A.N.D. - Through the Looking Glass

Usually it was a quiet walk, if a little fragrant when the trash was ripe. But this time she thought she heard someone making that sniffling gulp that meant they’d been doing a lot of crying. She didn’t have an appointment set for the day, but maybe it was a referral, or someone who had seen her ad in the yellow pages.

She picked up her pace as she rounded the corner... then stopped short. Oy, vey! It was that exhausting young man with the food fixation. Years of training had taught Dr. Horovitz that all mental conditions were treatable illnesses, all patients could be aided to live a normal life. But that boy was just plain meschugena!

Worse, nobody knew who he was. Paul’s real referral had shown up three hours later, and discreet inquiries around town hadn’t turned up a single person who’d treated this man before. It was if he’d just dropped out of the sky.

He was talking softly but earnestly to a young woman, one hand holding her arm while the other brushed tears from her face. She wondered if this was the woman he wanted to marry or eat.

She should stop. She should offer to help. Obviously, there was a problem here, and she doubted that the nutcase-er, young man-would be much support. He had too many problems of his own. But he’d been so tiring, and he hadn’t even paid. Even while she called herself a coward, Dr. Horovitz turned quietly to sneak away.

Too late. His nostrils flared, as if he were some sort of animal, and his whole body wrenched around to follow his nose. “Doc!” He sounded delighted, and bounded up the alley to greet her, towing the young girl by the hand. “Doc, you’re just the person we should see!”

Oy! No more freebies, Marion. Time to gently but firmly put this boy in his place.

“Hello, again. I see you’ve worked out your problems.” She nodded to the young woman, who sniffled but tried a smile. “Very pleased to meet you. Good day.” She tried walking around him, but he quickly sidestepped and was once more in her way.

“Yes, I owe it all to you and those wonderful books. I’m a new man, and look! She agreed to marry me! But, um, we’ve got another little problem, and I was wondering...”

Dr. Horovitz cut him off with a shake of the head. “I’m terribly sorry, but I can’t see you again.”

“But... but...” He looked frantically back and forth between her and the girl. “Huff, puff, we need you!”

“Ah, ah, ah!” She waved a finger in his face. “I can’t have a patient who doesn’t take therapy seriously, now can I? You never came back for another session. You didn’t even give me your address so I could contact you. Plus there is the small matter of my bill. I want to help you, but I have a living to make, you know.”

He looked like a kicked puppy, and now it was the woman who was wordlessly comforting him, rubbing his arm soothingly. Dr. Horovitz couldn’t quite look them in the eye as she passed, but really! What else was there to do?

In the years to come, she would never entirely know what prompted her to turn around again. Maybe it was the plaintive, lost tone in the young man’s voice as he said, “I wish you’d see us. Oh, and let us bargain on the bill.” It was an outrageous thing to say, but it captured her interest. So what if they were confused and poor? Most young couples were. Considering the uniqueness of his case, maybe she could get a journal article or two from their sessions and at least get her name out more into the profession. A little publicity was always a good thing.

When she turned back, the young woman was glaring at him and he was shrinking away, nervously picking a knot out of a pink ribbon. How very odd.

Maybe she could get a whole series of articles out of them.

Virginia had always thought that therapy was for rich people who just wanted to complain. After all, it hadn’t done much for straightening out Woody Allen, had it?

On the other hand, when you’ve just had a terrible fight with your grandmother, who probably was the cause of your mother leaving you, barely a week after finally meeting your mother for the first time in fourteen years-and killing her in self-defense-you really needed to talk to someone.

After his profuse introductions, Wolf sat quietly in the background, urging her to do all the talking. He kept fussing with his finger, but every time she or Dr. Horovitz tried to see what he was doing, he just smiled lamely and stuck his hand back in his pocket, insisting that “Virginia needs to talk today.”

Dr. Horovitz was good. She managed to listen and dig at the same time, and she didn’t let Virginia fob her off with any half-truths or pat answers.

Not even the pat answers Virginia had been telling herself for fourteen years.

Virginia was shaking as they walked back out to the street. She was glad they’d made an appointment for next week, even though she felt rather like a lobster on a plate-cracked open, peeled, and vulnerable to a prodding fork. The image made her smile faintly-barely two days of living with Wolf and already she was turning everything into a food metaphor.

