Chapter 12
Remington
The Devil’s in the Details
I was floating.
That was the only word for it.
Somehow, out of literally nowhere, I’d made a connection in the world that I never could have expected. It was new, it was oh so fragile, but it burned brightly in my mind.
As I turned the music up a little, sure that my girls were going to pass out in the back, I ruminated about how magical the whole night had been.
Except, like many things lately, it turned out that I predicted wrong because both of my girls were wired at the idea of Max coming to our Christmas jamboree.
“We gotta show him the new playground.”
“We gotta show him the creek.”
“Oh, and the bathrooms in the main cabin with all those bars! For the old people!”
“They’re for people with disabilities,” Addy corrected. “Not just the elderly.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Okay.”
“We can show him that super tall tree too!”
“Yeah! He’d love that! And the book collection there.”
It went on like that all the way home, and not to be cliché, it was like music to my ears.
There was something special about knowing my children were genuinely excited about an event that I was so intensely nervous about.
A bonus was that we’d be giving Max a special holiday, and he and Jeannie really deserved it.
My heart broke a little when I thought of them sitting by themselves with no Christmas tree and just a few presents Jeannie no doubt had worked very hard to get.
Obviously, the holidays weren’t about a giant mountain of gifts, or how much people got, but it was about family and community.
So, it seemed wrong to just about every part of me that the two were spending the holidays alone.
It would be different if they wanted it to be that way, but from their reactions, it was clear that it was something they were used to rather than something they craved.
So, since I had the means via a massive family and bear clan, why not use it for good?
I doubted we’d be putting anybody out. Some of the smallest, two-man cabins were usually open because they were too small for couples even with one child.
It really all felt so meant to be.
No.
Stop that now.
The internal admonishment came fast and hard, reprimanding me for losing the plot. I was a widower who had already lost the love of my life. That was it. People didn’t get two happily ever afters—that wasn’t a thing. I needed to stop being greedy and stop disrespecting the memory of my wife.
As cold and harsh as that line of thought was, I couldn’t help but think of the smiles that had graced Max’s and my girls’ faces the entire night and the sheer amount of joy we had all shared.
Surely such a lovely, beautiful time couldn’t be bad, right?
If Zara had been there, she would have loved everything about the night, perhaps even raced wheelchairs with Max.
So maybe… maybe it was okay for me to float in the happy for a little while.
Yeah, just this once.
Having granted myself that permission, I continued riding the high all the way home, through getting the girls ready for bed, and then tucking them in.
Both were too tired for stories tonight.
I kissed their foreheads and was all set to text Jeannie the details she needed to know when Addy stopped me right before I left the room.
She certainly had a knack for doing that.
“Daddy?”
“Yes, love?”
“I think it’s really cool that you’re introducing Jeannie and Max to the shifter world. I think they’ll be good about it.”
Oh my god.
OH.
MY.
GOD.
“Yeah, I’m sure they will be,” I said quickly, trying to shut down my body’s visceral reaction.
I had fucked up. I’d been so caught up with everything that I had well and truly fucked the hell up.
“But let’s just not go out and tell them, okay?
We’re really supposed to be keeping ourselves a secret, remember? ”
“Yeah, I know. I just figured...”
“It’s okay, don’t you worry about it, Addy. I’ll take care of it. You go to sleep now, all right?”
“Okies dokies,” she said in a perfect imitation of Eva and settled back under the covers. I closed the door behind me. On the inside, I was panicking. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of something so incredibly obvious and important.
I’d really stuck my foot in it.
Almost ready
I stared at the text, my heart beating about a million miles a second. It had been a hot minute since my anxiety had spiked so much. It wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been when Zara’s health had started really winding down, but it didn’t feel great to be reminded of that.
Thanks so much
I texted back, ever so grateful that my cousin had arrived at our ancestral lands early so he could set up a Face-time call with the elders who were already there. Otherwise I’d be conference calling them, and that sounded like a legitimate nightmare.
I sat there, cooking in my own worries for a while, until another text came through.
Get ready
I braced myself, my tablet set up in front of me on the desk.
As soon as the call came through, I hit the green button to accept and found myself looking at one of the large sitting rooms of the main cabin.
Five different elders were there. I recognized my great-great-great uncle Baptiste, my great-great-great-great aunt Annette, my great grandmother-in-law Angelique, and two others I wasn’t sure exactly how we were related, but I called them Auntie Hortense and Cuz Amédé.
“Ah, sak pase!” Cuz said, waving toward the camera. As the youngest of our elders at just around seventy, he was the most technologically literate. “I hear ya wanted t’invite someone unusual to our fais do-do?”
