Free Silver by Cheree Alsop

her head buried in the refrigerator. She
then looked back at me with a warm smile. “But I guess you already
knew that.”
    I laughed. “The nose knows.” We repeated
Dad’s favorite saying at the same time, then stopped and looked at
each other. I couldn’t take the sadness in Mom’s eyes, the rush of
memories and the knowledge of what was taken away from us. Anger at
Mason came so quickly it stole my breath and I had to look away for
a moment, afraid of what she would see on my face. I took a breath
and forced a laugh as I turned back. “Dad always said I could smell
food from a mile away.”
    Mom laughed too, tiny laugh lines at the
corners of her eyes. “And he could smell it from two.” She rose to
her feet with a sigh. “I keep pretending he’s away on a business
trip or something; that one of these days he’ll come through the
door with a vase of daisies.”
    I nodded. Though my heart protested, I gave
in to the urge to talk about him. “I dream about him sometimes,
about running through the forest as wolves, and of the first time
he took us to the lake. Do you remember that?”
    Mom laughed. “He was like a little kid at
Disneyland. That was when he taught you how to track. You couldn’t
have been more than eight or nine.”
    “ Seven,” I remembered. “He
kept saying seven was magical because that’s when werewolves turn
into wolves for the first time.”
    “ He was so proud when he
found out you were an Alpha,” Mom said. She reached over and
fondled my dark blond hair. “Who would’ve thought?”
    “ I still wonder why. You’re
not a werewolf. At the most, I should have been a gray.”
    Mom nodded. “Our little miracle.”
    I had stopped believing in miracles, but
didn't say so. I threw out my next thought. “I worry about you all
by yourself, Mom. Do you want to visit Aunt Sam or something?”
    She looked at me in surprise. “And leave you
here by yourself? There’s no way I could do that.”
    “ I’d be okay, I’ve got
friends at school, and Brock could stay over.”
    She shook her head, already protesting. “No,
I don’t want to leave you alone, especially not now. The full
moon’s coming up and you shouldn’t be alone.”
    I grimaced. “I have a week. It’ll be
okay.”
    She shook her head again with the stubborn
look on her face that said she wasn’t going to budge. “I’m not
leaving you, and that’s the end of the discussion. There’s too much
going on right now and I can’t leave my job anyway.”
    But the way she said it left a slight hope
that I might be able to make it work if I handled it correctly. I
dropped the subject as quick as I could. “Okay, no problem. I just
worry about you, that’s all.”
    She set some paper plates on the table and
smiled at me. “Worry about me? I’m the parent, I should be worrying
about you, and I do.”
    “ I’m fine, really.
Everything’s going great at school.” I had never been a very good
liar, but luckily she was occupied with setting out the food and
didn’t notice.
    “ I’m glad to hear it.” She
handed me a pair of chopsticks and I took the seat across from her.
We both glanced at the empty chair that would have been
Dad’s.
    “ He wanted what was best
for us. He’d want us to be happy,” she said quietly.
    I nodded. “We will be.” I hoped I sounded
more positive than I felt.
    I must have because she grabbed my hand
across the table and gave it a squeeze. “Thank you.”
    “ For what?”
    “ For being the best son a
mother could ask for,” she replied. Tears glistened in her
eyes.
    I shook my head. “Mom-“
    “ No,” she replied firmly,
“I’m serious. You’ve just gone through something no boy ever
should, and you’ve handled it so maturely. Losing your dad, going
to a new school, starting a new life. I’ve had to work and I
haven’t been there for you like I should. It hasn’t been easy, but
you haven’t made it harder.”
    I blinked back tears at the pain in her
voice. “It’s