When he died, I’d stuffed it into his desk drawer and forgotten all about it.
“You were inside his desk,” I said, keeping my voice neutral.
Her gaze shot to the floor. “Um… yes. I was…”
“Snooping, but I don’t mind.”
She looked up. “You don’t?”
I shrugged. “I doubt there’s anything worth noting there.”
“Except this.” Victoria nudged the book my way.
I didn’t take it immediately. I wasn’t sure what it might be or what I’d find inside, and I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to know.
She waited without pushing.
Finally I took it from her. The leather felt soft, warmed from her hands. I opened it to the first page and found my father’s neat handwriting.
“It’s a journal,” Victoria said.
I hadn’t known my father had kept one. In all the years of watching him work, I’d never seen him write in anything like this.
Victoria returned to her desk, giving me space without making it obvious that was what she was doing.
I sat at my father’s desk for the first time in thirteen years and it felt… alright.
Victoria bent over her notes at my mother’s old writing desk across the room. Both of them present in this space now, in their own way. I wasn’t sure what to do with that.
The chair was the same. The desk still held piles of papers and odds and ends, unchanged from when my father last sat here. I’d sat across from this desk a thousand times as I grew into a young alpha who thought he knew more than he did.
I’d never sat behind it.
Laying the journal on the smooth wooden top, I opened it to the first entry, dated thirty-two years ago, the year I was born.
The writing was spare and direct. I found daily logs. Details about pack business. Border notes and weather observations. Normal things. My father’s voice in written form.
Then my name started appearing, again and again.
Feral shifted for the first time today. Perfect form. He’ll be faster than me by the time he’s grown.
He’d noticed? My father had never ignored me, but he’d been busy all the time. All alphas were.
Border patrol with my boy. He spotted the scent marker I missed. But he didn’t gloat about it, which showed more maturity than I had at his age.
I remember finding the marker, the way his hand had landed on my shoulder, the proud look in his eyes.
Feral ran the ridge today. Three hours without stopping. He has the heart of a king.
I turned the page.
He argued with me about the eastern boundary markers for forty minutes, and he was right. I didn’t tell him, though I will soon.
He hadn’t gotten the chance, though I guess I could say now that he had—in this journal.
Another page.
My son doesn’t know yet what he’s capable of. I’m not sure I should tell him. He’ll figure it out himself and it will mean more that way.
