A Death To Live For

Odelia “You what?” Marie's hands tighten around my wrist, tightening, tightening, until the flesh begins to hurt. Her gray eyes are dark slits in her oval face, her lips draw down the way they do when she thinks I'm about to make one of my stupid mistakes. I'd just filled her in on my discussion with Lotan Harpas, our new Alpha. “Marie, it's growing cobwebs down there,” I say quietly so no one else in the rosemary store hears me. “What do you want me to do?” She let go of my hand, covers her face, shaking her head. Rubbing my raw wrists, I sigh. Marie is into her drama mode, I'd have to find a way to explain myself out of it. “I didn't think you'd tell him now,” she says, her voice hoarse with pain. She opens her hands at the crowd around us. “I could throw a stone and hit a better man than Lotan. Yes, I know I said he would make a great ladder to places in the world, you know, he being an alpha and all. But . . .” “Marie, there aren't many alphas in this territory. All the packs are taken. And he seems nice. You said so yourself.” She gives me a grudging twist of her lip, crosses her hands over her plump breasts and looks away. “Come on, Marie." I pull her hands apart and hold on to them, smiling. “You talked me into this, Marie. Remember? Now, you must support me.” She exhales, looks at me and then manages a slanting smile. Her gray eyes burrow into mine, as if searching for doubts she can latch on to, maybe change my mind. Marie would order Mac and cheese, and then change her mind just as the waiter brought it to her. “Okay.” “Yes?” I beam. “I said okay,” she replies glumly, pulling free. “Enough about our new Alpha. Let's shop.” We walk out of the rosemary store with our purchase and make our way into the berries line, a wide street filled with all sorts of berries and herbs made from berries. It is the weekend and the market is swarming with men and women of my trade—herbalists from our pack, nearby ones and from outside our territory. “. . . we almost lost that kid after stuffing him with saline after saline bags,” Marie is saying as we round a corner. “And we would have lost him if it weren't for you.” We drift with the slow moving crowd of people, Marie's voice a thin chord under the humming noise of the market. In front of us there's an old man wearing a rucksack across his small body. Ahead of this man a couple walks easily, hand in hand. My mouth goes dry. This couple looked like something out of a fairytale story. More specifically, my fairytale story. The only difference is, the woman's hair is a black waterfall of bubbling curls that spread over her elegant shoulders, her white flowered dress hangs from fairly wide hips, and she has a swing to those hips that reminded me of the words: “You look like what a tambourine would be like if it had legs.” Those are Vardi's words. My husband, the one who vanished into thin air two years ago. Not trace, no explanation. The woman in front of me is holding the man's hand. My eyes rivet onto that hand—the wrist is thick, slightly veiny, shadowed with dark virile hair. My eyes roll up that arm and up the hardness of the hand they go until it stops on his broad shoulders. I stop walking. Pain stabs at my chest and I gasp, my head swimming, my eyes wide. “No,” I whisper, “No, it's not him.” Marie, who had been going on about a kid at the hospital where she works, stops now and looks at me. “Odelia, what is it?” My throat works, but words have turned to grains of sand, too dry to come out. I swallow, I try to tell her. Old tears threaten. Old pain rear their head. “Var . . . Var . . .” I force my throat open. “Vardi.” “Huh?” Marie clings to my side, follows my eyes and she sees it too, or I think she does because she freezes suddenly, unable to move. The couple are walking slowly, the way married couples often do who seem to have their fairytale lives put together. Now the man turns his head to the woman and my heart practically stops. “Vardi.” The sound of my voice is like a belch, spoken right before one knows they're going to say it. The paralysis breaks and I start moving my legs. Marie catches my hand as I shoulder myself through people in front of us, pushing the short man and his rucksack aside. “Odelia, wait,” says Marie. “Vardi.” “You don't know that. We all have seven people who look exactly just like us out there in the world,” Marie reasons, her voice excited. “It's a doppelganger.” “It's not.” I push forward, sure of what I know, which is: that is my husband five feet from where I'm standing, only three layers of people separating us. “He's getting away,” I croon, my lips straining. “Let's just follow him, Odelia. We'll see if it's him.” I glare at Marie. The memory of my frustration washing in. I've spent two years dreaming he'll come back, two years waiting, questioning myself. Was I such a terrible wife? Was that why he left like that? “I’m going up to ask,” I hiss, “And if it's not him, I'll know.” “And if it's him?” I grimace, confused by my friend's question. If it's him? Isn't that what I want, for this person to be him? I wrestle my wrist out of Marie's grip and let my shoulder path the way into the rolling crowd. Voices fill the air. Most of it is in my head. Marie rushes after me, her thin voice saying something I don't quite hear. My eyes are glued to the side of the man's face—Vardi’s face. The man turns his head further, all the way around and he's looking my way. He freezes when he sees me. I stop too, rooted in place. My legs turn to water, hot water. “Vardi!”