She had to wake up for him. Feed him. Walk him. Clean up after him. Someone needed her. Not the desperate need of dying wolves, just the quiet, daily need of an old dog who wanted breakfast and a gentle walk and someone to sit with in the evenings.
Sarah started running again, something she had done before Ethan was born but had abandoned after the accident. She started with one mile. Her lungs burned. Her legs ached.
She had let herself deteriorate for four years. But she pushed through. Added distance slowly. Duke couldn’t run with her anymore, but he waited patiently at home. She always came back.
In April, Sarah made a decision. She resigned from the hardware store. Used savings to enroll in online courses for wildlife rehabilitation.
If she was going to do this, really do this, she needed proper training. Rachel had taken a chance on her with the wolves; Sarah wanted to earn that professional trust. Wanted to be worthy of it.
The coursework was rigorous. Biology, animal behavior, veterinary basics. Sarah studied at her kitchen table with Duke sleeping at her feet.
Some nights she felt overwhelmed, felt too old, too broken to learn new things. But she thought about Luna fighting hypothermia to keep her cubs alive. If a wolf could do that, Sarah could pass that exam.
In June, Rachel called. “Just checking in. How are you doing?”
Sarah was honest. “Some days are good. Some days are hard. I am trying to build something new. I do not know what yet, but I am trying.”
“That is all any of us can do,” Rachel said. Then, carefully, “Do you want to know about the wolves?”
Sarah had been waiting for this question for four months. Part of her wanted to know desperately. Part of her was terrified of the answer. “Yes.”
“We have not seen them,” Rachel said. “Which is good. That is what we want. No sightings means they are avoiding humans successfully. But there have been reports.”
“Hunters have spotted a female with two juveniles about thirty miles northeast of the release site. Moving together. Hunting successfully based on tracking data. It matches their description.”
“They are alive,” Sarah whispered.
“They are thriving,” Rachel corrected. “You did that. You gave them a chance and they took it. You should be proud.”
Sarah was proud and grateful. “Thank you for telling me.”
“Thank you for saving them,” Rachel said quietly. “Not many people would have stopped.”
After they hung up, Sarah sat with Duke and told him about the wolves. He listened patiently, resting his head on her leg in solidarity.
Sarah scratched behind his ears and felt, for the first time in years, like maybe she was going to be okay. Summer turned to fall. Sarah finished her first round of wildlife rehabilitation courses.
She started volunteering at a local wildlife rescue on weekends. Mostly birds, some small mammals, nothing as dramatic as wolves, but she learned. She grew. She met other people who cared about helping living things.
She made a friend named Maria who ran the rescue and who invited Sarah to her house for dinner parties, where people laughed and told stories and included Sarah in conversations like she was a person worth including.
In November, Sarah went on a date. First one since the divorce. A man named Thomas who worked at the library. They had coffee, talked about books.
He made her laugh twice. Sarah went home feeling guilty, like laughing was betraying Ethan’s memory. But Duke looked at her expectantly, ready for their evening walk, and Sarah realized Ethan would have wanted her to laugh.
He had loved her laugh. He used to do silly dances just to make her smile. She cried that night, but it was okay. The crying was becoming less frequent, less consuming.
In December, Sarah decorated for Christmas for the first time since the accident. Just a small tree, some lights, nothing elaborate, but it was something.
Duke seemed confused by the tree but accepted it. On Christmas morning, Sarah ate pancakes and watched old movies and felt almost normal. Almost peaceful.
January came. She passed her wildlife rehabilitation certification exam. Rachel sent flowers with a note that said I knew you could do it.
Sarah framed the certificate and hung it in her kitchen. The first accomplishment in years that had nothing to do with surviving. It was about building. Growing. Becoming something new from the foundation of what she had learned.
February 5th arrived. Five years since Ethan died. Sarah woke up and felt the familiar weight. The day that marked everything.
The day that split her life. But this year felt different. She had survived four February 5ths, drowning in guilt. This one, she was standing.
She drove to Mile Marker 47 like always. Brought sunflowers like always. But this year she also brought the wooden wolf carving from last year and a new one she had made.
