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12

"My word, you are quite a big one, aren't you?" Michael said, standing next to his wife. "I'd offer to shake your hand, but from the looks of things I'd either end up breaking your fingers, or you'd end up breaking mine. Ha ha!"

"Um..." Ander didn't really know how to react to this Fox. Hearing about someone in a story and actually meeting them in real life are two very different things. For one, Michael was quite a bit taller than he had imagined (certainly taller than Salem), and he was the spitting image of Mateo. It was like looking at the trigger-happy Fox as he would be twenty years from now. That, however, was where all similarities ended. Ander was prepared for the 'oddness' Sarah had mentioned so many times before, but he wasn't expecting Michael to be so blatantly jolly. He either had no understanding of how awkward the situation was, or maybe it was that very awkwardness he found so deliciously funny.

Well, when in doubt, stick to basics. "Hello, Sai..." And there he hit a snag. 'Hello Sai' was always a good place to start, but that was all he had. What else was he supposed to say? Sorry I ruined your son's engagement? Sorry my father knocked up your wife with me twenty-three years ago? What?

"Well hello yourself, you great big bastard."

"Michael!" Sarah said, shocked. "You promised you wouldn't make any bastard jokes!"

"Aww, but I've got so many!"

To Ander's great astonishment, Michael actually pulled out a little piece of paper from his breast pocket, scribbled top to bottom and corner to corner on both sides with (he could only assume) bastard jokes.

"Please put that away, Michael."

"What? Ander doesn't mind. Do you, Ander?"

"Er..."

"Of course you don't. We're practically family, you and I. Stepson and stepdad! Haha!"

"Michael! You promised me you wouldn't make that stupid joke either!"

"Sorry, love, I simply couldn't resist when I saw the flabbergasted look on that poor bastard's face."

"Michael!"

Ander genuinely had no idea if this Fox was mocking him or just teasing. Was he being sarcastic, maybe? Was he exaggerating his flippantly good mood to make a point, or was he just always like this? He checked Sarah's face, hoping to skim some kind of clue, but she had hidden it behind her hand in embarrassment, evidently just as perplexed by her husband's words and actions as he was.

"Now then, why so quiet, sonny-boy? Those Wolves tear up your tongue alongside the rest of you?"

"Gods give me strength," Sarah muttered with a slight shake of the head.

"They did, actually," Ander said, thinking back to all the punches he took to the jaw (not to mention the rocks). "But forgive me, it's just that I don't really know what to say, or why exactly you came to see me. No wait, that's not entirely true. I can think of one or two reasons..."

"Ah, I get it. Worried I'm angry at you for convincing Salem and Bethany to call off my son's wedding, are you?"

"That might be a concern of mine, yes. But, Sai, you have to understand that Kiana doesn't -"

Michael held up a hand. "No need to say any more, you bastard, you. It's actually - Is there another chair in here somewhere? Aha!"

He dragged over a second chair from the corner and sat down next to Sarah, who, despite being embarrassed, also looked more happy than he had seen her in some time.

"Now where was I? Oh yes, the whole wedding faux pas fiasco thingamabob. Let me assure you everything's quite all right, no need to worry your little bastard head over anything. Got my livestock back, and the rest we'll just call a freebie, so none of that really affects me in any way. What does affect me, however, is the way my son has chosen to go about the whole thing, but that's neither here nor there, and certainly not any of your fault, so you don't have to worry about me bashing your brains in with a shovel come the dead of night, especially after the talking-to my Sarah dearest gave me before we reached this fine establishment."

"Michael, for gods' sakes!"

"Please Sarah, I'm putting the poor bastard's mind at ease. Now then, as for Kiana, as I recall, she's the one who decided to run out long before you came into the picture, so things were bound to go downhill eventually. If anything, I should thank you for speeding up the process. No telling what that girl might've ended up doing otherwise. I have this sneaking suspicion she might have been plotting a bit of arson on the chapel..." He pensively tapped his finger against his chin, perhaps envisioning the tall building with the pointy tower ablaze, and then snapped back into reality. "Anyhoo! Must be nice getting away from all the roughhousing, eh? Convalescing quite nicely, are you, yes?"

"Er..."

"'Course you are! Beth can fix anything, bless her Soul! But tell me, what was it like over there? Had a good time walking the old paths, seeing the old friends and family? Your father, perhaps?"

Oh dear. Ander suddenly realised where this was going, and it was all he could do to keep himself from groaning out loud. "I did."

"Smashing! What's he like?"

"Michael, you're making him feel uncomfortable."

"Nonsense, the bastard's perfectly fine. And I wouldn't be asking if you'd answered my questions earlier, but no, everything's always so 'uncomfortable'. 'Michael, you can't ask him what happened over there, it's uncomfortable! Michael, you can't ask him about Kadoo, it's uncomfortable! Michael, you can't make any of your brilliant bastard and/or stepson/stepdad jokes, it's uncomfortable!'"

