Tell The Wolves I'm Home

by Carol Rifka Brunt

He was so pale that the colors of the pot looked garish next to him.

I thought of our faces, mine and Greta’s, staring out into that dark vault. And I thought that at least I wasn’t alone in there. Even being with Greta was better than being alone in such a dark dark place.

That was something about a present from Finn. You always kept the wrapping paper because it was always more beautiful than any you’d ever seen. That particular wrapping paper was a deep dark red that looked like it was made of real velvet.

Then I was sorry that I’d smiled, because I didn’t want him to get the idea that we were friends or anything.

Viruses. I looked away. Toby looked down, and when he looked back up his face was serious.

Like a thief once removed, because it felt to me like Toby was the real thief.

I felt like I had proof that not all days are the same length, not all time has the same weight. Proof that there are worlds and worlds and worlds on top of worlds, if you want them to be there. Twenty-Four

Look at the bigger girl, the one with the braids. Look how obvious it is that she’s in love with the artist. How sad. How pathetic. I didn’t need that at all.

“Being a romantic means you always see what’s beautiful. What’s good. You don’t want to see the gritty truth of things. You believe everything

“Why do you even care?” I said. And I really wanted to know. I really wanted to understand why someone who seemed to hate me so much cared about where I went after school. Greta’s smile slipped for a second, then she turned away. The bus rounded the corner and we both looked over to see it swing its great yellow body onto our street. Greta turned back to me and stuck her chin up. “I don’t,” she said.

Then you’ll be calling me up saying you should have listened. You should have taken your chance when it came. You …” We all stood there, stunned. “Mom, are you crying?” I asked. She shook her head, but anyone could see there were tears in her eyes.

The seat was all worn, but the back was bright because Finn was always leaning forward when he sat there, in toward the easel in front of him.

On a table in the corner was a lamp Finn had made by burying a lightbulb in the middle of a goldfish bowl full of green sea glass. There were pieces of smooth glass in every shade of green you could think of, and when you turned on the light it looked like something from the future.

Next to it was this chess set that Finn had made in art school. He said he kept it to remind him never, ever to be a pretentious idiot. All the squares on the board were black, so it was hard to know whether you were in the right place. The pieces were these tiny rat skulls that he’d varnished. Each one had a small mark to tell you what piece it was. The bishops had a little cross on the top, and the knights had small horse heads. But other than that they were all the same. Practically identical unless you looked up close, and then you’d start to see the differences. Like one might have a chipped-...

Finn used to put sugar cubes on a little plate with tiny tongs that were shaped like the claws of a small animal. Toby must not have known about that, because he just brought out the wrinkled sugar bag.

I took the smallest puff and coughed, then put the cigarette down in the ashtray. I was waiting for Toby to laugh at me, but he didn’t.

I used to have contests with Greta to see who could find the prettiest one out of all the swirled marbled patterns in that jar. How could those not be Finn’s?

What if everything I loved about Finn had really come from Toby? Maybe that’s why I felt like I’d known Toby for years and years. Maybe all along Toby had been shining right through Finn.

“I like it,” he said after a while. Ben’s response caught me off guard, and my moment of bravery disappeared. I found myself blushing again, trying to avoid eye contact.

“Well,” I said, “you’re not supposed to.” “Ah, supposed to—my least favorite words.” Ben was so nerdy that it actually made me feel cool for a few seconds. I tried to subtly slip

Greta came on late, and when she was onstage she looked disinterested. Halfhearted. Like she was trying not to be as good as she could be. Maybe I was the only one who noticed it though, because she was still excellent. She couldn’t help it.

Do you know what it’s like to have a father in the military? Do you? Moving base to base. I was in charge of making sure Finn was okay. I was expected to look after him. Me, June. I simply will not allow you to continue moping around the way you’ve been. It’s out of all proportion. This feeling-sorry-for-yourself business. I’m the one who should be a mess, June. I’m the one who lost a brother.” She pressed her palms against her eyes. “You think I don’t know what it is you’re listening to up there in your room every night? You think I don’t know it’s the Requiem? Who do you think showed that music to Finn? He’s not the only one who knows about beautiful things.”

such momish dialogue

The walls of the tunnels were covered with so much dirt, it was almost like fur. I thought those tunnels were the kind of places wolves might live. I thought they were like the vessels of the human heart.

As soon as I walked in, I saw that the apartment had started to look different. Finnless. There were three or four dirty plates stacked up on the coffee table. The ashtray, which was a molded bowl Finn had made out of blacktop (tarmac, Toby had called it last time, rolling his eyes and smiling), was full, and the shades were pulled down over the big windows.

Toby has nobody, I told myself again.

“Maybe … I don’t know … Maybe it’s just that people didn’t know everything then. There were things people had never seen before. Places nobody had ever been. You could make up a story and people would believe it. You could believe in dragons and saints. You could look around at plants and think that maybe they could save your life.” I’d been staring at the rug the whole time, because I had a feeling I wasn’t making any sense and Toby might be laughing at me. But when I glanced up, I saw that he wasn’t. He was nodding. “I like that,” he said. “Really?” I watched Toby to see if he really meant it and, when I was convinced that he did, I went on. “And, well, also maybe it seems like it would be okay not to be perfect. Nobody was perfect back then. Just about everyone was defective, and most people had no choice except to stay that way.”

