She knew about that? Of course she did. I probably shouldn’t have been surprised, and yet I was. My conscience had been telling me that I needed tocommunicate, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I didn’t know if it was my instinct to isolate myself or maybe resentment that she could be so happy and healthy despite the hard hand she’d been dealt.
My heart burned, and I struggled to control my breathing. When I recovered, I still spoke with that disgusting, cracking voice.
“I’m not ready for that.”
“That’s absolutely okay,” she said, as sweet as ever. “But Benny is, and Veronica is curious about her own mother, so I’ll take them.”
God, I was such a fucking failure. I couldn’t even help my children with their grief. I’d thought I could be enough, that I could force myself to push through and take care of them, but I was all the way back to square one.
“I just want you to remember that you don’t have to do this on your own. I can help you find a therapist again so you can heal. Because no matter what those awful voices say, youdodeserve to heal. Even if we break up and never speak again, I want that for you.
“I want you to have peace.”
I stared at her, completely in awe. How could she still be so kind when I’d proven how worthless I was?
Everything surged up inside me, and suddenly I was crying openly. Wordlessly, I reached for Giselle. She stepped into my arms and let me hold her.
God, it hurt so much—so fucking much—but her embrace soothed it, eased the sharp, biting edges of it.
“How could you possibly want to sign on to being with such a broken man?” I asked, voice cracking. “I’m barely even an alpha anymore.”
“You’re not broken,” she murmured, her hands going to my face and cupping my cheeks. The kindness in those honeyed eyes of hers was so deep, so endless. “You just need time to heal. Just like I did when my mother died. I’m happy to help you through it if you’ll let me, but you’re the one who has to want to.”
I wanted to. I did. I’d had a glimpse of what the future could be with the jamboree and the night we’d spent together, and I would do anything to have that back.
Anything? a voice inside me asked.
The road to recovery wouldn’t be easy—it would be painful, uncomfortable, and require a whole lot of work.
But it was worth it. It had to be worth it, right?
“I… I want to go with you,” I said finally, composing myself.
“Are you sure? You don’t have to.”
I shook my head, reminding myself that I could be strong. I had been once in my life, and I could be again. “I want to.”
“All right.” She pressed a single, velvet-soft kiss to my forehead. “Is that what you want to wear?”
I looked down at the shoddy outfit I’d put on, and realized that no, it wasn’t. My wife and Veronica’s mother deserved more than that.
“I’m going to change.”
“Take as long as you need. I’ll be right here.”
And the crazy thing was, I knew she would be.
I stared at the grove of trees near the edge of what had once been our pack lands, the only piece of the property I hadn’t sold. All four of us were gathered in silence—even Veronica was quiet.
It wasn’t our tradition to use headstones for our dead. Instead, I’d planted a tree over every single grave I dug, trying to match the person to something that fit them.
Over Millia’s grave, I’d planted a peach tree. She’d always loved them. Sometimes, I felt like I could still taste her cobbler on my tongue. For Veronica’s mother, I’d planted an apple tree, as I remembered her favorite lotion had been apple cinnamonno matter what time of year it was. I’d never been able to find the body of her husband, meaning he was either eaten or ripped to shreds too small for me to identify, but I’d buried one of his caps with her.
I looked at the other trees spread out in the orderly margins I’d planted them in. A pear tree for Allison McGregor, an eighteen-year-old girl who would have been the first in our pack to go to an Ivy League school. Most of my pack hadn’t pursued secondary education, and those of who had, opted to go to a community college or somewhere close. We’d had money from our pack fund, yes, but if everyone had wanted to go somewhere expensive, it would have wiped it out pretty fast. I’d found her half under her bed, holding onto a stuffed animal that had belonged to one of her siblings.
A Granny Smith apple tree for Isiah Timothy’s grave. He had been one of two mechanics in the pack, and he’d had a rant ready whenever someone tried to say red apples and green apples were the same. I’d found most of him in front of his garage, as if he’d been trying to protect the door.
A white birch for Gem Hernandez. Her grandmother had married into our pack and she’d been courting a man from up north. I found her inside Timothy’s garage.
