“We don’t get to go back,” Jeremy said.

“No, we don’t.”

The sun rose higher and turned the hills to gold, and there was nothing but beauty and magic and the endless wild rolling ocean of trees as far as the eye could see.

Jeremy smiled. “It’s…all right. This is good too.”

Chapter Forty

Jeremy was awake for a few minutes after the operation. The surgeon said he was talking, aware. All good signs. There was some concern about a head injury, since Jeremy couldn’t tell them what day it was, so they were considering an MRI.

Rafe wasn’t worried about that. He didn’t know what day it was either.

While conscious, Jeremy had said he wasn’t sure who’d shot him. Just a hunting accident, he’d said. The police would probably stop by to take a report. No one seemed troubled by their cover story. This was West Virginia. Hunting accidents happened all the time.

Finally, the surgeon asked if Rafe wanted to see Jeremy.

He did, yes. Yes, he wanted to see Jeremy. A nurse led him to the room where Jeremy had already fallen back asleep. She checked his vitals, then left them alone.

The room was lit only by the machines hooked up to Jeremy. They breathed and beeped and clicked and dripped medicine. Rafe pulled a chair right next to Jeremy’s hospital bed. He wanted to take his hand, but it had an IV needle in it, so Rafe reached under the covers to hold Jeremy’s ankle instead.

He was warm, alive, and breathing. He would heal. He would be himself again. They’d lost a whole world coming back here, but Rafe didn’t miss it. He had Jeremy, he had the world.

Time passed. Eventually, Rafe’s mother made it to the hospital. She opened the door a crack. Rafe waved her in. She entered, came over, and kissed Jeremy on his forehead.

“Mom?” Jeremy muttered in his drugged state.

“Yes, it’s Mom,” she said. “Now go back to sleep.”

He nodded and did just that. She came to Rafe’s side, put her arm around him, and kissed his forehead too.

“You okay?” she asked.

“I’ll be okay when Jeremy’s okay.”

“Where’s Emilie?”

“Safe. With her sister.”

“Good. That’s good to hear.”

She didn’t ask more questions, though he knew she wanted answers. He thought of her sitting at the kitchen table after his father had stormed off, piecing together his sketches with Scotch tape.

“I need to tell you something, Mom. About when we went missing.”

“You can tell me anything.”

He told her they had run away. He told her he was so pissed at Dad for, well, everything, that he ran for the hills and didn’t look back. And Jeremy went with him because—

“Of course he did,” his mother said.

They found a safe place to hide out, he told her. A girl they met helped them with food and stuff. They were okay out there, but the longer they were gone, the harder it was to imagine coming home again. Impossible almost. It was like they were living in another world.

But they did come home. Finally. He felt so bad about what happened that he blocked it out. Being back in the woods with Jeremy brought it all back.

“I’m sorry, Mom. I’m so sorry I did that to you.”

She was quiet a long time, then said, “Deep down, I always knew you two ran off together. I think that’s the only way I stayed sane that whole awful time.” She fell silent again, then took a breath. “The scars on your back…your father didn’t—”

“No,” Rafe said, the lie coming so easily he realized he’d planned it the whole time. “That was some barbed wire.”

She looked him in the eyes as if not quite believing what she was hearing.

“You sure?”

“I’m sure, Mom. He did drag me to the shed but only to chew me out some more without you hearing.”

“When I saw him tearing up your book, I thought…Ralph’s next. First the book, then my son. I should’ve protected you better. I should’ve run away with you myself. If I ever stood up to him once—”

“It wasn’t your fault—”

“It was,” she said, and Rafe knew he would never convince her otherwise.

“How about this? I’ll forgive you if you forgive me?”

“Done deal,” she said.

“I want to forgive Dad too,” he said. “I won’t ask you to.”

She was quiet for a long time, then she picked up her purse from the floor and dug through it.

“I don’t know if I should show you this, but after your father died and we cleaned out the cabin so you could move in…I found this.”

She passed him a piece of white paper folded into quarters. The paper had been folded and refolded so many times it had gotten soft. Carefully, Rafe unfolded the sheet and saw a few lines written in pencil.

“What is this?”

“Read it,” she said.

In my dreams I’m young again.

A young father of a young son

My young son sits at the table

Teaching himself to draw Wolves from a book.

In the dream, I pat him on the back with one hand and close the book with the other.