Tell the Wolves I'm Home (8 page)

That's what the letter said. I had to read it sitting on the curb under a streetlamp in the school parking lot, because it was too dark in the
woods by the time I got there. A few kids from the play were out there waiting for their mothers to drop off dinner. I stayed in the far corner of the lot with my hood up over my head, hoping nobody would see me.

Once I'd read the letter, I shoved it back into my pocket and walked right into those dusky woods. It was wet and icy, but I didn't care. I walked and walked until I got to the brook. All along the edge of the water there were paper-thin sheets of ice pressed with brown leaves. But the middle still ran, quick and snaky, like it was worried it might get caught. I jumped across the brook and walked a bit farther before I sat down on a big wet boulder. I must have gone farther than I thought, because I could hear the same sad howling I'd heard the last time I was in the woods. Or maybe it wasn't that I'd gone farther; maybe those wolves, or whatever they were, were coming closer. I unfolded the note and tried to read it again. I sat there squinting my eyes to see the words one more time, but I couldn't. Even with no leaves, the trees shaded out any light that was left.

But it didn't matter. I didn't need light. The words of that note were already burned into my mind.
You are perhaps the only person who misses Finn as much as I do
. What was that supposed to mean? What was it supposed to mean that some man who thought it was a good idea to pretend to be a mailman and show up on the doorstep of his boyfriend's niece's house thought he missed Finn,
my
uncle Finn, as much as I did? This man who'd killed Finn. I could have shouted out right along with those wolves. I could have let a warm howl turn my breath into a ghost in those cold winter woods. But I didn't. I sat there, quiet.

I thought about tearing that note up into a thousand little pieces. I thought about dropping the pieces into the fast, cold brook and watching them float away. But I didn't. I folded it up into a thick small square, tucked it back into my pocket, and turned for home.

Thirteen

“Mom?”

“Yes?”

“What's gonna happen to Finn's apartment?”

It was later that same night. I'd waited until Greta was in bed. My dad was watching the late news, and my mother was washing out the crockpot in the kitchen. She had on her yellow rubber gloves, and her shoulders shook with the effort of scrubbing. You could tell how far into tax season it was by what my mother did at night. Now she was still doing dishes before going to bed. By mid-March, the crockpot would sit soaking overnight in the sink and she'd be on the couch with my father, both of them with eyes barely open, folders of paperwork on their laps.

When she heard my question, she stopped scrubbing and stood staring out the dark kitchen window for a few seconds. Then she pulled off the gloves one at a time and tossed them into the sink. When she turned around she was frowning a little, but I could see she was trying not to.

“Let's sit down.” She pointed down the hall, toward the living room. “Go on. I'll be there in a minute.”

The folded note was still in my pocket and I slid my hand in there, letting my fingers riffle the edges. I looked at my mother, thinking she had no idea what I was holding on to, thinking I would tell her when the right moment came along.

In the living room, the portrait's eyes were on me. We'd hung it just a few hours after Mr. Trusky dropped it off. At first my mother said it should go in our rooms. Greta's for a month, then mine for a month, switching back and forth like that. Finn meant it for us, she said. Greta said right away that she didn't want it in her room. It creeped her out and she didn't like the way Finn had painted her. She said he'd purposely made her look like an idiot. And, she said, she didn't like the way he'd painted me either.

“Why not?” I said. “I think it looks okay.”

“Of course you think it looks okay. He made you look better than you've ever looked in your whole life. You
would
like it.”

She was right. I did like myself in that portrait. There was a kind of intelligence in my eyes that I was pretty sure wasn't there in real life, and I seemed smaller. Greta and Finn and my mother all had the same slim bones. My father and I were the lumbering ones, the misshapen bears. But in the portrait, Greta and I were almost the same size.

Still, if you looked at Greta and looked at the portrait, you could see that Greta was prettier in real life and prettier in the picture, and I told her that.

“I'm not prettier, you dweeb. I'm just older. Can't you even tell the difference?”

It was a nice thing for her to say. In her way. With Greta you have to look out for the nice things buried in the rest of her mean stuff. Greta's talk is like a geode. Ugly as anything on the outside and for the most part the same on the inside, but every once in a while there's something that shines through.

“Well, then, I'm going to be selfish,” my mother said. “I don't think it's fair that the painting stays locked up in one person's room forever, so I'm going to suggest that we hang it over the mantel. Any problems with that?”

Greta groaned. “That's even worse. It'll creep out the whole living room. Plus, absolutely everyone who comes here will see the thing.”

