I feel tears streaming my face, "I love you too. Even when I wasn’t supposed to and I shouldn’t have, I did."
He nods, "And we both still love him and I think that’s okay."
I nod into his face and pray to God that I get more. More days and more love and more happiness.
Epilogue
Ten years ago, I made a choice to save a girl and she ended up saving me in the end.
Ten years ago, I killed the man who took everything from me. The man who killed my real dad.
Ten years ago, I realized my mother was a good person.
Ten years ago, I fell in love with a man I hated as much as I loved. A man as damaged as me. I like to think we healed each other as much as we hurt each other.
Ten years ago, I fell in love with another man, one who made me happy in a way I tried to fight, because he was everything I didn’t think I deserved.
Today, as I look down on him sleeping next to me, I can't help but think how perfect we are for each other. He makes me soft and I make him strong and together we accept the love we both still have for his brother.
"Auntie Em!"
I roll over as the twins attack.
"Uncle Jake!"
He moans and tries to pull his pillow over his face, "Uncle Jake needs sleep."
I laugh and hug Meg to me. She squeals and curls into my body. She bats her blue-green eyes that look remarkably like mine. She peers at me through her lashes, "What did you get me for my birthday?"
I roll my eyes, "It can't be your birthday already."
Bernard frowns, "It is, Aunty Em."
Jake looks puzzled, "How many is it this year?"
Bernard rolls his blue-green eyes, "Seven. We told you this yesterday and Momma says you have to get up. We can't have cake without you."
I rub his brown hair that looks like his uncle’s, "Bernie, why don’t you and Meg go look in the drawer over there." I point at the dresser Jake made. It's a little crooked, but I like it that way.
They hop off and run for the drawer. Meg squeals in delight as she pulls the bow and quiver from the drawer. She looks back, "Really?"
I nod, "Go see Sarah. She’ll help you make arrows and teach you to shoot it, and tell you the rules."
She gushes, "I hope I'm as good of a hunter as she is, well, one day."
Bernard doesn’t look as excited about the matching bows and quivers. Jake laughs and points at the second drawer, "Check that one out."
He opens it and freezes. His jaw drops and when he looks at us it makes me smile harder. "Robin Hood?" He lifts the book out of the drawer and holds it to his chest. Meg makes a face and runs out of the house, no doubt in search of Sarah. Bernard cracks the book open and walks out of the house, dragging the bow behind him.
Jake looks at me with so much love in his eyes. Sometimes I wonder if he's sad that I can't have a baby. The one time I asked him he got angry; he never really does that much.
"It's weird they are exactly like their namesakes."
I laugh, "I know. Meg is a savage and Bernie is a bookworm."
He glances at me, "At least Will is nothing like Will."
I roll my eyes, "Poor girl, who saddles a four year old with the name Will?"
He wraps himself around me, "I wonder what Star and Mitch got the twins? Can't be as cool as our gift."
I sigh, "We rode a long ways to find that book."
Anna comes in the house seconds later, "Get up. Jeeze. You're worse than the teenagers."
Jake moans, "We were on watch last night, Anna."
She snorts, "Did you know Star gave them their own sheriff badges? Will is out there trying to steal Bernie's. I can't believe you gave them a weapon and she gave them badges to make those weapons lawful."
I look at Jake, "Oh, that’s cooler than our gift."
He points, "Only to Meg."
Anna sighs, "You going to the trade market tomorrow?"
I nod, "Yeah. I need to see him."
She nods, "I'm coming." She gives Jake a sweet look and bats her eyelashes, "Can you stay here and help Nick with the twins?"
He smiles, "Yeah. I can help Sarah teach Meg not to shoot other people."
As a village we celebrate their birthday, the first babies born here. We laugh, joke and eat. It's a night filled with dancing and singing.
We have learned to make joy and live every day.
Nothing is perfect but it's better.
Outlaws are gunned down by the sheriffs Star and Mitch run. Criminals are punished harshly. Trade markets no longer trade people. Brothels are the new way of keeping women down, but Star burns them when she finds them. She has learned to use her anger and hatred in a good way. Sometimes I ride with her to release my inner demons.
Nothing is ever going to be perfect. I still haven’t found all the people Marshall was with; the bad people who kill kids like me. When I stumble upon them I kill them, but I know there are more. There always will be bad people. The kids Michael made have blended. We don’t see packs of them like we did in the city. Society has either killed them or accepted them, depending on where they ended up and their behavior.
Anna and I ride into the trade market the next day. The smell of fruit is everywhere. The warm summer months make the trade market the best place to come. There is fruit, baking, and roasting everywhere.
We ride past the market though, heading for the place that was never part of the deal for the land.
I get off of my horse and tie him to a post. Anna and I walk to the two rock piles under the rose bush that seems so large now, I hardly recognize it. Anna picks the leaves and sticks off of the headstone that was placed here with Bernie's name on it.
I drop in front of the one I buried him under two summers ago. He had to have been the oldest-lived wolf ever.
I place the stone from my pocket in the pile and just let the tears come.
"I miss you, buddy."
He died old, fat, and happy. He died sleeping next to a warm dish of food. If anyone deserved that death it was him.
I look up at the sky and smile, "You all hug each other for me."
Anna and I still cry every time we come. Sarah refuses to come. She won't see him in the ground.
Someone once told me to find another timber wolf for a pet. They didn’t understand he was never my pet. He was my family. He was the warmth in the dark and the person I needed to not be alone.
No one but Anna, Sarah, and Jake can understand the value of Leo. He was family.
Anna grips my hand and I try to smile. "I wish he could have lived forever."
Anna nods and sniffles, "Me too."
I look down at the spot on my skin, where I had the smithy burn his name into my arm, and rub the scar.
I look at Anna and know Leo led them to me. I like to think that he knew one day he would be gone and I would be alone. He found a family for me. He chose them and I don’t think anyone could have chosen better.
Through the thick and thin, and the good and the bad, no one but Leo could have found me a better place to fit in or better people.
No one knew me the way Leo did.
I believe in God because of the two people in front of me—Meg and Leo, angels in disguise.
There are a thousand things I could have changed and made different than they are now, but then maybe I wouldn’t have the life I do. Everyday there is more. More love, more happiness, and more gratitude for everyday I wake up free.
They say that the world was built for two. I used to doubt that and think that two was a long lost dream. I used to believe we didn’t deserve the happiness of the perfect place we all remembered.
But that world wasn’t ever real; it never existed. It was a daydream and a memory we made up. We didn’t want the change, but in some ways we needed it.
Some things were easier before, but almost everything is better now.
Nothing is instant; evil and hatred take time. It isn’t as easy as using the internet to make hate, or commit crimes from a speeding car with a gun out the window. Everything takes time and effort. The good and the bad.
I see now that true love isn’t fickle; it's what we put into it. If we work hard at loving someone, then no one can corrupt the love we have.
I see everything differently than before and I have Leo to thank for that.
I wasn’t born into this world. I had to learn how to survive and live with the other people in it. But like Jake always says, I was raised by wolves, so I had to expect it was going to be hard to learn how to fit in.
Looking back on it all, I can't think of a better way to be raised than by a wolf, and I can't think of a better wolf to raise a savage little girl all on his own.
I lift the rock I found, with the pretty crystals in it, to my lips and kiss it. The warmth of the stone against my lips is a comfort. I place it back down on the pile and hold my hand there, "I love you both."
I get up and walk away, holding the hand of my sister, grateful for my ‘us’. Because it's us and them, it always was.
The End