Page 41 of The Alpha Dire Wolf
As if I would ever give him the time of day now. How could he think that I would take him back after he admitted to cheating on me? I bet you his “someone else” didn’t want serious and dumped him. Oh, that makes so much sense. Now he’s coming back to me. That jerk.
“Well, dinner is ready. Don, dear, could you please set out cutlery and get Miss Wilson something to drink.”
“Please, call me Sylvie,” I said. It was awkward to hear myself called that.
“And don’t forget, it’s Don for me,” Mr. Atkinson teased.
“And Nina for me.”
I caved. “Very well, Don and Nina.”
“Some wine?” Don asked, gesturing to the hung stem glassware. “We have reds or whites.”
“Red with white-sauce pasta, dear, come now,” Nina chided.
“Of course. How could I be so empty-minded.” Don grabbed a bottle of white and three glasses.
“Um, none for me,” I said, waving a hand to stop him.
“Are you sure?”
“Just water, please.” My lips compressed. “I’m not sure I should start into alcohol right now. That’s opening a door that maybe I don’t want ajar at the moment with all the grief I’m trying to process. I’m not sure I want to try opening it right now.”
“Right. Yes, of course,” Don said apologetically. “I’ll get you a water.”
“Thank you,” I said, leaning against the counter and staring at the white and gray flecked tiled kitchen floor. “It’s very weird, realizing that you’re the only one of your family left. Unsettling doesn’t begin to cover it, I’m afraid.”
“We can only imagine.” Don rested a hand on my shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “We were all upset when your parents passed. Helen spent a lot of time over here. I can only imagine what it was like for you.”
I nodded. “Yeah. In your head, you always know big cities can be dangerous like that, but still …”
“Too many bad drivers,” Nina said unhappily.
“There are more drunk drivers in the country than in the city,” I countered. “Per capita at least, I’d say. But there are so many back roads, and so few police, most of them go unnoticed. No people to hit while they’re on their way home. I was cut off and nearly run off the road by a truck on my way into town even. Not exactly a city thing, so there’s no guarantee they’d be alive if we’d stayed here. Though I wish we hadn’t left.”
The Atkinsons shared a sharp glance, but neither said anything.
“That’s a very practical mindset,” Nina said, setting the plates on the table. “A smart one. You have to accept there at things you can’t control.”
I smiled and shrugged. “Well, I was bound to be the last one eventually. It just happened sooner than expected. Right?”
Don and Nina just nodded.
“No word from your uncles?” Don asked, prodding gently into my family dynamic.
“Not since I was a kid. Nobody knows if they’re alive either. They weren’t at my parents’ funerals, or their own mother’s, so who knows.”
Heaviness weighed on my shoulders and bowed my spine as I stared at the table, relieving the past unwillingly.
“Sylvie, dear?” Nina reached across the table, grabbing my hand and giving it a squeeze. “Are you okay?”
“I was just thinking of the day my parents told me we were leaving,” I said hoarsely, fighting back tears. “I cried and cried. I shouted and protested. Stomped my feet and crossed my arms. They didn’t give in, so I ran down the street to the forest and eventually my grandmother’s. Begging her not to let me go. She took me up to her sitting room, you know the one on the second floor she loved so much?”
Nina nodded.
“She sat me down that day, and we watched the forest together, seeing the trees sway. ‘You see that?’ she said to me. I told her yes. ‘The trees bend one way. Then they bend the other way. But in the end, when the winds die down, what do they do?’”
The Atkinsons were quiet.
