From Loyalty to Divorce

Charlotte Hale had been married to Alpha Harrison for five years. He was the Alpha of Greybridge Pack—the leader, the one everyone watched, the one who always had another meeting, another patrol, another problem that needed him more than home did. In those five years he rarely came back before midnight. Many nights, he did not come back at all. At first Charlotte waited in the living room with the lamp on, telling herself the door would open soon. After a year, she stopped waiting on the couch and went to bed with the light in the hallway. After three years, she learned to sleep with her phone face down so the blank screen would not make her angry. By the fifth year, she had grown used to the sound of the house settling without him. It was a habit the whole pack understood. When people said “Alpha is working," they meant he was somewhere other than home. When they said “Alpha is in a meeting," they meant the night would be long. Charlotte told herself this was part of being married to an Alpha. She told herself the job came first. She told herself the love she remembered from the beginning would come back when the busy season ended. But the busy season did not end. It changed its name and kept going. Tonight was different because their daughter, Mia, doubled over after dinner and could not stand. The pain came fast and strong. Charlotte drove her to Greybridge General before she had time to think of anything but the next green light. She parked crooked, scooped Mia into her arms, and ran. Fluorescent signs showed the way. The air smelled like lemon cleaner and cold metal. A staff member pushed a wheelchair toward them. Charlotte kept her hand on Mia's shoulder while the triage questions came in a quick line: When did the pain start? Where does it hurt? Any fever? Any vomiting? How old? Any allergies? The answers were short. Twenty minutes. All over. No fever. No vomiting. Eight years. No allergies that she knew of. Charlotte did not add details about Mia's spelling test this morning or about the wolf plush that slept by her pillow every night. She did not say that Mia hated peas but always ate three for luck. She focused on the simple facts. Her daughter was in pain. She needed help now. They moved fast. A bed. A monitor. A cold gel across Mia's belly. Charlotte held Mia's hand and breathed with her. When Mia said “Mom, it hurts," Charlotte said “I'm here," because that was the one sentence that mattered. A doctor spoke in calm words about a possible twist in the intestine and the need for surgery right away. Charlotte nodded. She signed what they put in front of her. She kissed Mia's forehead and told her she was brave. She said it again until Mia believed her for a second and her fingers loosened around Charlotte's hand. Then they took Mia through double doors under a red sign. The sign said SURGERY. The doors closed and the sign kept glowing. Charlotte stood there for a moment and listened to the quiet that was not quiet at all. She needed to sit down. She needed to drink water. She needed to call Harrison. She walked to the waiting area and sat in a chair that felt like plastic under thin cloth. A wall television showed a weather map without sound. The clock above it moved its second hand like a small metronome. Charlotte put both hands around a paper cup from the vending machine only to give her fingers a job. The heat steadied her. She told herself to call and say only what was necessary. She would say: “Mia is in surgery. They think it is a twist in the bowel. She asked to see you." She would not ask where he was. She would not ask who he was with. She would not ask when he planned to come home. She would only say the facts and then go back to watching the red sign. She opened her contacts and pressed his name. The phone rang once, twice, three times. Each ring measured the width between them. On the fifth ring, the line clicked, and a woman laughed close to the microphone. It was a small, bright laugh, careless like a secret told in a warm kitchen. Then the hello came, light and familiar. Charlotte knew the voice. She had never said the name out loud, but she knew it the way you know a song from the first note. Emily. The name had lived on the edge of her conversations for a year. It lived in the way people said “Alpha is busy" with their eyes turned away. It lived in the space between a husband's schedule and a wife's patience. Charlotte had not wanted to give the name power by saying it. She did not need to say it to recognize it now. “Hello?" the woman said again, as if Charlotte were a friend who had called late to talk about something small. Charlotte did not answer. For a second she could not. The hospital room, the red light, the thin cup, all of it moved away from her and then back. She could hear a rustle, the kind of sound a shirt makes when a person turns in someone else's arms. The woman breathed into the phone and waited, gentle and curious. Charlotte