— she asked.
— Good for them, — Frank said with a shrug, as if that were obvious enough not to need explanation. He had clearly read something or asked somebody. Otherwise how would he know about cottage cheese?
Eleanor opened the door wider and stepped aside in silence, which meant Come in. They stood together by the crate and watched. Gray was busy in one corner with a scrap of the old jacket he had somehow managed to tear loose. Quiet sat and watched him with the expression of a customer mildly disappointed in the show.
— Gray’s definitely going to make it, — Frank said thoughtfully, not taking his eyes off the crate. — Quiet—we’ll see.
— They’ll both make it, — Eleanor said. It came out sharper than she intended.
Frank looked at her carefully, without surprise, and said nothing. He shifted his feet, picked up his cap from the table, and left. The door closed softly behind him. Eleanor turned back to Quiet. He was looking at her now with those same bluish eyes that gave away nothing at all.
That evening she picked up the phone. Read for a long time, glasses on, scrolling down with one finger. Wildlife rehabilitation center, one for the whole state, nearly two hundred miles away. The website was old, last updated two years ago, but there was a phone number.
Eleanor read to the bottom of the page, then went back and read it again more slowly. Wolf pups raised by people are not released into the wild. They do not know how to hunt, they are not afraid of humans, they do not know a pack. It was not a question. It was a fact, written plainly and without sympathy. Then: sanctuaries may keep them for life if space is available; if not, euthanasia is possible. Private licensed facilities are few. Waiting list.
Eleanor set the phone down on the table. Looked at the crate, where Gray was rustling around behind the side. She already knew this. Or could have known it, if she had wanted to. But there had been no point thinking about it until they were stronger. That was how she explained it to herself. It was a convenient explanation.
The next day, after the morning feeding, she called the center. The phone rang a long time: five, six, seven times. Eleanor stood by the window looking at the chokecherry. The white blossoms were already starting to fall, little petals dropping into the grass.
— Hello, — said a woman’s voice, tired in the way people sound when they have already answered too many difficult questions that day.
— Good afternoon, — Eleanor said. — I found two wolf pups. I’ve been caring for them for a little over a week. What do I do next?
The woman listened. Asked a few questions: age, condition, what they were being fed. Eleanor answered briefly and to the point.
— Keep them until they’re stronger, — the woman said. — Then either bring them in, or we’ll arrange pickup. No space right now, but I’ll put you on the list.
— How long is no space? — Eleanor asked.
— Six months, — the woman said. — Maybe more. Depends when something opens up.
Eleanor was quiet for a second.
— Understood, — she said. — Thank you.
She hung up. Six months meant May, June, July, August, September, October. Which meant the conversation about “what next” was only beginning, and she was not ready for it.
Gray climbed out of the crate at three in the afternoon. Eleanor heard a soft thump—not a fall exactly, more of a landing—and came from the other room into the kitchen. Gray stood on the floor beside the crate, looking around with the expression of somebody who had just stepped off a bus in a strange town and had not yet formed an opinion.
Then he walked. Unevenly, tripping over his own feet, drifting to the right, but walking. Eleanor moved behind him at a short distance, making sure he didn’t get under the stove; the gap there was exactly his size. Gray circled a table leg, sniffed a corner, tapped the refrigerator with one paw. Quiet hung over the edge of the crate, watching from above, not coming down.
Gray lingered by the refrigerator a little longer, then turned and headed back. Reached the crate, tried to climb in. Slipped the first time, tried again, panting and scrabbling. Eleanor stood nearby and did not help. He got in.
Eleanor let out a breath and only then realized she had apparently not been breathing since he hit the floor. It was a little ridiculous, and she admitted that to herself, though there was no one around to hear it.
That evening she opened the notebook and entered the day’s events: “Gray fell out, walked through kitchen, got back in by himself. Quiet opened eyes two days ago, Gray today around noon, both eating well.” Then she came to the line about calling the center and wrote: “Six-month wait.” Below that, after a moment, she wrote: “Then what?”
