INSTINCTS(Douglas Richards) Wolves mate for life, Melissa Anders thought, as she kicked the sheets from the bed. She rose and shuffled to the window on the far side of the room. There she slit the dusty, teal blinds to reveal yet another bright August morning. The row houses across the street soaked up the sun. Sprinklers arced, throwing water in spastic jerks over the browning lawns, speckling the sun-baked sidewalks. A few dark clouds lingered to the north.

Wolves mate for life...

Last fall she'd watched this documentary on Discovery, and the announcer had voiced over this obscure fact as an alpha male and female played with their pups outside a cave. She'd long known humans weren't at all willing to be together forever, nor should they.

"You should have heard how concerned Steven was," her mother had said last night when she arrived. "The babysitter tells him she doesn't know where you went! That's not very responsible."

Melissa cringed. No, indeed, it wasn't very responsible was it? Despite herself, she smiled.

Hand on banister, Melissa plodded downstairs a short while later. Freshly brewed coffee filled the kitchen, a kitchen which hadn't changed all that much since her earliest memories. A large microwave oven and a four-slice toaster sat on a new counter top, but still this room felt the same. The grey vinyl flooring looked healthier than the linoleum ever had. Sheer curtains over the living room’s bay window billowed out slightly, then sucked in toward the screen.

At the kitchen table, sipping coffee, her mother talked about her volunteer duties with the church auxiliary. Finally she said, "I told Steven I'd called because I wasn't feeling well. You came to see me without thinking about telling him.”

Melissa honestly didn't care what her mother had told him.

"You look like heck if you don't mind me saying," her mother said.

This morning Melissa hadn't bothered to wash her hair, or even to comb out the tangles. Instead, she'd pulled her red hair back, clipped it, and scrubbed her face. Before bed last night she'd taken a brief shower, but the hard water irritated rather than soothed.

Melissa smiled weakly as her mother refilled her cup.

Her mother sighed. "I have a late meeting tonight."

"I'm getting christened next Sunday," Melissa said.

Her mother dabbed her finger in some spilled milk on the tablecloth.

"Dad didn't think it was necessary for me, but then, what
did he know? Maybe it was damn necessary. I have a soul, don't
I?"

That oughta get her attention! Taking a hot gulp of coffee, enjoying the burn down her throat, Melissa waited.

"Your father wasn't a church goer," her mother said bitterly. "He worked all week..."

"He didn't believe, and he made sure I never went."

"You could have come with me..."

"No, I couldn't. Sunday mornings you'd go while he slept, but you never offered to take me. He wouldn't allow that, no."

"We did the best we could," her mother stammered, both hands tight round her coffee mug, clearly agitated. "How dare you say anything against your father. What is with you?"

Her father had drunkenly fallen in the kitchen when Melissa was sixteen, slicing his head on the edge of the old counter top. By the time her mother had discovered him, he'd been dead a couple hours.

Melissa opened her mouth to tell her mother what was really wrong, even if she wasn't so sure herself.

"One fight with Steven and everything's wrong." Her mother shook her head. "Be thankful for your life now. Stop dwelling on
the past."

A mild ache throbbed behind her eyes. Melissa moved to the counter and rinsed her mug. Everything was connected to the past; how could she remove herself from that?

"I'm thinking about painting again." Best to change the subject, Melissa thought, trying to calm herself. "There's a night course at the college, which sounds interesting. Steven says it's a little expensive for a hobby."

Spooning sugar into her coffee, her mother seemed to consider something. "I believe you took an art course in high school and dropped it, if memory serves."

Grade eleven, art. She grimaced. Her mother was right, of course.

Melissa bit her bottom lip. What did her mother know about anything? She glanced at the microwave's digital time to avoid her mother's eyes. 9:45. Her mother truly believed that her marriage was the way it should have been. Dinners gone cold, a husband staggering in hours late, hard liquor on his breath, his fists.

"I'll take a walk," she said finally.

#

Within the hour, Melissa grabbed a bus heading downtown. She needed time to think, not to drive.

She pulled the cord as she neared her stop and then soon found herself wandering past old familiar store fronts, feeling increasingly detached from everything. Not at all an unpleasant feeling, she decided.