thought of two things at the same time. She thought of Mia's face when the bed started to roll away. She thought of Harrison telling her last week, in a tired voice, that he sent three hundred thousand dollars every month so she could “stay home, be content, and not call him over trivial things." The money did not change the way the house sounded at midnight. The money did not change the way the phone sounded now. She ended the call. Her thumb touched the red square and the screen went dark. The phone felt heavy and cold in her hand, as if it had picked up all the weight she had been carrying and decided to hold it for a minute. Charlotte put the phone on her thigh and stared at the red SURGERY sign until the glow blurred. She blinked hard and let the picture sharpen again. She was not going to cry in this chair with this cup. She was going to sit and breathe and wait for the doctor to come tell her what came next. She picked up the cup and took a sip. The coffee tasted burnt and thin. She swallowed anyway. She listened to the soft hum of the building and the small squeak of a cart wheel from the next hallway. She looked at the double doors and pictured the room behind them where people who knew what to do were working on the problem inside her child. She told herself to stay steady until someone told her she could stand up and walk again. Her phone lit. A message from the packhouse line: ALPHA IN MEETING. WILL RETURN YOUR CALL IN THE MORNING. The words were polite. The meaning was simple. You can wait. Charlotte deleted the message. She set the phone face down on the arm of the chair and rubbed her hand over her knee as if she could smooth the night into a better shape. She looked at the red sign again. The glow stayed the same. She thought about calling back and leaving a short voice message with only the facts. She imagined Emily answering again and asking who it was. She imagined saying her own name to a stranger who did not need to hear it. She imagined the thin sound of her voice in a bright room on the other end of the line. She imagined Mia asking from a sleepy place if Dad was coming. She did not want to carry a new lie into the room when Mia woke up. She decided not to call again. She put the cup on the floor by her shoe and folded her hands together. Her fingers were cold. She slid them under her thighs for warmth the way she had done at school when she was nervous before a test. She told herself to breathe in for four counts and out for four counts. She had learned that trick when Mia was a baby and sleep would not come unless the house believed everyone was calm. In for four. Out for four. The seconds moved. The clock ticked because that is what clocks do. Charlotte straightened her back against the chair and looked at the doors. She told herself the one simple thing she could hold: I am here. Her phone buzzed once where it sat face down. She did not flip it over. She curled her toes in her shoes to release the energy that wanted to turn into questions. She took another slow breath. She imagined Mia's hand in hers on the other side of that wall. She imagined the doctor coming to say the words she needed: It went well. She is stable. You can see her now. The phone buzzed again. She glanced at it. The screen showed HARRISON MISSED CALL. For a second she almost tapped return call out of old reflex. Then she remembered the laugh that came with the last connection and the way the word hello had sounded like the start of a nice evening. She looked back at the red sign and kept her hands where they were. Her mouth was dry. She picked up the cup and held it near her face but did not drink. She let the steam warm her lip. She put the cup down again. She used the sleeve of her sweater to wipe a line on the armrest that only she could see. The television clicked to a new program. A janitor passed and nodded in a way that said he understood people who were waiting. Charlotte nodded back. She took her phone once more, not to call, but to open a blank note. She typed: “Mia—surgery—be brave—Mom is here." She added “Dad will come when he can," then deleted it. She typed, “I love you," then closed the note without saving. She put the phone away. She was done speaking into a device that answered with someone else's voice. The red sign glowed. The doors stayed closed. The chair hummed under the weight of her and the night. Charlotte placed her hands flat on her knees and kept her eyes on the place where the news would come from. Behind those doors, Mia was asleep under bright lights while other people worked. Here, Charlotte would wait until someone called her name. Her phone vibrated one last time. She did not touch it. She did not look. She breathed in for four and out for four and let the sound of the hospital fill the space where words wanted to be. Then she reached for the phone only to make sure the screen was dark and the line was closed. She had heard Emily's voice. She had hung up.