa was always delighted to take me up flying for a couple of hours each Saturday, and he actually taught me some basics about how to control the airplane in flight, then let me take the controls. He bragged to Grandma that I was one of the most natural pilots he'd ever seen, and claimed that I had a better understanding of the controls than he did. I laughed, because I thought he was making a joke, but he made it clear to me that he was serious.

  I had met them in early October, which is generally considered to be part of winter in that area of Illinois. The weather was cold most days, but it seemed like Grandpa must have had some pretty good connections with God, because the Saturdays they spent visiting me all enjoyed some pretty decent weather. The temperatures each of those days made it up into the high 50s or low 60s, and it didn't rain or snow on us. I was pretty happy about that, just because we got to do a few things I really did enjoy.

  One of those was going fishing. Given my natural interest in wilderness survival, it wasn't a huge surprise to anyone that I would enjoy fishing, but Grandpa and Grandma were really surprised when I started picking spots to drop my hook where I caught good-sized fish almost instantly. Grandpa asked me how I managed that, and I told him about some of the books that I enjoyed reading, from the one I had brought with me from home about the runaway boy all the way to some out-of-print survival books that Mr. Wallace had given me. Most of them had sections on fishing, and I got a great kick out of showing my grandparents that it was possible to literally whittle a fishhook out of a twig and use it to catch a fish.

  It was obvious that they thought I was a little odd, but I was convinced that they truly did care about me. Even for me, there was a sort of comfort in knowing that, and it probably helped to sway my final decision.

  The hearing to determine where I would live was set for the eighth of December, exactly one week before what would be the first anniversary of the death of my parents. I had spent many hours talking it over with my friends at Mrs. Connors' house, and I was fully aware that each of them hated the thought of seeing me go, but it was like Molly said. I chose what I considered to be the best course of action, and in this case that seemed to be accepting my grandparents as my family, and going to live with them.

  My grandparents met Ms. Gamble there at the house the morning of the hearing, and we all went to the courthouse together. I was getting to miss school for the day, which didn't really excite me; being the logical sort, I had an intense desire to learn everything I could, and that included my lessons at school. Most of my friends, except for Molly, thought I was a little strange on that point. They all jumped at any chance to skip school for a day. For me, though, the more I learned, the better I could understand the world around me, and the better I could make decisions.

  We all sat in the hallway until we were called into the courtroom, and then I was surprised, because we had to sit at different tables. Mr. Albertson, Ms. Gamble and I all sat at one table, while my grandparents and their lawyer, some lady I didn't know, sat at a different one. We had a few minutes before the hearing started, so Mr. Albertson asked me what I wanted to do. I told him that I had thought about it, and decided that I should go to live with my grandparents. He told me that was a good idea, and that he thought I was smart to have figured that out for myself.

  A moment later, a man came into the room and told us that the judge was coming. We all had to stand up for that, and then he told us to sit down.

  “All right,” the judge said, “we're here about placement proceedings for Noah Foster. I understand that the grandparents have come forward and asked for custody?”

  Grandpa's lawyer stood up. “Yes, Your Honor,” she said. “We understand that this case is a bit unusual, in that Noah's grandparents were unaware of his situation for quite some time. It seems that their daughter, who was Noah's mother, had severed relations with them before her son was born. They knew they had a grandson, but they had never met him and had not been notified of their daughter's death until just recently, when Noah's caseworker managed to locate them. Since that time, they have spent quite a few Saturdays visiting with Noah, and have filed this petition for custody. Both Noah and his caseworker have expressed enthusiasm for this plan.”

  The judge looked over at me and smiled. “Noah, you think you want to go live with your grandparents?”

  I nodded. “Yes, Sir,” I said.

  “Mr. Albertson, I understand the department is in favor of this plan?”

  Mr. Albertson stood up and smiled. “That is correct, Your Honor. We believe it is definitely within the best interests of the child in question, and it seems to be w
hat he wants, as well. The grandparents are stable, and have demonstrated that they have long been concerned with Noah's wellbeing. They've also agreed to see to it that he continues the psychological counseling he's already begun.” He sat back down again.

  The judge looked through some papers on his desk and then looked back at me. “Noah, if I agree to this plan, what it means is that you will effectively be adopted by your grandparents. From a strictly legal standpoint, they would become your parents. Do you understand that?”

  I nodded again. “Yes, Sir, I do.”

  He looked at me for another moment, then smiled. “Okay, then,” he said. “Custody is then hereby awarded to James and Carolyn Davidson, Noah's maternal grandparents. We'll set the date for the final adoption proceeding for three months from today.” He signed the papers in front of him, handed them to a lady who sat beside his big desk, then looked at me. “It's all done, Noah. You can go with your grandparents today, and I wish you the very best of luck.”

  Everybody crowded around me, then, to tell me congratulations and wish me luck. I knew what they meant, but it just seemed to me like a bunch of talk. I didn't need luck, because I had my grandparents, which meant I had a family again. And the way everyone talked, if you had a family, that was all you really needed.

  I got to ride back to Mrs. Connors' place with my grandparents, so that I could gather up all my things. Ms. Gamble had told me that it was a sure thing that I'd be going to live with them, so everything was already packed up and waiting. We just had to get the judge's official say-so before my clothes and things could be taken out to Grandpa's car and loaded into the trunk for the long ride back to where they lived.

  I said goodbye to my friends and to Mrs. Connors. Jerry surprised me when I saw tears in his eyes; it hadn't surprised me to see them in Lizzie's or Molly's, but that was because they were girls, and everyone expected girls to be emotional. Jerry had always tried not to let his feelings show, and at times, I wondered if he was trying to imitate me.