Page 82 of Redemption in the Dark (The Righteous 5)
“Yeah. Do you think he would’ve attacked it?”
“If it had become threatening rather than just hanging from the curtain rod, he would’ve. I’ve seen him go after snakes, camel spiders, and even coyotes when we were overseas. Jimmy trained him well.”
Wolf stepped back and returned to the kitchen. She couldn’t bring herself to sit on the couch, so she curled up in one of the kitchen chairs.
“You don’t talk much about him. I mean, I know you two were friends before you joined the army. I know that he didn’t make it back, and Duke was his dog, but that’s about all I know.”
Wolf walked over to a tall cupboard and opened the door to pull out a tin can. He sat down at the table, opened the lid, and handed her a photo. It was a picture of Wolf as a teen and a slightly taller boy. They had their arms around each other’s shoulders as they smiled at the camera. They were on a football field and holding a football between them—each with a hand on it.
“That’s Jimmy, and obviously, that’s me. We were fifteen in that photo and had just won a local tournament. Neither of us were very good, but Jimmy’s dad wanted him to be a pro. I was just happy to play.”
“You two were so cute. How did you two meet?”
Wolf sat back in the chair and shrugged.
“School I think. Feels like I’d known him for as long as I can remember. Jimmy came from a very prominent family in the area, and they had lots of money, but very nice and down to earth. He also had older brothers. Two were already in the army, and another was a cop. He also had family that played in the NFL. His dad ran for Mayor that year and got the gig, so you can imagine how popular Jimmy was. I never understood why he wanted to slum it with me, but he refused to hang with the other boys that came from prominent families.”
“Well, I think that’s a pretty obvious answer. He liked you because he knew you were a good person, someone worth his time.”
“I think he just liked my sister,” Wolf said and laughed. “He had the biggest crush on her. He kept saying he loved her. I mean, she died a couple of years after this picture was taken, so who knows, but he never dated anyone seriously.” He paused for a long moment. “When he was dying, he said he saw her.”
Wolf stared at the wall. His face was etched with sadness as shadows of that time crossed his eyes. Reaching out, she squeezed his hand, and he offered her a small smile. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to get all heavy.”
“Don’t apologize. I want to hear about everything, the good and the sad,” she said.
Wolf lifted her hand to his mouth and softly kissed her palm.
“You can look through that box. It has old memories and stuff from our time overseas before…well before.”
Wolf stood and kissed the top of her head before he began going through the few things he’d managed to pick up from the late-night convenience store run. They weren’t going to be able to live forever like this, but she was hoping they could get to Morry soon. A shower longer than ten minutes before it turned ice cold and an expensive meal sounded pretty amazing.
Maeve looked in the box and pulled out the silver dog tags lying on top. The beat-up-looking metal told a story all on its own, and she ran her thumb across the inscription of Jimmy’s name. Laying the tags aside, she picked up a picture. Jimmy and Wolf stood on either side of a girl. Flipping the picture over, she spotted Wolf’s sister’s name before turning it over again to stare at the image.
“Your sister was beautiful,” she said, holding up the picture.
“She really was, but she didn’t think so. I never felt like I fit in anywhere, but Awinita just couldn’t stop hating who she was. She hated everything about herself.”
Wolf flipped the grilled cheese he was making over in the frying pan before continuing.“She wanted to dye her hair blonde because she hated it black and wanted to get blue contacts, but my parents refused. It wasn’t that they didn’t want her to express who she was. It was because they thought she was trying to hide who she really was, if that makes sense.”
“Yeah, it does.”
She stared at the image again. Awinita’s long black hair fell to her waist, and her eyes were just as dark. Maeve understood what it was like to want to hide from who she was. She’d certainly been doing that for way too long. Placing the picture aside, she grabbed the large handful of pictures and started to go through them.
A grilled cheese flew past her head, and it didn’t surprise her when Duke jumped up, grabbing the tasty projectile out of the air.
She examined picture after picture—each one telling its own story. The prom night image told her that Wolf was very unhappy while Jimmy was overjoyed because he was smiling from ear to ear while Wolf glared at the camera.
The fishing image told her the story of two boys hanging out at a dock in the summer, passing time. Someone else took the photo, but the two boys sat there like little old men with hats on their heads and a cooler between them. She could picture what they would’ve been like if Jimmy had lived.
There were even a few pictures of different celebrations that Wolf was dancing at, and in each one, he wore different regalia.
“Why did you join the army,” she asked as Wolf sauntered over to the table and sat down with a pile of sandwiches on a plate.
“Honestly, because Jimmy wanted to. I didn’t have anything against serving, but I didn’t have a passion for it. The thing was, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, and Jimmy always wanted to serve and do a couple of tours before returning back here to farm or get into politics like his father. He had these grand plans that we’d get a ranch together and breed the best cattle around. That we’d get married, and our kids would grow up together. He had so many dreams, and I felt like I had none in comparison. So, I went with him.”
“I can’t even imagine joining the army,” she said as Wolf bit into a sandwich. He dunked it in ketchup and mustard before taking another bite. “Okay, that’s disgusting,” she said, making him smile.
“Don’t knock it till you try it. Oh, and I put bacon bits in these. There was a closed pack in the freezer.” He grabbed another sandwich and tossed it like a frisbee through the air for Duke to catch.