The elders of our clan used more of the Creole language than I did, and their accents were also far thicker than mine.
“Yes, actually. I, uh, I might have gotten a bit carried away and invited a human to our jamboree,” I said, feeling sheepish at the stupid blunder.
Although we didn’t follow the same strict pack structures that wolf shifters did, we still had designations, and as an alpha it was my responsibility to present myself as relatively put-together—even if it felt like I was one hair away from a crash-out on the inside.
How the hell was I going to disinvite Jeannie and Max after they’d been so happy to be invited?
And not to play into stereotypes, but as an alpha, it affronted my very nature to even think about denying them the downright bevvy of food that would be available, especially when I knew Max was trying to gain weight.
“Now, why d’ya go an’ do something like that, sha? This human, they zanmi ou?”
“Yes, she’s definitely my friend,” I answered. “But it’s more than that.”
“Pi plis?”
“Yes’m. You see, she ain’t got anybody else, and her little boy? He just got over being real sick.”
“How sick?” an older voice came from off-screen, and a few moments later, Vovo Gabriela followed it.
“Cancer sick.”
She clicked her tongue, going to sit down next to her wife, Great Auntie Hortense. “Cancer? Ka ten di boi.”
Although I wasn’t as familiar with the dialect of Portuguese Creole as Zara’s side of the family used as I was with my more Haitian and French one, I still knew exactly what she meant.
“Yeah. It’s not good. I know it’s probably impossible, but do you think there’s any way we could still allow them to come?
I’ll spend the entire time running interference to make sure she doesn’t see anything she isn’t supposed to.
And her son, he gets tired so easily and needs to rest a lot, so he’ll probably either be sleeping a lot or hanging out with adults.
When he’s running around with the kids, they’ll probably be having too much fun just playing to let anything slip they shouldn’t. ”
I braced myself, ready for them to tell me off for risking our safety, but the elders all shared some pretty heavy looks before Grand Auntie Annette answered.
“Wi.”
“Yes?” I repeated in disbelief.
“Sim,” Vovo Gabriela added in agreement.
One by one, all the elders agreed, and I stared at them, utterly gobsmacked.
“Really?” I had expected more of a struggle. “You’re all fine with it?”
“Why not? As long as she’s no soumoun, I ain’t got no worries. ’Sides, I no think you like someone like that.”
“No, she’s not a busybody,” I said, my heart pounding for an entirely different reason. “She’s really quite lovely.”
“I believe you, Cuz. She, of course, be needin’ a babysitter most of the time, which ye can do, and we can have Emelie and Bob switch cabins with you so yous can be next to where her ‘n’ her son be staying.”
“Thank you,” I breathed, half wondering if I was dreaming. “This means a lot to me.”
“Pa dous, ma cher.” That was Uncle Baptiste. “Is not like you be askin’ for anything ever. Pou’m di ou sa, we all be a bit worried about ye ‘n’ kin. Since Zara been gone, you ain’t much reached out. We all’r been here for you, ou konnen sa, yeah?”
“I do know, I do. I didn’t mean to isolate myself. I honestly thought that I was reaching out for help when y’all helped watch the girls and feed us right after. And some of y’all still visit from time to time.”
“Oy, just some visits and you think that’s all?” Cuz argued. “Those humans be rubbin’ off on you too much. We is family and always be family, ye? But we no kin offer a helping hand if you dun let us, sha.”
“Thank you,” I murmured, my voice threatening to crack.
I supposed it was one thing to know I had this huge familial unit of literally hundreds of other shifters from the long, long lines of both the LeBeaus and the Desrosiers as well as everyone else who had married in, but it was another thing to feel the effects of it in real time.
And after learning that Jeannie and her son were completely alone, I appreciated it all the more.
“I will do better in the future. I promise.”
“Asire w ke ou fè.”
Make sure you do.
“I will. I promise. Again, thank you so much. You have no idea how much this will mean to them.”
Honestly, I was so elated, I could have done a cartwheel.
My leg started to bounce, and it was growing more and more difficult to sit still.
I’d gone into the call hoping to convince the elders to see my side, but I’d never expected them to agree so easily while gently chiding me to ask for help more often.
Huh.
Lesson learned.
“Ain’t no problem, chile.”
“Be well!”
“Buh-bye!”
There was a chorus of other positive dismissals, and I grinned dopily, so proud of my people. “Merry Christmas. I’ll see you all very soon.”
There were a few more goodbyes and after a bit more conversation, I hung up feeling like I was on top of the world.
This was going to be an amazing Christmas.