“I'm afraid that's the way it's going to be, Greta. June, any problem with that?”

“No. That's okay.”

“That's done, then. We'll have your father hang it.”

Since it's been up, I've caught my mother staring at it. Not just once, but a bunch of times. All that time at Finn's it was like she was completely uninterested, almost repulsed, by the portrait, but since it's been in our house she's seemed almost obsessed with it. I've seen her eyeing it the same way Finn did. Tilting her head. Muttering things to it under her breath. Walking close, then backing up. This was usually at night, after I was supposed to be in bed, and if she caught me standing there she'd give me an embarrassed smile. Then she'd walk out of the room, acting like nothing had been going on.

I'd made sure that Greta wasn't around when I asked about the apartment. I thought she probably knew all the horrible details of what was going to happen to it. She probably knew that it'd be scrubbed with bleach until there wasn't even a hint of lavender or orange left. She probably knew exactly who the new owners would be and that they were horrible people who'd turn that apartment into some kind of dumpy place with TVs and stereos and wires all over the place. Finn hated wires. He hated having stuff plugged in everywhere.

At first, when my mother came into the living room, she didn't say anything. She looked up at the portrait, then she looked at me. She sat next to me on the couch, close, with her arm around my shoulders. She smelled of lemony dish soap.

“Junie,” she said. “You need to understand some things about Finn.” She turned her face away from me, then turned back. “I know how much you loved your uncle. And I did too. He was my baby brother. I loved him to pieces.”

“Love.”

“What?”

“Love, not loved. We can still love him.”

My mother raised her head.

“Of course we can. You're right. But the thing about Finn is that he didn't always make the best choices. He did whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. He didn't always …”

“Care what other people wanted him to do?”

“Yes.”

“He didn't care what you wanted him to do.”

“That's not the important thing. The important thing to understand is that Finn was a free spirit and a good man, but maybe sometimes he was a bit too trusting.”

My mother said this kind of thing about Finn a lot. How he never grew up. She said it like it was a bad thing, but to me it was one of the very best things about him.

“So what does this have to do with his apartment?”

“Nothing. Just, well, Finn had a different … lifestyle. Do you see what I mean?”

“I know Finn was gay, Mom. Everybody knows that.”

“Of course you do. Of course. So let's just leave it there. Okay? We don't need to worry about the apartment anymore.” My mother rubbed my back and smiled. She started to stand, but I wasn't done.

“Well, what if I wanted to go there?”

My mother shook her head, then stared up at the portrait for a long time. When she finally looked at me again, her face was serious.

“Look, June, there's a man living there. Okay? He was Finn's … special friend. Do you see what I mean?” My mother grimaced slightly, though I could tell she was trying to hold it back. “I didn't want to get into this.…”

Special friend?
I stifled a laugh.
Special friend
reminded me of kindergarten field trips. It made me think of holding hands with Donna Folger and looking both ways before crossing streets.

“What's that supposed to mean?” I said.

“I think you know what it means. Now can we drop it?”

I was still laughing a little, but as the whole thing started to sink in, my smile faded. Finn had never told me that someone would be moving into his apartment when he died. Why wouldn't he tell me something huge like that?

I felt for the note again.
The only person who misses Finn as much as I do
. That's what it said. Toby. I knew the special friend's name. And I knew he'd called me from the apartment, but I guess I figured he'd find a new place to live.

I would have asked my mother then and there why nobody had ever mentioned this special friend, this Toby, to me, but I couldn't bear to do it. To embarrass myself like that. To make it seem like this was a
big deal to me. For the last few years I'd considered Finn to be my best friend. The very best. Maybe I was wrong about that.

I nodded at my mother without looking her in the eye. Suddenly the thought of telling her that Finn's
special friend
had come right to our front door, that Finn's
special friend
knew that I was the only one who missed Finn as much as he did, that Finn's
special friend
had asked me to meet him, seemed impossible.

“Yeah, okay. I'll drop it,” I said, and although I held it back with every muscle in my body, what I really wanted to do was cry. Not only because Finn had never told me about this guy, but because there was no way to ask him about it. And until then I don't think I really understood the meaning of gone.

Fourteen

“Remember that party?” Greta grabbed me and whispered in my ear as I came out of the upstairs bathroom. My hands were still wet and I rubbed them on my sweater.

“Ummm?”

Greta let out an exasperated sigh. “Yeah, you do. Remember I asked if you wanted to go to a party? Jillian Lampton? Remember?”