"Hey, toots!"

Kathleen's throbbing feet glided across a greasy floor littered with stale fries, and old soda. Music blared in her ears. On blisters, she walked to a black bear's table. Oily fish bones and empty plates lay around him. His paw, peppered grey fur, held an empty glass mug, and beer dripped from his crusty lips onto his stained white shirt.

"May I help you, sir?" Kathleen asked, her smile shining.

The bear belched. Traveling on hot breath, salmon, and cheap beer defiled Kathleen's nose.

"Yeah." The bear said, starching his back with his free claw. His eyes traveled over Kathleen's uniform: a tiny, tight mustard yellow tank top with the restaurant name, Howlers, woven in red and tiny shorts which squeezed her thighs. A hungry gaze ran over Kathleen's lissome frame. "I need a refill."

The bear shoved his mug in her face for emphasis.

"Right away, sir." Kathleen cheered.

With the mug in her paw, she walked away. Lusty whistles followed her. With each natural sway of Kathleen's hips, greasy paws of both young and old reached for her, and she evaded them, all the while grinning. Even when she refilled the bear's mug with beer, the drink which sent fury flowing through her every vein, her joy endured.

She gave the bear back his refilled glass, and he asked, "What are you doing later tonight?" licking his lips.

"When he gets home, I am going to surprise my husband," Kathleen said with emphasis and left the bear to drown himself in beer, fast food, and loneliness before he could utter another word.

More called for her. More thirsty eyes drank in the sight of her body. Their smiley gazes crawled over her like worms. The bold asked for dates. The fools refused rejection and when they erupted in anger, more alcohol simmered them down, or security threw them out. Eight more hours passed. Kathleen kept walking, serving, helping, and smiling for every second no matter how much her feet begged her to stop. She couldn't stop. She had to work. She had to earn as much as she could. Something was coming, something expensive and wonderful, and every time Kathleen thought of its arrival, her feet found new strength.

When the last customer had left, Kathleen sat at a table. She nursed bleeding soles.

Her boss came The old platypus hobbled with a cane as black as his bill. His brown fur thinned out at the top of his bumpy head, and dark, ancient eyes locked onto Kathleen through thick cracked glass. A webbed paw put a check on the table.

"Here you go, Wilde." The platypus said, his voice rough like sandpaper.

"Thank you, sir." Said Kathleen.

For working 72 hours across five days, Kathleen had earned a little more than 800 dollars.

"Wonderful." She smiled to herself as she grabbed her purse. With her shift done, Kathleen bid her boss good evening and walked outside. Her red soles ached.

A blizzard rampaged through the city. Among long shivering icicles, a cruel wind howled. Pale sunlight leaked through grey clouds. A billion flurries swarmed through the negative 40-degree air, reducing every truck and car to floating headlights crawling on black ice. Kathleen walked through the growing snow with a grin. Such bitterness bit most to their bones, but she was an arctic fox. Her forefathers had faced worse. They had stared into the face of the merciless north and laughed, prepared for whatever the world dare set against them. Kathleen was the same. She conquered the cold and walked through this snowstorm as if it were a summer day, never once shivering or sneezing.

But still, her trip had burdens. Snow had found its way into her shorts and under her tank top. It melted. Her clothes became heavy and wet, soaked as if dumped into the ocean. They chafed against her thighs and chest. An itchy pain infected her. It drove her mad, making her want to claw at her skin until she struck bone, but it faded after a time. It faded once Kathleen's clothes froze. Her tank top became immovable, her shorts stiffer than steel. Chafed, trapped in icy clothes, and bearing blisters on her soles, Kathleen trudged home. Agony made a forty-minute walk feel like forty years.

Kathleen stepped through the front door on wobbling knees. She dragged herself to her room, threw off her work clothes, and collapsed in bed. She had no strength, no energy to make a journey to her dresser to put on a nightgown. Her limbs had turned to jelly, stars danced in her eyes, and with every breath, she wheezed. But still, she carried that same smile she had worn to work and through her trip home.

Oh, I cannot wait until he returns.

She waited, resting, wheezing, and smiling. Then the sound of the front door creaking open echoed through her house. Familiar padding traveled through the hall. It made Kathleen's heart jump. It drew closer. It stopped outside her bedroom, and when her door opened, her smile exploded.

What manner of mammal stood in the doorway? No one could say. It had so many winter coats and sweatpants layered over its body, that the mammal had to waddle inside like a penguin wearing hardy black boots. It waved its arms up and down. Seven snow hats sat on its head, and under a ski mask and six scarfs, only emerald eyes could be seen. The mammal came to Kathleen. She lugged her body up and when she removed those hats, scarfs, and mask, she revealed the mammal identity. It was a red fox and Kathleen's husband, Nicholas Wilde.

Once his mask came off, Nick gasped. "Oh, thank Aurora, you got those off me, Edith. I'm sweating up a storm in this stuff." With his teeth grabbing their fuzzy tips, Nick ripped his mittens. "Please help me out of this before I roast. I can't put my arms down! Why'd you gone overboard, dressing me up like this today? I told you I was fine with just a coat and a pair of sweatpants." Nick wiggled his legs and kicked off his boots.

Kathleen unzipped his first jacket. "I did want not a foxsicle for a husband. Just because I can live through this cold without a problem doesn't mean you can, my beloved." She unzipped his third jacket, throwing it atop his second. "Besides, you looked adorable. I should've taken a picture and sent it to your mother."