Wolf, in the meantime, seemed twice as nervous. Uh, oh. They’d done a lot of talking about her mother, her grandmother, and their relationships. Maybe he was thinking twice about staying in New York with her. Maybe he didn’t want to start a family with her after all.

Virginia rubbed her stomach with both hands. A few seasons from now, she’d be a mother. Oh, God, that’s scary. She didn’t know anything about being a mother! What if she couldn’t be a good one? How could she get ready in just nine months? What would she do if Wolf left? Maybe Grandmother was right. Maybe she should...

No! She was not going to have an abortion! With Wolf and Dr. Horovitz helping, she knew she could do this. Even if Wolf left her, she wanted to do this. She had a chance to end the cycle of selfishness and abandonment. This baby would grow up with a mother who loved it. Even if it had a tail.

With a brisk nod, Virginia dropped her hands and broke out of her reverie. She looked at Wolf, about to ask him what he wanted to do next, but the question died on her lips. He was staring at her, tears in his eyes, his hands helplessly wringing. What the-there was a bloody bandage on one of his fingers!

Virginia reached for him, but didn’t dare touch the wound. “Wolf? What happened?”

The noise and scent of the metal carriages zipping by was overwhelming, but Wolf ignored them as much as possible. She was thinking things over, thinking about the cub, he could tell by the way she was touching her belly. She looked so serious! She’d had a lot to tell Dr. Horovitz about her family, and sad to say, none of it sounded very good.

Terrible things had happened to his parents, but at least he knew they died loving each other and their children. He might have been torn between his father’s humanity and his mother’s lupinity, but Papa and Mama worked together to try to help him out. Nobody had tried to make him chose between worlds or cut the other side down.

Virginia was so brave, so strong! He marveled that she had survived at all, even while he wondered what that meant for the baby. After all, she was the queen’s daughter-and the queen always struck through children. That was the worst part of her evil; her mercilessness to the young.

Virginia dropped her hands and nodded sharply. She’d made a decision, and he couldn’t tell from her expression what it was. Oh, please don’t… Not our cub! In all the things she’d told Dr. Horovitz, the subject of Virginia’s own pregnancy hadn’t come up. Wolf thought he was going to explode if he didn’t find out what she had decided. At the same time, what would he do if she said she wanted to get rid of the baby?

She turned to him and must have seen the blood on his hands, because she reached for him. But he didn’t care about that scratch. She said something that he didn’t catch-he just had to know, right now, he couldn’t stand waiting another second!

“Virginia, you’re not...” The words wouldn’t come. He didn’t even know what the words for it were. He finally just reached for her belly, brushing it with his bloody fingertips, and whispered, “Please don’t.”

“Don’t what?” she asked nervously.

“What your grandmother said.” She looked startled, and he heard himself start begging like a little cub. “Please, Virginia, don’t hurt our baby, please, I’ll do anything, I’ll...”

She silenced him with a kiss, then nuzzled into his chest, wrapping her arms tightly around him. “I didn’t realize you heard that. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry...” Still hugging him, she leaned back to look him straight in the eyes. “Wolf, I’m going to have this baby. We’re going to have this baby, and we’re going to live happily ever after, okay?”

It was the first time in his life he didn’t celebrate joy with a great, big howl. But no wolf could kiss and howl at the same time.

Virginia couldn’t remember the last time she did something simply because she wanted to, for as long as she wanted to. Maybe she never had. Obviously, it was time to start.

Accordingly, she kissed Wolf back whole-heartedly and they stood on the street corner and necked until someone shouted “Get a room!” Wolf didn’t seem to care, but Virginia was embarrassed into letting go.

Wolf snuck in a last kiss before stepping back; as he let go, she saw the bloody bandage again.

“What happened?” she asked again, gesturing at him.

“This?” He stared at the finger for a second as if he’d never seen it before, then put his hand back in his pocket. “I, uh, I...” He turned away, scratching at his temple with his good hand, then looked down at her feet. “When I heard what your grandmother said, I was so startled my knife slipped.” He looked up to meet her eyes. “And then when you didn’t say anything, I didn’t know what to think.”