He loved Finn more than you did. That’s what it told me. And I knew it was true. I could feel a hard cold knot forming in the center of my chest. I’m not a jealous person. I’m not a jealous person. I’m not a jealous person. I thought that to myself over and over again, slowing my breathing down. I looked up at Toby.

Maybe he would lock me in this basement and nobody in the world would ever guess where I was.

“Please,” in the most pathetic voice ever. Then he perked back up. “Look, truly, June. You won’t be sorry.”

I might have felt sorry for Toby if the place wasn’t so beautiful. If it wasn’t so completely obvious that a person would only make someplace like this for someone they really loved.

And then what? I guess I never would have been so close to Finn. I never would have thought that I might be the most important person he had.

wasn’t sure if I meant it to come out as mocking as it did, but once again Toby didn’t seem to notice my tone.

Motif

“The hardest heart in the world.” “Hmmm,” Toby said, tapping a finger in the air. “That’s a useful one, you know. Very handy. The question is …” Toby paused like he was considering this all very seriously. “What’s the question?” “The question is, stone or ice? Crack or melt?”

He looked guilty and embarrassed, and I could see that he knew exactly what I was talking about.

I stood there, shaking and heaving on Madison Avenue in front of Toby, waiting for him to run away or shove me into a taxi, but he didn’t. He stepped in, put his long arms around me, and leaned his head on my shoulder. We stood there under that awning until I could feel that he was crying too. The click of Toby’s mint against his teeth, and the high squeal of car brakes, and the rain plinking on the canvas over our heads all joined with our low deep sobs to make a kind of music that afternoon.

It turned the whole city into a chorus of our sadness, and after a while it almost stopped feeling bad and turned into something else. It started to feel like relief.

thought that if I was drowning in the ocean, Finn would be like a strong, polished wooden ship with sails that always caught the wind. And Toby? Well, Toby was more like a big yellow rubber raft that might pop at any moment. But maybe he’d still be there. That’s what I was starting to think.

That she’d married a boring old numbers guy like me and was living in the dreaded suburbs. There was Finn, New York City artist, with his cool English boyfriend, and there she was, accountant, mother of two, in the ’burbs, sitting next to me, the uncoolest guy imaginable.” This time I was sure there was some hurt in his voice.

At first it hadn’t seemed right that some of the things I’d loved about Finn might have come from Toby, but I’d started to think that maybe there was something good about it. Maybe it would work the other way too. If I looked carefully enough, I might be able to catch glimpses of Finn shining right through Toby.

“Don’t you know? That’s the secret. If you always make sure you’re exactly the person you hoped to be, if you always make sure you know only the very best people, then you won’t care if you die tomorrow.”

“No, no. It’s the most unhappy people who want to stay alive, because they think they haven’t done everything they want to do. They think they haven’t had enough time. They feel like they’ve been shortchanged.”

With Toby, I felt like we were both strangers in this place. I didn’t just feel like I was from the suburbs but like I was from someplace a world away from here. Like I didn’t belong but also like I didn’t want to. Like I didn’t care. And in lots of ways that felt just as good as blending in. Maybe even better.

What’s embarrassing is that the last time I remember playing that game was when I was eleven and Greta was thirteen. We both knew we were too old for it—Greta had real makeup by then—but we also knew we liked that game, and when it’s only you and your sister, you can do any embarrassing thing you want.

Or maybe she just didn’t care anymore. Maybe I wasn’t worth the trouble. I went to sleep with that sad thought in my head, and when I woke up in the morning it was still there, like a cool black hole right in the middle of everything.

I like the word clandestine. It feels medieval. Sometimes I think of words as being alive. If clandestine were alive, it would be a pale little girl with hair the color of fall leaves and a dress as white as the moon. Clandestine is the kind of relationship me and Toby had.

didn’t say anything and Toby turned to go. Behind my back I heard him closing the cage door. I wanted to look at the paintings all on my own. I didn’t want to be afraid, but my mother was right. The place was like something out of a horror movie. “Toby?” “Yeah?” “You could stay … you know, if you want.” He smiled, and before I knew it he was back in the cage, stretched out on the chaise longue, pouring a drink from one of those fancy crystal bottles. “I won’t watch you,” he said. “Pretend I’m not even here.”

thought how many small good things in the world might be resting on the shoulders of something terrible.

I’d found a friend. And I started to believe that Toby wanted to see me because of me. Not just because of what I knew about Finn. I knew I’d made that mistake before,

Sometimes what Greta said was so sharp I could actually feel her words cutting up my insides, slicing their way through my stomach and my heart. I knew she’d be looking at me, reading my face, so I tried to harden up as quick as I could. But, still, she’d already seen my reaction.

I knew that when Greta got like this, she would be able to instantly transform whatever I said. It was like she was a master sculptor and my words were the ball of clay in her warm palm. A million possibilities waiting to be formed. I could say anything and Greta would turn it stupid and naïve. But maybe she was right. Maybe it wasn’t that she could change my words; maybe it was that she was able to strip away all the layers until only the truth was left. Ugly and skinless and raw.