Page 51 of Just Dare Me
The lights are off. Half a dozen candles flicker from the countertop next to the sink. In the center of the room, Bunica’s little animal body is wrapped in her old nightgown—the one she dropped when she shifted for the final time. The bundle is lying on top of a bed of pine tree branches, so as to keep the dead from touching the floor, which would be the ultimate disrespect during this first night, when the spirit of the deceased is believed to still linger.
An old family custom that survived the years is to “sit up” with the body when somebody dies. That means family members sit with the dead—never going out of sight and never sleeping—until the body is buried. And the body can’t be buried until all belongings of the deceased have been either given away or burned. Sitting with the body is a way of keeping company with the spirit of the deceased, and getting rid of their things is a way of breaking their hold on the physical world so they can move on.
Mom sits perfectly still and silent on the floor, hugging her knees to her chest, her eyes fixed on the nightgown. Padding over to the sink, I set the mug on the counter next to the candles. The only thing I can think to say is, “Do you want me to get Blanche? She can take a turn sitting up, give you a break.”
Mom’s only response is to bury her face in her knees. I take that as my cue to leave, but when I get to the front door, her voice calls out, “Wait.” Sniffing, she wipes her face. “Wait, Shayne. Don’t go.”
I turn back with a surprising hope blooming in my chest. It’s funny how hearing a few words—just my name and a desire for my company—can break so easily through even the thickest walls of the heart. When I say that I turned back, I don’t just mean physically, but also in the sense of returning to that little girl who needs her mommy.
But right on the heels of that hope is searing, stinging shame. Because Mom has always wanted me around. She’s always been saying,Shayne,don’t go.I’mthe one who’s been running, avoiding her. It’smethat’s been rolling my eyes, scoffing, throwing tantrums, telling her to stay out of my life. Looking back, even that final straw—the incident with Jay—seems like my fault. I could have triedtalking. I could have tried, oh, I don’t know, maybe this little thing calledlistening. Instead, I threw fists and kicked dirt.
Am I just a crazy person?
I am, aren’t I? It really is that simple. I’m a crazy person.
Mom clears her throat. “I’m sorry to be like this, it’s just…youfeelso much like her now. It messes with me.”
“Sorry.”
She waves her hands. “No, I mean, you also still feel like you. That’s why I’m really not surprised by all this. You two were always so much alike.” Emotion overcomes her again. She clamps a hand over her mouth and squeezes her eyes shut.
“Well, it’s all news to me,” I say. “Are you telling me all this dominance I’ve been getting…it came from her?”
“It didn’t just come from her. Shegaveit to you. It’s your inheritance.”
My mind fills with questions and feelings. After letting them all wash over me, I grab hold of one and put it into words. “What dominance? We never felt anything from her.”
“You absolutely did. Just not in the way you’re thinking.” After stretching her legs, she stands up and arches her back gingerly. “It was never Bunica’s style to throw her weight around, or intimidate, even though she could have. Easily, don’t you think? You can feel how strong she was.”
“Pffff. Rook Winters nearly took my head off the other day, and that was only a fraction of what I feel now.”
Mom goes to the counter, looks into the mug, pushes it away. “She left that kind of behavior to the alpha of the pack. They have to be that way.”
“But she could’ve been the alpha herself. How did they not feel threatened? How can Ray tolerate it?”
“Because the way she applied her dominance was the opposite of threatening. Somehow, she took all that power, and rather than wielding it with her teeth or her fists, she stuffed it all down deep in her heart. That way, when she made eye contact, or raised her voice, or asked somebody to do something, her dominance always came out more like a hug than a threat.
“It was a kind of love—a tough love—that drew others to her. Ask anybody who knew her in the old days. Anybody that met her—total strangers, nomads, rogues—would get this feeling of comfort and loyalty and trust and safety, like being home. A lot of them stayed for her. How much of Detroit’s crazy growth back then was because of Dottie Davies? I don’t know, but it’s a lot.
“Nick Gorgeous once called her the Sentinel of Detroit, because she used to act like the whole city was her pack, including all the other alphas. And the crazy thing is, none of those alphas ever challenged her on that. It’s like everybody just silently agreed that she would be the mother of this city. An All-Mother to everybody, especially those who never had one.” Her voice breaks, becoming a raspy whisper. “I would know. I was one of those rogues once.”
I jam my hands into my pockets and lean back against the counter while my mind compares everything I just heard to that lump wrapped in a tattered nightgown. “Then you’re right. Wedidfeel her dominance. We’ve been feeling it our whole lives.”
Mom nods. “You know how I used to tell you girls, when you were little, that this place—these woods and our wagon train—is our True North? Little Bunica is why that is. She’s like the glue that kept everything from flying apart. Out of respect for the alpha, we never talked about her power. We never called it dominance. We just said she had astrong personality.” A weak chuckle escapes her mouth like a hiccup.
I smile. “Ya think?”
Mom lets go a long, loud sigh. “But she mellowed so much after you girls came along. That’s when time seemed to finally catch up with her.” She pauses to dab at her eyes with her shirt sleeve. “I wonder if she could sense that one of you would…” Her freshly dried eyes fill again. She’s too choked up to speak.
A black storm cloud gathers in my heart. I don’t know what words are hanging in the silence at the end of her unfinished sentence; all I know is that I wouldn’t have liked them. “Would what? Don’t saytake her place.”
“It’s not like that. What she did wasn’t a position in a hierarchy, like alpha or luna. It wasn’t a job. It was just…who she was.”
“Well, that’s not who I am.”
“I’m not saying you have to be.”
“Good, because I’m not glue. I’m dynamite. I blow shit up. Everything I touch. I’m, like, the anti-Dottie Davies.”