Oh, Wolf! He’d been living with that fear all morning and been silent about it? How selfish she’d been during their time with Dr. Horovitz! But... But he’d insisted on that, hadn’t he? He kept putting himself second to make sure she’d had a chance to work through that awful argument. She felt so much pride and love that that her heart ached. She stroked his stubbly face, and hoped he could figure out what she couldn’t bring herself to say. Virginia hadn’t talked about her emotions in fourteen years, and now that she wanted the words they wouldn’t come.

He half-smiled and leaned into her caress, making that crooning little howl she was learning to associate with contentment. The grey-green eyes looking into hers were understanding. It might take her years with Dr. Horovitz to learn to express her feelings, but that was all right. He knew what she meant.

And that felt wonderful.

But even while she basked in the security of his devotion, part of her shied away from the intensity. Ever since her mother left, she’d smothered sentiment with practicality, and a laundry list of things-to-do was already writing itself in her mind.

“We need to figure out where we go from here.”

“To a restaurant?” he asked hopefully, sniffing the air. “We still haven’t had breakfast.”

Virginia laughed and reached for his good hand. “Yes, to breakfast. I know a good place around here. You’ll like it. It’s called the Wicked Wolf Cafe.”

There was a “help wanted” sign in the window of the restaurant; Wolf read it backwards as he waited for their food to come. “Do we have any money?” he asked.

“Well, yeah, enough for a meal,” Virginia said, waving at her purse.

“No, I mean money to live on. Do we have to find work right away? I’d kinda like to look around before we settle down. And I’d like a change of clothes that I didn’t steal.”

“I’d wondered where you got that jacket.” She cocked her head to one side, thinking. “A little. Dad and I were saving up for another vacation. Dad always...” Her voice suddenly broke and she fussed with her coffee cup.

He stroked her face. “You’re thinkin’ about what your grandma said, aren’t you? About Tony?”

Virginia nodded, biting her lip to keep the tears from falling again.

“I really should have eaten that nasty old biddy when I had the chance!”

“WOLF!”

“Tony is your father. There’s no question of that,” he told her softly.

“How would you know, did you ask the queen?” Virginia snapped, glaring at him through her tears.

Wolf didn’t answer in words, just leaned over the table and sniffed deeply at her. Oh. Well, if he could smell her mother in her, it would stand to reason that he’d smell her father too. It didn’t change anything. No matter who her father was, Dad was still the man who’d raised her. But it still felt better to know for sure.

In the meantime, they had to figure out what they were going to do for work. The Grill on the Green would have long since given up on her and mailed her last check. They could live on that for a little while if the Murrays would forgive their rent. Then she was going to have to pick up temp work, since nobody would give a permanent job to someone who’d just take off in a few months to give birth. But Wolf needed something with benefits so she could see a gynecologist. She wondered what he could do. All she really knew was the food business. The idea of Wolf as a waiter was a bizarre one, but he would make a charming maitre’d. A busboy job would bring a little money in, but busboys were too expendable to get health benefits.

“Wolf, what do you know how to do? I mean, like a job.”

His shrug was interrupted by the arrival of their plates, and then there was no conversation until he finished eating. Wolf being Wolf, his food was gone before she was through cutting her ham. She pushed her toast over to him, and he considered her question as he spread jelly liberally over the warm bread.

“I’m strong, I can do manual work-loading carts, chopping wood, washing dishes, that sort of thing. Something where they won’t ask questions. But I was a chef once. Can you get work as a cook without references here?”

He was a what? Bizarre images of Wolf ravening his way through a restaurant’s kitchen played through her imagination. “You were a chef? You were a chef?”

He looked offended. “Yeah, I was a chef. Well, a cook. It would have taken a few more years to be a top chef, and I kinda went to jail before I finished.”

“How did you...”…keep from eating everything in the place? “Get chef training?”

Wolf shrugged again and stole another piece of toast. “My father insisted that we all learn trades, so he apprenticed us all out when we were old enough. Russ learned carpentry, Littlebit learned fancy sewing, and I wanted to learn to cook.”

Russ? Littlebit? She was going to have to have a long talk with him about his family. Soon. But in the meantime… “Wolf, this is perfect! Top cooks make good money, and if the customers are happy, nobody will ask questions.”

Virginia leaned back, shaking her head but smiling. “I can’t believe you were a cook.”

“Of course I was,” Wolf said, snitching her last piece of toast. “As you can guess, I was always happiest around food.”