Four wolves now. Luna, Ash, Echo, and a fourth, smaller one. For Ethan. Because he had loved animals. Would have loved this story.
Sarah placed the flowers and the carvings at the base of the tree. Stood there in the cold February morning. No snow this year, just grey sky and bare trees and the sound of cars passing on the highway.
She talked to Ethan like she sometimes did. Told him about the wolves. About Duke. About going back to school. About trying to be a person again.
“I am better,” she said quietly. “I am trying. I hope that is enough. I hope you would be proud. I hope you understand. I will always love you. Always miss you. But I have to keep living. I have to try.”
She turned to walk back to her truck and froze. On the opposite side of the highway, barely visible in the tree line, three shapes appeared. Grey and large and unmistakable.
Wolves. Standing perfectly still. Watching her. One in the center, larger. Two flanking, nearly as big now. Sarah’s heart raced.
Luna. Ash. Echo. It couldn’t be. The odds were impossible. Thirty miles from here. Thousands of acres of wilderness. Why would they be here?
Why today? It made no logical sense. But she felt it. The way you know things in dreams. The way instinct sometimes speaks louder than logic.
They were here because this place meant something. To all of them. This was where they had met. Where their stories had collided. Where grief and hope had chosen each other in the snow.
Luna—if it was Luna, Sarah could not be certain, but her heart insisted it was—took one step forward. Her cubs, no longer cubs but nearly full-grown, stayed close.
They watched Sarah. No fear. No aggression. Just acknowledgement. We see you. We remember. We are okay. Sarah raised one hand, whispering across the highway, knowing they could not hear her words but hoping they understood the emotion.
“Thank you. For saving me. For giving me a reason to fight. For showing me that broken things can heal.”
The wolves stood for another moment. Then Luna turned. Ash and Echo followed. They disappeared into the forest like smoke.
Sarah blinked, half-expecting them to be a hallucination, but the paw prints in the mud remained. Sarah stood alone on the shoulder.
Cars passed, drivers oblivious to the moment that had just passed. Sarah got in her truck, sat with her hands on the steering wheel, and let the tears come. But this time she was smiling through them.
She drove home to Helena. To Duke waiting by the door. To a life that was small and quiet, but hers. To a future that was uncertain, but possible.
To the work of continuing to heal, slowly, one day at a time, knowing that grief never fully ends but transforms into something you can carry.
Sarah had learned something in the last year. Learned it from a wolf in the snow who refused to give up on her cubs. Learned it from two young wolves who fought the cold with nothing but instinct.
Learned it from an old dog who needed someone as much as she needed him. She learned that survival is not weakness.
That continuing to breathe after the worst has happened is not betrayal. That building a new life from the ruins of the old one is not forgetting—it is honoring.
It is saying yes, that mattered. That person mattered. That love mattered so much that I will carry it forward into whatever comes next.
On the drive home, Sarah stopped at a coffee shop. Ordered a latte. Sat by the window watching people walk past—normal people with normal problems.
And for the first time in five years, Sarah felt like she might eventually become one of them. Not today. Not tomorrow. But someday.
She would never be who she was before the accident; that Sarah was gone. But maybe this new Sarah, scarred and broken and slowly rebuilding, could learn to be happy again.
Could learn to laugh without guilt. Could learn to live with grief instead of being consumed by it. She thought about Luna running through forests thirty miles away, teaching her grown cubs to hunt, to survive, to thrive.
Living the life Sarah had fought to give her. Free. Wild. Unbroken. Despite everything. If Luna could do it, Sarah could too. Different journeys, different species, same lesson.
You survive by putting one foot in front of the other. You survive by accepting help when it is offered. You survive by choosing, every single day, to keep going even when giving up would be easier.
Sarah finished her coffee, drove home, fed Duke, made dinner, did laundry. Normal things. Small things. Things that used to feel pointless now felt like victory.
She was alive. She was trying. That was enough. For today, it was enough. Tomorrow she would try again. And the day after.
One day at a time. One breath at a time. Building something new from the wreckage. Just like Luna had. Just like the wolves had. Just like every broken thing that chooses to heal.
Sarah Mitchell was learning to live again. And that, in the end, was everything.
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