Jaywalking a busy street, she spotted a small art gallery half a block up. Should she?

Entering, tiny bells above the door announcing her, she tensed. She felt like an impostor, like she didn't belong here, as though the staff, other customers, might reveal her as a fraud, not worthy to judge the creative works displayed.

Of course, no one said a thing to her. She studied the abstract paintings, the colours smeared this way and that, the intense yellows, the vibrant ocean blues and greens washed together, the circles, the squares. She marvelled at the delicate brush strokes in the realistic nature scenes.

One particular artist's painting caught her eye. A wolf walked alone over an icy stream, head lowered, eyes wary. Approaching the easel, she noted the almost surreal detail. Felt like she was right there. Impressive. Those lupine eyes met hers, seemed to look right through her. She was being silly. Paintings spoke to certain people. Artwork was very personal, subjective. Such detail in this one, she noted. Light drizzle seemed to fall, adding a realistic touch. The scrawl along the bottom identified the artist as Chris Albertson. That name sounded familiar.

Perhaps they'd been in the same art class together years ago. Couldn't place the face, but...

Chris possessed real talent, most definitely.

Her hand trembled as her finger ran along the name. She could have drawn this. At one time, she really might have. Might have sold one or two of her own work; maybe people would even recognize her name like she'd recognized Chris's. When was the last time she'd painted or sketched anything?

Mr. Sigman, her high school art teacher, had praised her early skills, suggesting she enrol in an Art program once she graduated. Her father, naturally, scoffed at the idea. "Have to be real talented to get the big bucks, Mel. Marry a good man with a secure job. I've seen your work. This teacher of yours was just being polite."

Melissa clenched her fists, then unclenched them. She would not let her anger control her. Not like her father.

She broke from her reverie and headed to the cashier.

"That one there," Melissa said, pointing. "I'll pay now, pick it up later."

"Good choice." The cashier walked to the painting, pulled the sticker off and returned to the counter. "Local artist...Lives a few miles away, painted that in the woods nearby. Has quite the eye for detail, doesn't she?"

She? Christine. A woman perhaps living the life Melissa might have had.

Outside, dark clouds rolled in, fat, festering sores threatening to open. The humidity seemed to cling to everything. Melissa decided to walk home, perhaps find another gallery on the way.

Returning to the house a few hours later, Melissa opened the fridge, grabbed a bottled water and enjoyed the cold drink. She heard her mother in the back bedroom.

"Oh, Steven called," her mother said. Wearing a flower print dress, Melissa's mom entered the kitchen, fiddling with one earring. "He's coming here tonight, which I told him was fine. He's not happy you running off the way you did. You work it out. We'll go out to this Chinese restaurant over on Westport."

Melissa's pulse quickened. "I don't want to see him," she said. “Not right now. I need time.”

"Your father and I, we always worked things out."

Her mother gathered up her house keys from the kitchen table, and studied herself in the mirror by the front door. She smoothed some of the wrinkles out of her dress. Melissa's temples throbbed. Is this where her life was headed? Would she delude herself so genuinely, just like her mother, pretending life was perfect, when reality was so flawed? Her mother had endured the beatings, the black eyes, the yellowish-purple marks on her body. Struck time and time again by the man who loved her. Melissa, too, had felt the sting of a good slap from her father, the red heat burning like fire across her cheek. Her mother still worshipped the man she'd married, their wedding picture still sitting in the centre of her bureau.

"You're doing it again."

Melissa saw her mother's confused expression.

"Doing what again?"

"Trying to make everything okay when it isn't? Mom, he's dead, and you're not even being honest. Growing up here was hell. You're proud to play his dutiful widow. You refuse to see how he confined you, how he still confines you!"

Then, Melissa felt the rage.

Two strides across the floor.

One hand grabbed her mother by the back of her neck. The other grabbed her mother's face and twisted her eyes toward the mirror.

Her mother inhaled sharply.

"That hurts!"

Melissa felt her face flush as she dug her thumbs into her mother's cheeks. "Look at yourself! Everything was far from fine with you! Look at the pitiful person you are!"

She released her mother then, leaving small crescent moons in her skin where her nails had bit the flesh.

