Lone Wolf

  We had been waiting for days--not moving because we'd disturb the snow and tip off the prey. Even with wolves on either side of me, I was cold, and I started to occupy myself by letting my mind run wild. These wolves were masters of camouflage. They knew the wind direction, and how to disguise their scent. But was the deer working on instinct, too? Would it know, from years of ancestral experience, that if a wolf chases you like this at this speed in this formation, it's going to lead to an ambush rather than a straight chase? Would it know from some rogue change in the wind that there is trouble up ahead?

  My thoughts abruptly scattered as the alpha started eating snow. The young male immediately followed her lead, burying his muzzle into the snow and chowing down. The young female reached up to a branch where an icicle was hanging like the ornament on a Christmas tree, and snapped it off between her teeth. She sucked on it like a lollipop.

  Why on earth are they doing that? I wondered. It wasn't anything I'd seen in the three days we'd been camped in this copse. Maybe the wolves just needed to move around a bit because we'd been in one place for so long. Maybe they were thirsty.

  But the wolves never had been skittish before, and since I wasn't thirsty, they probably weren't, either.

  I was wondering if the deep snow was dehydrating them in some way when the alpha snapped silently at me and wrinkled her muzzle, then buried it in the snow again. I got the hint. I began scooping up handfuls of snow and eating it like there was no tomorrow.

  Then it hit me: the only thing the prey animal could see as it ran toward us in our hiding spot was our frozen breath on the air. Holding snow and ice on our tongues meant that even our breath was invisible.

  A moment later, a deer came crashing into the copse.

  Somehow, the alpha had known that the ambush was imminent. But then again, what's the job of the alpha if not to hold the family together, so that, at the most crucial moment, its members all do as they're told?

  CARA

  I am expecting World War III when I get back home, and I'm not disappointed. My mother runs up to Mariah's car and starts to yank me out of the passenger seat, remembering too late that I've got an injured shoulder. I wince as she grabs my arm and see Mariah's silently mouthed Good luck as she zips away. "You are grounded until you're . . . until you're ninety! For God's sake, Cara, where have you been?"

  I can't tell my mom that. So instead, I look down at the ground. "I'm sorry," I say. "After Edward did . . . you know . . . I had to get out of there. I couldn't stand it anymore, so I just ran. Mariah came to pick me up."

  My mother flips an internal switch, and suddenly she's hugging me so tightly I can't breathe. "Oh, baby. I was so worried . . . By the time I got back upstairs, you were gone. Security looked everywhere. I didn't know if I should stay at the hospital or come back here . . ."

  The front door opens, and the twins poke their heads out into the cold, reminding me (1) why my mother wound up here instead of the hospital and (2) why I should never believe I might actually come first in her list of priorities.

  "Elizabeth, Jackson, get back inside before you catch pneumonia," she orders. Then she turns to me again. "Do you have any idea how frantic I've been? I even had the police out looking for you--"

  "I bet you did. It would mean fewer cops focusing on Edward."

  My mother slaps me so fast I don't have time to see it coming. She's never done that to me in my life, and I think she's just as shocked as I am. I wrench away from her, holding my hand to my cheek. "Go to your room, Cara," she says, her voice trembling.

  With tears in my eyes, I run away from her, into the house. Elizabeth and Jackson are sitting on the steps. "You got a timeout," Jackson says.

  I stare at him and say, "Remember when I told you there wasn't a monster in your closet? I was totally lying." Then I step over their little bodies and head to my room, where I slam the door and throw myself facedown on the bed.

  When I start to cry, I know it's not because my cheek stings--the humiliation hurt more than the slap. It's because I feel like the only person left in the world. I'm not part of this nuclear family; my own mother has taken sides with my brother; my father is floating somewhere I can't reach. I am truly, horribly on my own now which means I can't just sit around and wait for someone to fix things.

  It is not that I think the hospital will try to turn off my father's life support again, even if Edward asks. It's that if I can't figure out a way to derail him, he's going to take the next step and get himself legally appointed as my dad's guardian--something I can't be, because I'm only seventeen.

