Free Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt Page B

the central aisle. When he got closer he looked me over, zeroing in on my feet.
    â€œHey, you’re the girl with the boots.” He smiled and nodded like he’d solved some kind of puzzle. He was about to sit down next to me, but before he did, Greta came back through stage left. She stood onstage, looking out over the rows of seats.
    â€œAre you coming or not?” she called, already turning to leave.
    â€œYeah. Coming,” I called back. I said goodbye to Ben, then jogged to catch up with Greta. She stormed ahead, leaving me paces behind for the whole walk home. When we finally got there, she didn’t say a word. She just ran up the stairs, straight into her bedroom, and slammed the door behind her.

Fifteen
    Since Finn died, I’d been spending a lot of my weekend time in the woods. My parents would go to the office to get in a few extra hours of work, Greta would go to extra rehearsals, and I would head to the woods. Sometimes I’d take my coat off and tuck it behind the stone wall so I could feel the pain of the cold right through my body. Sometimes it was good to feel like a wretch of a girl who didn’t have the right clothes to keep her warm.
    It wasn’t like I used to do something with Finn every weekend, but there was always the possibility. The phone could ring early in the morning—usually on a Sunday—and Finn would be on the other end, asking if anyone wanted to go out someplace. He always did that, asked if
anyone
wanted to go, but I knew he really meant me.
    â€œYou’re in love with Uncle Finn,” Greta said one Sunday after he called.
    She’d been watching me from the other side of the kitchen. Watching my face light up as I listened to Finn saying it was a good day to go to the Cloisters. After I hung up, Greta stood there for a second and smiled. Then she said that thing to me, about being in love with Finn, and I could have punched her. I clenched my fists and shoved them deep into my pockets and walked out of the kitchen, but she followed.
    â€œEverybody knows it.”
    I stopped and closed my eyes, my back still to Greta.
    â€œYou know what I heard Mrs. Alphonse say?” she said.
    Mrs. Alphonse was a friend of my mother’s from the garden club. My mother didn’t even like gardening, but she still went to gardenclub meetings one Thursday night a month, to drink coffee and talk to other moms who probably also didn’t do much gardening.
    My back was still to Greta, my fists pulling tighter and tighter.
    â€œI heard her asking Mom about you and Finn.
‘It’s a bit strange for a girl to spend so much time alone with her uncle, isn’t it? Not that I’m saying there’s anything funny going on. I don’t mean that at all.’
That’s what she said, but I could tell she meant that she thought something was very wrong with it. And I could tell she’d been talking about it with other moms. And poor Mom, she didn’t know what to say.…”
    My fists had started to loosen because I was listening so hard to Greta. But then I thought about Mrs. Alphonse with her stupid tightly permed hair. Why did Mrs. Alphonse even need to think about me and Finn at all?
    â€œJust letting you know, that’s all. What you’re putting Mom through and that everybody knows.”
    â€œWhich everybody?” I asked, though I hadn’t meant to say a word.
    â€œWell, if you think that Mrs. Alphonse wouldn’t talk about it with Kimmy, you’d be wrong. And if you think Kimmy wouldn’t tell, like, everybody she knew, then, well, whatever.”
    Kimmy Alphonse was a girl in my class who seemed pretty average. I’d never even thought about her until now.
    â€œSo go on and meet up with your precious uncle Finn. Enjoy yourself.”
    I couldn’t let Greta get away with all that. Let her yank every bit of joy from my Sunday without saying anything.
    â€œThere’s nothing gross, because