"That's because it is! And his name is Kadai, not Kadoo!"

"Tell me, Ander, how big is this father of yours? Big as you? Bigger? How many of me could he fit in his stomach?"

"Um..." Ander had gone beyond confused and circled around into stupefied fascination. Even trying to understand this Fox seemed more and more like an exercise in futility, so he decided it would be better to just answer his questions as best he was able and hope that Sarah would provide the occasional clarification. "My father's not quite as big as I am. But he's getting on in years now."

"Really? And how old is he now?"

"We don't keep precise track of our age like you Foxes do, and neither do we celebrate the days of our birth." This was true, but evidently not enough for Michael.

"But if you had to guess, where would you put him at? Forty? Fifty? Sixty?"

"Don't answer that, Andrew," Sarah said. "Michael is just being jealous. It's that very trait Mateo has inherited in full force, I'm sad to say."

"Whaaa?" Michael rocked back in his chair, his eyes widened for full effect. "Me? Jealous? Of a Wolf I've never met? Don't be absurd, love. I'd just like to know a little bit about the one who left you heavy with bastard child, that's all." He leaned in close and cupped his hand around his mouth as if conferring to Ander the secrets of a great conspiracy, which was odd in and of itself, since he didn't go to any trouble to lower his voice. "Her mother told me she was sick, you know. Sick! For over half a year I was the one who was sick! Sick with worry! Showing up at their door every third day with a basket of scented candles and some medicinal herbs lovingly plucked from my gran-gran's vegetable garden, only to be turned away at the door! Who was the real victim, I ask you?"

"I beg your pardon," Sarah said, leaning her body away and planting one hand on her hip, "but are you implying that making get-well baskets was more of a labour than lying in bed, constantly fretting over your constantly expanding belly, not knowing what manner of Fox/Wolf hybrid might burst out of you at any moment?"

"Please, Sarah. The hybrid bastard is sitting right here. Show a little tact."

"You call him a bastard one more time and I might just lose my temper."

"Aw, but come on, love! It's the actual, honest to gods term! You might as well get angry at me for calling him bipedal!"

An argument of this magnitude and duration between two Wolves would have resulted in flying fists ages ago, yet Ander didn't really sense any hostility between these two. In fact, the way Sarah was half-smiling as she made to wallop her husband over the head while he recoiled in exaggerated terror made it feel more like he was watching two pups play fighting with each other.

"Not much of a talker, are you Ander?" Michael said, one eye squinched shut in anticipation of an incoming haymaker from his darling wife. "Good strategy, that. The vixens love the strong silent type, so I'm told."

"I... what?"

Sarah gave Michael a good hard prod.

"Ow! What was that for?" he said, rubbing his shoulder.

"For being nosy," she said.

"Nosy? I have not yet begun to nose!"

"Andrew is still recovering from a difficult ordeal, and we've been badgering him for much too long."

Ander held up the hand he had previously liberated from its sling. "I really don't mind, Kai."

"See, Kai?" Michael said with a flourish. "Boy doesn't mind!"

"But Bethany does, and if we stay in here one minute longer than she deems appropriate, she will not hesitate to throw us out on our tails."

"Not until I get what I came for!" And then, quick as flash, Michael was suddenly sitting on the edge of the bed, leaning over with his eyebrow cocked. "Now tell me, Andrew, or Ander, or André, or whatever your name is, just what, exactly, is your father like?"

Ander leaned back a little, but Michael only leaned in further, keeping the distance between them exactly the same.

Sarah grabbed the neckline of her dress again. "Please, Michael! Don't make a scene! What if Bethany or Salem come barging in?"

"Shushush, love." Michael held up one finger behind his back. "I'm having a man to man with Ander here. Fox to half-Fox, as it were." He cocked his eyebrow even higher, so that it looked like it might break off and fly past his ear at any moment. "Well, Ander? What can you tell me about your father?"

A clenched fist. A bloodied spear. A towering wall of stone. Father conjured all these images and more, but the one that stood out most clearly was the one where he stood in the open gates, tears falling from his eyes without shame, tears of sadness for the departure of the son he barely understood, and tears of joy for his liberation.

"My father is the Chieftain of the Wolves," Ander said, speaking calmly. "He may have done wrong in the past, but it is not my place to answer for those sins on his behalf. What I can do is speak of the love he has for his family and his people. And for Sarah. I am living proof of that. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't be here right now, living a life of peace and happiness. I'd be dead, my head stuck on a pike outside the gates and my body left to rot in the woods."