  But that doesn't mean I can't try.

  Pulling myself together, I wipe my face on the gauze from my sling and sit up, cross-legged. I reach for my laptop and turn it on for the first time in a week, bypassing the sixteen million emails from Mariah asking me if I'm all right that she must have sent before she knew I was in the hospital.

  I type some words into the search engine and click on the first name that pops up on my screen.

  Kate Adamson, completely paralyzed in 1995 by a double brain stem stroke, was unable to even blink her eyes. Her medical staff removed Kate's feeding tube for eight days, before it was reinserted due to the intervention of her husband. Today, she is nearly completely recovered--still partially paralyzed on her left side, she has full control of her mental faculties, and is a motivational speaker.

  I click on another link.

  A victim of a car crash believed to be in a persistent vegetative state for 23 years, Rom Houben was actually conscious the entire time and unable to communicate. Doctors had originally used the Glasgow coma test to assess his eye, verbal, and motor responses and to describe his condition as unrecoverable, but in 2006, new scans were developed that suggested his brain was functioning fully. He now communicates via computer. "Medical advances caught up with him," says his physician, Dr. Laureys, who believes that many patients are misdiagnosed in vegetative states.

  And another:

  Carrie Coons, an 86-year-old from New York, was in a vegetative state for over a year. A judge granted her family's wish to remove her feeding tube. However, she regained consciousness unexpectedly, ate food by mouth, and conversed with others. Her case raises the question of how reliable a diagnosis of irreversible consciousness is--and legally, raises questions about when life-sustaining treatment should be discontinued.

  I start to bookmark the documents. I'll make a PowerPoint presentation, and I'll go back to Danny Boyle's office and prove to him why what Edward did is no different than holding a gun to my father's head.

  When my cell phone rings--it's plugged in and happily recharging--I reach for it, assuming it's Mariah asking me if I've been flayed alive by my mom. The caller ID, though, is a number I don't recognize. "Please hold for the county attorney," Paula's voice says, and a moment later, Danny Boyle is on the line.

  "You really want to do this?" he says.

  I think of poor Kate Adamson and Rom Houben and Carrie Coons. "Yes," I tell him.

  "Tomorrow the grand jury's convening in Plymouth. I want you to come to the courthouse so I can put you on the witness stand."

  I have no idea how I'm supposed to get all the way back to Plymouth. I can't ask Mariah to miss school again. I don't have a car, I'm virtually crippled, and oh, right, I'm also grounded.

  "Is there any chance you'd be passing by Beresford on your way to Plymouth?" I ask as politely as possible.

  "For the love of God," Danny Boyle says. "Can't your parents drive you?"

  "My mother's tied up doing everything in her power to make sure my brother's not going to be sent to jail. And I wish my father could drive me. But he's too busy fighting for his life in Beresford Memorial Hospital right now."

  There is a beat of silence. "What's the address?" he asks.

  Joe doesn't come home that night. It turns out that the only way to keep Edward out of jail is to make sure he's supervised, and wisely, Joe didn't think it was a particularly good idea to bring my brother b
ack here in close proximity with me. It's weird that Joe and my mom wouldn't just switch places, so that my mom would be living in her old home with Edward, if only for one night. But then again, Joe thinks my mom is the reason the sun comes up in the morning, and he would do anything to make sure she doesn't have to set foot in that house again, and face all those memories of my father.

  It also means that the next morning, when Danny Boyle comes to get me, my mom is down at the end of the block with the twins waiting for their school bus, and completely unaware that the snazzy silver BMW that zips by her and around the corner is about to pull into her very own driveway.

  I get into Danny Boyle's car, and he looks at me. "What the hell are you wearing?"

  Immediately, I realize I've made a mistake. I wanted to look nice for court--I mean, aren't you supposed to?--but the fanciest dresses I have are the strapless one I wore to my spring formal and a hot pink, shoulder-padded number I was forced to wear at Joe's sister's Bring Back the '80s theme wedding. My mother had insisted on hemming it to the knee, so that I could wear it again, although the only place I could ever imagine wearing something like that again is at a Saved by the Bell reunion costume party.

