The Wolf Came on Christmas (Johanna and Alexander) novel Chapter 27

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But the little boy didn’t have any reason to share my point of view, so I went along with him.

Andre seemed to perk up with the change of scenery, and I felt a weight lift off my shoulders. Sasha finished her bottle, and after leaving the empty bottle on the table, I settled the girl over my shoulder so she could burp. It didn’t take much, nor did it take long for her to yawn and cling to my clothes, looking for the most comfortable position to fall asleep. This girl slept a lot; I wondered if she was smaller than she looked. Babies who are only a few weeks old are usually sleepier; then, as they gain weight and become more active, they sleep less. But Sasha ate, slept, and-surprisingly-got dirty with clocklike precision.

The word “prodigy,” and the way Agent Aguilera had used it to refer to Andre, fluttered through

my

mind for a few minutes.

When Sasha fell asleep on my shoulder, a pleasant sensation filled my chest and I adjusted myself better in the chair, trying not to move much. Listening to her breathe in my ear, feeling her little warm, heavy body curled up against me, in my arms, was an incentive for many things I couldn’t describe, not even with the vast lexicon acquired over years of reading. It was like a long-awaited rest, or an answer I had been searching for for a long time. I was simply filled with peace, just hearing the baby sleep. I didn’t feel like carrying her upstairs to my bed; I WANTED her to take her nap right there in the kitchen with me, as if…

As if she were mine.

I wondered whether I would have felt this good, this proud, with my own child. The thought gave me chills. What was happening to me?

My psychologist would probably have said: “Johanna, you’re projecting. You’re not crazy,* you’re just projecting onto Alexander and his family all those feelings that were cut short when you lost Paul and your child. It’s very simple. And that’s not bad, no. You just need to go through that stage and move on. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to help, but what won’t do you any good is clinging to strangers.”

Larry was always so optimistic. For him, nothing was bad; everything was a matter of

perspective.

And by then I knew enough about psychology to understand what a “projection” is. Feeling this way about a girl who wasn’t even mine was wrong on many levels, even if in my head Larry’s voice insisted that it was part of a process. My perpetual mourning had to end one day, right? I thought that was what I was doing when I moved to Wyoming, cutting off my

sadness.

< Chapter 27-1

But what about when all of that passed, when Alexander decided it was time to leave?

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I would miss them. Just imagining it already made me feel bad. And I had barely known them for forty-eight hours! Something was very wrong with me!

Speaking of Larry, I owed him a visit. That very afternoon I had to go into town; I had barely realized it was Tuesday and that there was an appointment with him on my schedule. I planned to talk about all of that, discreetly-well, not about the part where I rescued two werewolves and a baby, but about the fact that maybe I was feeling a little confused because of a man I had just met, who was in a difficult situation with his two very small children, and whom I was helping out. And all those things that welled up from my soul just thinking about how helpless they were. I wondered if it would be safe to leave the cabin for less than an hour and a half, given that Alexander had already admitted he wasn’t in condition to defend himself. Well, it was only going to be an hour and a half, right? And Agent Aguilera was there; I could slip away for a bit.

Besides, if I wanted to keep pretending that everything was normal, I had to stick to my weekly routine.

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< Chapter 27-2

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Chapter 27-2

Lately I was getting lost too much in my thoughts. Andre was looking at me, strangely, and he had already finished all of breakfast, even the milk and the banana. When I noticed his bright blue eyes fixed on me, I reacted:

“Hey. You’ve finished already,” I said, with a little smile, in a low voice. “Was it good?”

“Very good, thank you.”

“I’m glad. What do you want to do now?”

“…um, nothing. I don’t feel like reading or playing,” Andre told me, with all his innocence, and rested one arm on the table and his chin in the crook of his elbow, while he watched me with the same attention his father sometimes did. “You look a little like my mom.”

That left me stunned for a moment, and at first I didn’t know what to add. I gathered my courage, because I was going to need it if we were going to have that conversation.

Who was I to prevent the boy from talking about his mother?

“Really? In what way do you think I look like her?”

“I don’t know, but if my sister likes being with you, it’s because you must be very similar to my mom. Sasha doesn’t like strangers; she doesn’t go with just anyone,” the little boy commented, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. “I mean, you don’t look alike on the outside: you have black, very long hair, my mom is blonde and wears it a little shorter than you. And your eyes are gray; my mom’s are blue like mine. Maybe you’re alike on the inside. Sasha doesn’t care what you look like on the outside; she feels that you’re good, and that’s why she likes being with you. I felt the same the first time I saw you, Mrs. Johanna.”

“Rex…” the other began, with a growl.

Beside his colleague, Alexander was several centimeters taller and a bit broader. He didn’t make any move to take what was being offered, however.

It was a gun-an automatic, the kind a tough cop in an action movie would carry. I never imagined that a government officer would have a gun that big, because I figured it wasn’t a standard-issue 9 mm Beretta. My father is a big-game hunting enthusiast and I know about weapons (large rifles, long-range and with high-caliber bullets, what’s normally used to bring down bears or moose), but I had never seen one of those. I couldn’t help but open my eyes wide, impressed.

“Take it, Lai. I’m not going to repeat it. I’ll feel calmer if you have it. You might need it; I doubt

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your benefactress has any weapon in the house, or knows how to use one,” the federal insisted, mimicking Alexander’s serious tone. “I don’t smell gunpowder.”

Well, that guy was the worst-he was assuming things about me without even knowing me!

“Actually, Agent Aguilera, I know quite well how to handle a rifle or a pistol. My father likes to hunt, and I’m a very curious and enthusiastic daughter. If I had a weapon here, believe me, I would use it,” I said.

The other wolf turned to look at me with those hazel-colored eyes, after ignoring me despite the fact that he surely knew Andre and I were watching. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to add anything to make it clear that he didn’t like me in the slightest. Alexander, on the other hand, stared at me for a moment with his eyes wide open, impressed. I don’t know what about me caused such a bad impression on the federal, or whether he was offended because his friend had decided to trust me enough to reveal his “secret.” Yes, maybe that was it. Maybe Agent Aguilera was bothered by the fact that Alexander trusted me.

He focused again on his leader, without blinking.

“The gun, Lai. Take it. You have two children here,” Aguilera insisted, with emphasis.

Alexander uttered something in Russian that I assume was a swear word, judging by the face Andre made when he heard him speak, and then he accepted:

“All right, all right… I’ll keep it.”

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