I'm Bryce, sheriff of this county and Alpha of the pack in it. The morning after I told my daughters their mother was dead, I could not work the stove.
Anwen had left everything.
Marla came down still wearing her yellow raincoat, like if she kept it on, none of this could reach her skin.
Minta: Papa. The smoke alarm.
I burned two fingers getting the pan off the heat, and the words that came out of my mouth were not words I wanted my daughters hearing.
Bryce: Shit. God damn it.
Minta watched me like she was taking notes for later.
Marla: Mama starts at the bottom.
I sat her on the counter and tried. The braid came out crooked and lumpy, and she touched it like it was precious anyway.
Minta: I don't want you to do it. I want her.
There was nothing right to say to that, so I said the wrong thing.
Bryce: I know. But she's not here, so it's me.
At the office Colm had cleared my desk and stacked everything in one neat pile, like neatness could fix a single thing.
Colm: County wants the bridge reports signed. And the funeral home called twice.
Bryce: Then let them call a third time.
Colm: Bryce. You need to eat and you need to sleep. That's not me being soft, that's me being your deputy.
Bryce: You want to be useful? Go do your job and stop picking at me like a fucking buzzard.
His face went still. Nine years beside me, and I had never once spoken to him like that.
Colm: Yes, Sheriff.
He shut the door soft, and I sat there and hated myself in a way that almost felt good.
The funeral home smelled like carpet cleaner and flowers, and the woman behind the desk used the soft voice people save for the grieving.
She turned the folder around to face me, the way you help a child with the top of a page.
Name of the deceased. Date of birth. Date of death. Mother's maiden name, which I knew, because Anwen told me everything.
Now I was writing it on a form instead of hearing her say it.
My hand would not move. The pen sat in my fist like a nail.
Behind me a man in a cheap suit said the county would cover the service, on account of my position. He said it would all be handled.
I turned around and asked him if he thought a discount made the bridge any less rotten, or my wife any less dead.
He said he did not mean it that way. I told him to get out of the room before I forgot I was a sheriff.
Bryce: Go on. Get the fuck out.
I signed it. My name in black ink, the same hand I use on warrants, and the pen shook so hard the last letter ran.
That was it. A signature, and my wife became a date on a form.
I stayed in that parking lot with the motor dead and my palms stuck to the wheel, and no tears came.
I could feel it sitting in my chest like water behind a dam, and I kept the dam shut.
That night I stood in the hallway between their rooms and listened to them breathe.
Minta had cried herself to sleep with her red boots still on. Marla asked me twice if Mama was cold down there.
I never learned to do hair right, and I don't know how to fill two places at this table. The badge on my chest does not help me in this hallway.
Bryce: But I can show up. Every night, every bad dream, every school morning. That's all I've got, and it's yours.
Bryce: I'll raise you myself. Nobody else gets handed my girls. That's my word.
Then I went down to the kitchen and stood over the sink in the dark, and I let my wolf shake, and I did not make a sound, because they were asleep.
In the morning I put on the badge and the flat voice and I was the sheriff again. Nobody needed to know what was under it.