  "You look like a Pat Benatar fan club refugee," Danny says.

  "Very good guess," I reply, impressed. I buckle my seat belt and shade my face with my hand as we drive by my mother at the bus stop.

  "I take it your mother has no idea you're doing this today," Danny says.

  My guess is that my mother will be too busy championing my brother, wherever he is, to even notice I've left the confines of my room.

  "Here's what you need to understand," he continues. "You're the one who wants this to be a murder charge, and that means it has to meet all three criteria. Malice, premeditation, and intent to kill. We don't have to prove those to a grand jury, but we have to be able to point to the dots so that they can connect them. If you don't have all three dots, it's not murder. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"

  I look at him. It's not what he's saying, it's what he's not saying that's important. "I'll do whatever you need me to do as long as it keeps my father alive."

  He glances at me and nods, satisfied.

  "Can I ask you something?" I say. "What made you change your mind?"

  "I got a call from my sister yesterday. She was all upset because of something that happened at work." He flexes his hand on the steering wheel. "Turns out a man went nuts in his dad's hospital room--the same hospital room where she was stationed at the ventilator." He glances at me. "She's the nurse your brother shoved out of the way."

  I guess I'm expecting a richly paneled courtroom, with a high bench that has a white-haired judge presiding. I'm pretty surprised to find out that, instead, a grand jury is a small clot of ordinary people in jeans and sweaters sitting around a table in a room with no windows.

  Immediately I try to pull my sweater over my too-fancy pink dress.

  There's a tape recorder on the table, which makes me even more nervous, but I focus on Danny Boyle's face, just like he told me to do. "This is Cara Warren," he announces to the little group. "Does anyone know the witness?"

  The people clustered around the table shake their heads. One, a woman with a blond pageboy that angles toward her chin, reminds me of one of my teachers. She stands up and holds out a Bible. "Can you raise your right hand . . . ," she says, before she realizes my right arm is in a sling. There is a bit of uneasy laughter around the table. "Can you raise your left hand and repeat after me . . ."

  This part is just like on television: I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.

  "Cara," Danny says, "state your name and address, please."

  "Cara Warren. Forty-six Statler Hill, Beresford, New Hampshire," I answer.

  "Who do you live with?"

  "My dad. Until a week ago."

  The county attorney gestures at me. "We can see that you've got your arm in a sling--what happened?"

  "My father and I were in a serious car accident a week ago," I explain. "I broke my scapula. My dad's been unconscious since then."

  "In a coma?"

  "A vegetative state, that's what the doctors call it."

  "Do you have any other family?"

  "My mom--she's remarried now. And my brother, who I haven't seen in six years. He lives in Thailand, but when my dad got hurt, my mom called him up and he came back home."

  "What's your relationship with your brother?" Danny asks.

  "What relationship," I say flatly. "He left and he didn't want to talk to any of us after that."

  "How long has your father been in the hospital?"

  "Eight days."

  "What is the doctors' prognosis for your father?"

  "It's too early to tell anything," I say. Because really, isn't it?

  "Have you and your brother discussed your father's situation?"

  All of a sudden my stomach feels as empty as a pocket. "Yes," I say, and even though I don't want to, I can feel my eyes welling with tears. "My brother just wants this to be over. He thinks the outcome isn't going to change. But me, I want to keep my dad alive long enough to prove him wrong."

  "Has your father contacted your brother during the six years he's been in Thailand?"

  "No," I say.

  "Does he ever talk about your brother?"

  "No. They had a big fight, which is why my brother left."

  "Have you been in touch with your brother, Cara?" Danny asks.

  "No." I look at one of the members of the jury. She is shaking her head. I wonder if she's reacting to Edward leaving, or to me not contacting him.

  "Now," the county attorney says, "yesterday you told me about something very upsetting."

