She guessed she might as well just spit it out, then.
She took a breath, then said, “Travail wasn’t your mom’s real name. She’s been using Cilla Travail ever since she left home at fourteen.”
He leaned forward suddenly. “How do you know that?”
“She told me.”
He still seemed confused, but he was studying her face like the answers he needed might be found there. “Do you know…?” Then he paused and searched the room as if for the right question. No wonder. He probably had a thousand. “…where I was born?” he asked at length.
Her heart clenched at how eagerly he asked it. She spoke slowly, carefully. “The official records say it was a home birth, attended by a midwife who’s since died. Your birth certificate was issued as Wolf Travail. Cilla didn’t change her own name legally until much later.”
“Probably couldn’t afford it.” He took a deep breath, closed his eyes as if to gather his thoughts. When he opened them again though, the tension lines between his eyebrows had remained. “I still don’t understand why you know these things.”
“Cilla’s lawyer asked me to look into things to make sure none of this messed up the insurance payout. It’s only twenty-five thousand, but?—”
“Dollars?”
“Yes. The lawyer helped her apply for Medicaid. It was just approved. She might not even know yet. But you won’t have to worry about that. Anything not covered can go onto a payment plan.”
“How the hell did she do all that?”
“He says she paid a little from her paychecks every week, but uh…” She shrugged. “But I think they might’ve had a thing once. Just a vibe I get.”
He nodded. “Makes sense. Men fall for my Mom, always have, but as soon as they start getting too close, she cuts ’em loose.” He sighed deeply, his grief in his eyes. Then he said, “And how do you fit into all this?”
“Well, the lawyer hired a private investigator on your mom’s behalf—me.”
“You’re an investigator.”
She nodded. “I was paid in advance to…help you figure things out.”
His brown eyes were swimming in emotion. “Like what things?” he asked.
“Like…who you are.” She’d said too much. She was trying to ease into this for his sake. She felt for him. It was way too easy to do.
Wolf looked at her for a long moment. He took a thoughtful pull from his beer, then set it on the stand. “That doesn’t make a lot of sense, Camellia. If my mother wanted me to know the truth, why not just tell it to the lawyer?” He looked up at the ceiling, shaking his head so his long black hair moved behind him. “Why would she make it so complicated? Why would she need a PI when she could’ve just told me herself?”
“She couldn’t just tell you herself because she’s never known.”
He frowned hard, rising from his chair. It kept rocking after he stood. “What does that even mean?”
She rose, too, gauging the distance to the door before she went on. “When Cilla was fourteen years old, Wolf, she found you washed up along the banks of the Rio Grande after a flash flood had raged miles upstream. She mistook you for an immigrant baby and was afraid of what would happen to you if she turned you over to the authorities. So she just…kept you.”
His eyes were as wide as the universe just then, and the pain that swirled in them just as infinite. There was no anger, no menace there. He didn’t smash anything or swear or punch a wall. She didn’t think he was that kind.
Not like Earl.
Wolf
The room started spinning and not from the beer. Wolf reached out for balance and clasped the woman’s shoulder. He hadn’t meant to, but before he could pull his hand away, she covered it with one of hers, and said, “I know this is a shock.”
His mouth was open, but he wasn’t breathing. He was looking inward, focused on nothing. And what he found inside himself was hollow. His mother hadfoundhim? Who the hellwashe?
Camellia brought her beer bottle around and pressed it to the back of his neck. He sucked in a sharp breath at the chilly contact, then met her eyes. “Shefoundme?”
“Yeah. She did. And this.” She pulled a wad of brown paper from the pocket of her flannel-lined denim jacket, ducking away as she did, so his hand fell from her shoulder to his side again. She handed it to him.
He took the packet and shivered all the way to his bones as he unwrapped it to find a small leather bracelet that spelled out his name in beads: “WOLF.” The O was a round moonstone bead with a howling wolf’s head carved into it.