"Why are you so angry at me!?! Melissa?"

Her mother reached out, hands seeking to comfort her daughter.

Melissa wrapped both arms around herself. Hot tears spilled down Melissa's cheeks, and as much as she wanted to stop crying, she couldn't. The walls inside crumbled.

"I'm leaving, Steven..." There it was, all out in the open. “I'm leaving the kids, my life. I won’t be trapped any more. This is the life Dad wanted for me, that you wanted for me, but not the life I ever wanted!”

A look of complete horror eclipsed her mother's face.

"Steven need his wife, the kids need their mother!"

"I don't care." She was shocked to discover that that was the truth. What kind of a person was she to admit such an awful thing? But it was true...her family were shackles which held her firm.

"A mother never abandons her children."

"You stood by and did nothing for me -"

Her mother's hand flew to her chest as though Melissa had struck her. Melissa wanted to hit her and hit her and -

"I killed him for you.”

Melissa stood shocked, watching her mother's lip tremble, watched tears well up in her eyes.

"I did the right thing when it mattered most," her mother said. "God gave me the chance, and I took it...I always prayed for guidance." Her mother suddenly appeared older, exhausted, and she grabbed the table, as though her knees might buckle. "Call Steven, please..."

"Dad fell..."

Seconds went by. Then a sigh. "I pushed him when he hit me.” Her voice was a whisper, her eyes on the floor. "Not hard, but he was drunk and he fell against the counter top, the corner...there was so much blood." She sniffled and rubbed her nose with the back of her wrist. "I sat there on a kitchen chair and watched him for the longest time. He was alive, Melissa, but I just sat and waited until his chest stopped moving. Then I called the ambulance."

Melissa stood there shocked.

No. This couldn't be true.

"It was my one chance to save you." Her shoulders slumped, all the energy drained from her.

Shaking her head, Melissa walked stiffly up the stairs. All these years she had thought that her mother had grieved for her father, and perhaps she had, but now Melissa knew a darker truth. Her mother grieved, too, because she'd murdered her husband. The church, her salvation, was now also the place where she sought redemption. She possessed within her a reserve she'd tapped when the time was right. She'd prayed for help, and it had been delivered.

With the heels of her hands, Melissa dried her eyes. She packed her duffel bag, and was just about to leave when she remembered the painting. She called the gallery. Was it too late to claim the life she should have had? She conjured up the wolf, walking across the stream, alone...without a mate. Trembling slightly, she called the gallery.

Without a word to her mother, Melissa climbed in her car just as a few raindrops spattered the windshield. She drove, mind replaying the last few hours. Rain ticked steadily against the windshield. The wipers lulled hypnotically, back and forth. Twenty minutes later, on the outskirts of town, Melissa pulled past a rustic house set back from the road, parking on the gravel shoulder. She sat there for a minute, gathering her thoughts. Melissa pulled a flashlight from the glove compartment, left the car, then manoeuvred her way down the ditch, then up the other side, ducking into the dark wet forest. The trees - elms, maples, oaks, spruce - all towered above her.

Melissa ran, light beam bouncing ahead, guiding. Rain plastered her hair to her head. She brushed aside tree branches; soggy leaves stuck to her sneakers. Sweat beaded her face, stinging her eyes. She stopped, mopped her wrist over her brow, then flapped her baggy t-shirt, circulating the air. The oppressive humidity of day still clung to the night. Mosquitoes attacked. She didn't care. Rain droplets beaded on the leaves. The thick scent of pine was everywhere. She leaned against a tree, rough bark against her back.

The rain started to teem. Thunder growled. The summer storm was tracking north and soon her husband would arrive at her mother's with the kids most likely, urging her to return to the life she'd led. Things were going to change, Melissa knew. The next part, she'd go alone. After that...

She stripped off her saturated clothes as the torrential downpour pounded the earth. A staccato of thunder rippled across the low ceiling, followed by a blinding flash of lightning. Through the trees, she spotted what she'd called the gallery about - the stream where the wolf had been painted, behind Chris's home.

Melissa walked to the edge of the stream. Water beading on her body, she felt alive. She spread her arms, lifted her head, and let the cool rain mingle with tears, driving away doubts, cleansing her.

The End

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