Tell The Wolves I'm Home

by Carol Rifka Brunt

could come up with a list of reasons why I’d made that phone call to Toby on Saturday night. Convincing reasons. Reasons that would be easy to believe. I was worried about Greta. It seemed like the best option. I panicked. There are more. I could come up with more in an instant. But underneath all of them is the reason I’m afraid of. The one that still haunts me at night. The one that still wanders around dressed in wolf’s clothing. Baring sharp, shiny teeth. The one I don’t want to believe is that I did it on purpose. That I called because of all those Sundays I waited for the phone to ring. All those Sundays I imagined Finn was probably having the time of his life with Toby. I called because of how embarrassing it must have been for Finn to have me fawning over him all the time. I called because sometimes I imagined I could hear them laughing. At me. At every dumb thing about me. How funny it was that I didn’t know a thing about the two of them. How hilarious it was that I had feelings for my own uncle.