  "Yes."

  "Can you tell the ladies and gentlemen of the grand jury what happened?"

  Danny and I had practiced this in the car. Sixteen times, actually. "My brother made a decision to terminate my father's life support--without asking for my opinion. I found out by accident, and ran downstairs to my father's hospital room." I can hear, as clearly as if it's happening now, the alarm that sounded as my brother pulled that plug. "There were doctors and nurses and a lawyer from the hospital and other people I didn't recognize, all gathered around my father's bed. My brother was there, too. I yelled at them to stop, to not kill my father--and everyone backed away. Everyone except my brother, anyway. He bent down, pretending like he was catching his breath, and he yanked the plug of the ventilator out of the wall."

  I hesitate, looking around the table. The faces of the jurors might as well be balloons, they are that smooth and unemotional. I suddenly remember what Danny said in the car, about the three criteria of murder. Premeditation, intent to kill, and malice. It's clear that my brother had planned this, or all those doctors and nurses wouldn't have been convened. It's equally clear that he wanted to kill my father. It's malice that's the sticking point.

  I think about being sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. But then again, it wasn't like I raised my right hand. I couldn't, logistically. So maybe the way I was sworn in is the equivalent of crossing your fingers behind your back when you tell your mom a white lie--that you've brushed your teeth, that you walked the dog, that you didn't put the empty milk carton back in the fridge.

  It's not really a lie, is it, if the ends justify the means? If, because of it, my father has a chance to get better? By the time everyone finds out I embellished the truth, I will have bought my father a few more hours, a few more days.

  "He yanked the plug out of the wall," I repeat, "and he yelled, 'Die, you bastard!'"

  At that, one of the jurors covers her mouth with her hand, as if she was the one who said it.

  "Someone tackled him," I continue. "And the nurse plugged in the ventilator again. The doctors are still figuring out how much damage was done while my father was without oxygen."

  "Is it fair to say that your brother and father had a very contentiou
s relationship?"

  "Totally," I say.

  "Do you know why, Cara?"

  I shake my head. "I know they had a huge fight when I was eleven. It was bad enough to make Edward pack up and leave and never talk to him again."

  "When your brother called your father a bastard, he was angry, wasn't he?"

  I nod. "Yes."

  "There's no question in your mind that he intended to kill your father, is there?" Danny asks.

  I glance directly at him. "No. And there's no question in my mind that if he has the chance, he'll do it all over again."

  LUKE

  In captivity, a wolf might live for eleven or twelve years, although I've heard of some living even longer than that. In the wild, though, a wolf would be lucky to make it to age six. The level of experience and knowledge in a wolf is irreplaceable, which is why the alpha will stay in the den near the young most of the time, sending other pack members out to do patrols, to hunt, to safeguard. This is also why, when an alpha gets taken down, so many packs fall apart. It is as if the central nervous system has suddenly lost its brain.

  So what happens when an alpha is killed?

  You might think that there is promoting from within--that maybe the beta, the number two man, will fill his former boss's shoes. But in the wolf world, that's not how it happens. In the wild, recruiting would start. A call would go out to lone wolves, letting them know there is a vacancy in the pack. The candidates would be challenged to make sure that the one chosen is the smartest, surest, and most capable of protecting the family.

  In captivity, of course, recruiting like that can't happen. Instead, a mid-or low-ranking animal that is by nature suspicious and shy finds itself in the decision-making role. Which is a disaster.

  From time to time you'll see documentaries about low-ranked wolves who somehow rise to the top of the pack--an omega that earns a position as an alpha. Frankly, I don't buy it. I think that, in actuality, those documentary makers have misidentified the wolf in the first place. For example, an alpha personality, to the man on the street, is usually considered bold and take-charge and forceful. In the wolf world, though, that describes the beta rank. Likewise, an omega wolf--a bottom-ranking, timid, nervous animal--can often be confused with a wolf who hangs behind the others, wary, protecting himself, trying to figure out the Big Picture.