Sarah's hands crept up to her lips, but Ander couldn't stop now. He faced Michael's unwavering stare head-on. "My father is a Wolf who sacrificed much for the ones he loved, and your wife was one of them. I cannot justify all the things he did. I cannot say for certain what was right and what was wrong. But the love they shared is not wrong. Love can never be wrong. I believe that with all my heart. I understand that you must feel angry, or even betrayed, but I cannot -"

Michael leaned back and his eyebrow slowly descended to a more symmetrical height. "You don't have to say any more than that, son," he said. "Just answer me this. Was your father a good Wolf? Did he treat Sarah right? That's all I want to know."

Sarah had her handkerchief out again, and was delicately dabbing her eyes with it. "I already told you, Michael," she said.

"But I want to hear it from him."

Without hesitation, Ander said: "My father was and is a good Wolf, and he treated Sarah with all the love and respect she deserved."

"That so?"

"Without a doubt."

Their gazes locked together, and Ander could almost feel him trying to find the slightest shred of a lie, the faintest hint of dishonesty or deception. Finally, he simply stood up, walked back to the chair beside his wife, and sat down. "Alrighty then."

Ander waited for something to happen, for someone to say something, for the earth to split open, something.

But nothing.

Just 'Alrighty then'.

Ander cleared his throat and, hoping he didn't sound too confused, asked, "Is that all?"

Michael shrugged. "Pretty much. Unless you maybe wanted more?"

"No no, it's just... I was expecting more of a..."

"Chest-thumping stream-measuring exhibition of manly grunts and assorted off-colour insults and flaming bon mots?"

"Well, I wouldn't put it exactly like that, but yes."

"Let me explain something to you, my bastard step-son. When a dashing young vixen such as your mother here has parents that are well-off enough, they don't just let her wander about sampling the fruits of the forest, if you get my meaning."

"For gods' sakes, Michael!"

"Anyhoo, such a vixen cannot be expected to mingle with the common folk on anything as arbitrary as a date, or even a friendly luncheon. She is expected to entertain suitors, although a better term might be 'interviewees'. Sometimes several at a time, if said vixen is desirable enough. In the case of Sarah here, it was three."

"Does he really need to hear all this?"

Michael continued as if he hadn't been interrupted. "I bear your father no more ill will than I do my other two competitors from back then. That is to say, none at all. Sarah and I weren't even wed until two years after her mysterious 'illness', and by 'illness' I mean you, so I'd hardly be justified in getting angry over something like that."

Ander couldn't quite believe this. "So all is well? Just like that?"

"I love my Sarah very much," Michael said, resting his hand on her knee. "After she sat me down and told me the story of her ordeal, it was just like you suspected. I was angry. But not at you or your father or Sarah. I was angry at myself. Angry for never being able to get to the root of this huge cloud that had been hovering over her head for more than twenty years."

"Michael, don't do this to yourself," Sarah said, placing her hand on top of his. "It was because of you I was able to keep going. You and your stupid jokes and your over-eager leaps over the fence, the way you always wore that cock-eyed smile no matter what was happening around you. Seeing that smile always made me smile, and when you made me smile like that I felt like everything was okay, so please, it wasn't your fault. I'm the one who kept it all bottled up inside."

"You're very kind to say that, love. One of the reasons I fell in love with you, in fact. But I am your husband, it's my job to know these things, nay, my duty. But suddenly here was a wound I could never make better. I knew it was there, but I never knew how deep it ran, and even if I did, I could never reach it because it was too far away. I guess the reason I insisted on coming along on this visit was because I needed to confirm something." He turned to face Ander, and the question he asked left him without answer. "Was it worth it?"

Such a simple question, really. Everything that had happened up until now, every tear, every drop of blood, every bead of sweat. Which way did the scales tip? On one side was pain. The death of his brother, the rejection of his people, his family left behind. On the other was his new life in Grovenglen, everything he had fought and almost died for. That was what the scales looked like for him. Pain and Life.

Was it worth it?

Yes. Of course it was. He would shout it from this bed right now were it not for one simple fact.

Was Michael asking him, or Sarah?

If she could change the past, would she undo everything that had led up to that terrifying night underneath the beech tree, soaked in blood, surrounded by darkness and lightning and holding a dying baby in her arms? Would she undo the year she spent with his father to spare herself the pain of their severed bond? Or would she suffer through the horror of her father's dementia once again, all for a babe she wouldn't see again for another twenty-three years? That was what the scales looked like for her. On one side, Pain and Emptiness. On the other, a crying baby Wolf.

Was it worth it?

Ander didn't know the answer, but Michael was waiting. He opened his mouth, still not knowing what he wanted to say, only knowing that he had to say something, but then...

"It was worth it," Sarah said. "It was absolutely worth it."

"Kai..."

He could see the tears well up in her eyes once again, but she did not reach for her handkerchief. Instead she smiled, and it was the warmest smile he had ever seen.

The smile of a mother.

"It was absolutely worth it."