Her mother petted her head as if it were a cat in her lap. “You had a right to feel angry and betrayed. I’ve kept this from you, and that was wrong. But no more.” She gripped Willow’s shoulders and straightened her. “I want you to know everything, my Willow. And it’s all here.”
As she spoke, she caressed the lid of the strongbox, and then she raised it.
Willow sank onto the sofa beside her as her mother reached into the box, then paused. Her hands were shaking.
Willow leaned forward to cover them with her own. “Are you sure you can handle this?”
Taylor nodded rapidly. “It’s time.” Then she pulled out a baby book and laid it on the table between them. Its cover was padded fabric with rearing mustangs, and when she opened the book, Willow gulped. There was her mother, so much younger, in a hospital bed, holding a tiny newborn baby. He had a thick head of black hair, a comically turned-up nose, and intense brown eyes. He looked like a wise, nut-brown elf who knew all the secrets of the universe.
“What’s that on his wrist?”
“A bracelet. Made by a shaman as a gift.”
“Shaman? What shaman?” Willow asked.
Taylor smiled, her gaze turning inward. “Turtle. An old friend of your father’s. We thought he’d passed, but…it arrived at the hospital within minutes of his birth with a blank card that had a turtle on it.” She focused on the photo again. “Your dad put it on him the day he was born. A bond to his family, clan, and tribe. See the wolf stone in the center?”
“I see it.”
“When your father put it on him, he…” Her mother made a soft sound and Willow turned to her. “Maybe I can’t do this after all,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, Willow. I’m sorry. Can you…?” She closed the book and dropped it back into the strongbox atop baby blankets and clothes. “Just take it, can you? I can’t…”
She got up, and Willow did, too.
Her mother hugged her. “Sorry, honey. I love you.” Then she turned and went to the staircase and up it without looking back.
Willow closed her eyes and swore under her breath. Sighing, she texted Drew.
Project Wolf. Meet at my OLD place ASAP
Drew responded with a thumbs-up emoji.
Willow left her mom’s house, carrying the strongbox in front of her. It was heavy, but not from its contents. The box itself was heavy.
By the time she’d trudged down the long stretch of driveway between her parents’ house and the guest cottage where she’d lived before moving in with Jeremiah, Drew was already pulling in.
Her rusty gray 1988 VW Jetta with its squared off headlights and boxy grill rumbled closer. It was the most fuel-efficient model she could afford on her own income. Drew parked and jumped out, then ran ahead to open the cottage door. “What is it?”
“Everything, I think.” Willow carried the box inside with Drew on her heels. She set it on the coffee table and took off the lid. “Mom started to show me, then she kind of lost it.” Her throat convulsed so hard it hurt. “I’ve never seen her like this.”
“You messed up. You know that, right?” Drew moved through the place like she owned it, heading into the kitchen, opening the fridge. Willow didn’t live there, but she still kept supplies on hand for cousin meetings and the like.
Drew came back with two Cokes, passing one to Willow before dropping onto the sofa.
Willow took the baby book out of the box, set it on the coffee table, then looked to see what else was inside. Baby blankets, baby clothes, booties, a little plastic hospital bracelet with “Jonathon Wolf Brand” on it.
Drew was turning pages in the baby book. “His birth certificate. Oh, look, his little footprints!”
Willow set the hospital bracelet down and scooted closer to Drew as she turned pages. So many shots of that baby boy. That other bracelet, the one gifted to him by a shaman, was on his chubby wrist in every single photo. There were shots of Willow’s dad holding him, Willow’s mom holding him, and the three of them posing in the most beautiful baby-makes-three shots ever taken. Dozens of photographs of Johnny Wolf with each of his uncles and most of his aunts, each photo with his age underneath in days.
They didn’t go past fifteen.
The last photo was of him in a car seat in the back of an SUV Willow had never seen, with “Sky Dancer Ranch” painted on the side. Underneath, it said, “Fifteen days old and ready for his first checkup.”
God, that had to be his final day. “Drew!”
Drew jumped, startled. “What?”
“I think this is the day it happened. On his way for his first checkup.”