"Please don't." Nick shoved his sweatpants down to his ankles. When he stepped out of them, he wore only his blue boxers and matching shirt. "So how was work today?" He said, getting a nightgown out for Kathleen.

"Work went well." She said, slipping on her nighttime attire.

Nick made his way to their bed, but Kathleen put a paw in front of his face to stop him in his tracks.

"Don't get in the bed." She said.

Nick cocked his head to one side. "Why?"

"Because I have a surprise for you, and you're not going to want to sit down after I tell you."

Nick crossed his arms. "Am I going to like the surprise?"

Kathleen nodded, bubbling with so much excitement. "I found out last night but wanted to tell you when you come from 'work' today." (By work Kathleen meant doing tasks for Mr. Big which she never considered a job.) "I hoped that it would brighten your mood in case good fortune forsook you today."

"And this surprise is?" Nick asked, rolling his paw.

"You, Nicholas Wilde, my beautiful Arthur and love of my life, are going to be a father."

Tears welled in the 20-year-old fox's eyes and his shaking paws came to rest on his wife's shoulders. Wonder and joy ruled his face. His breath came out short and sharp, and his shaking lips arose in an overwhelming smile.

"Are you sure?" He whispered. "Are you positive, Edith?"

Kathleen threw her arms around him and kissed his neck.

"Yes." She whispered sweetly in his ear. "We're going to be parents."

Nick held his wife so close, kissed her cheek, her face, her nose while he cried and smiled and laughed. They both laughed and smiled so much. Outside the city suffered the worst blizzard it had known in 50 years, but only warmth and love dwelt in their home for hours and hours. After a year of failure, they had done it. They had conceived a child.

Two busy weeks passed, as Nick, Kathleen, Holly, and John poured themselves into work.

Holly unleashed her magic. She transformed the walls of Nick and Kathleen's spare bedroom into a loving masterpiece. Her paintbrush traveled across rough, old, dry wood, and a stale brown become lost under layers of warm pink. At first, Nick objected. He said pink shouldn't be used until they were sure Kathleen was having a boy or girl. But Kathleen was adamant heaven had blessed them with a daughter, and Holly trusted Kathleen unconditionally. Once the paint dried, Holly poured her all skill into her real task. Like cave mammals of old, she left little drawings on the walls. But they weren't any drawings. They were drawing heroes from fox legends. Holly painted images of Herald the Brave, a white fox who ventured from his farm to slay a dragon armed with a pitchfork and his blue flaming torch. She drew the smile of Sarah the Gardner, a fennec fox who grew meadows of love where malice had poisoned lands, and she drew Luna the Celestial Caretaker, a red fox who sang joyous arias to the stars when sorrow had spoiled them. Holly painted every vulpine hero, every champion, every savior, and each one was done with such beautiful brushstrokes, their images seemed like they would leap off the walls to reenact their legendary lives at any moment. Holly put her heart into those drawings. So her love lived in them forever.

While his wife painted, John sowed and knitted. He pricked his paws a hundred times, as he fashioned for his granddaughter outfits worthy of a princess. Not knowing how big she would be, John made outfits of every size. He made little cotton hats of red and gold. He made large footie pajamas with green stars woven into them, and he made dresses with blue skirts where his talent shined in every stitch. For many nights, John sacrificed sleep to make a blanket. In it, he left knitted images of himself, Holly, Nick, and Kathleen holding paws. Their faces were sweetly crude like a child's doodle, and on the bottom, John had sown these words: We love you forever. Holly had to nurse John's paw a dozen times. When he finished his work, he earned three dozen dot-sized white scars on his black paw pads. But John didn't care. He took pride in those scars. They acted as proof of how he sacrificed so much for his children.

Nick searched the town for toys as if his life depended on them. In some cases, he spent so much time in certain toy sections other visiting parents believed he worked there. He picked out teething sticks, plastic toys which made soft lights and little sugar-sweet sounds whenever someone bit into them, and cute stuffed animals of eagles, fishes, and butterflies. Even Mr. Big helped him. Once Nick had brought himself before the crime boss, his words swayed the shrew's, fatherly heart. Mr. Big spent hundreds of dollars buying diapers and gave an extra one thousand to Nick himself. Nick saved half of the money. He spent the other half on storybooks. He brought modern classics: Robin Hood's Gallant Hunt, Mark, and the Misbehaving Moon, the Congueros Cheetah, and more. Nick refreshed his memory of classic fox stories as well, and with every passing day, he grew more impatient. He wanted to meet his daughter now. He wanted to spoil her. He yearned to show her, her trove of books, toys, and stuffed animals.

For the first time in seven years since she had taken her as an apprentice, Kathleen refrained from giving Zelda's lessons. She focused on what she believed was her greatest project yet. She made songs for her child. She made love songs, songs meant to comfort in times of sorrow, fear, and pain. Songs telling of her mother and father, and how she fell in love with Nick. She made melodies meant to inspire hope, shelter, and spread it. Kathleen made music she prayed would live on in her child, long after Kathleen herself had passed away, and every night, Kathleen hummed those songs to her daughter.

Then the third week arrived. Kathleen and Nick lay in bed surrounded by dozens of baby books with thousands of names in them. A few days ago, Kathleen had an ultrasound. Her instinct was right. Within her womb, grew a baby girl, and this revelation put a major obstacle before her and her husband.

"How about Mary?" Nick said, flipping through his third baby book.

"No," Said Kathleen, flipping to K in her book. "What about Katniss?"

"Nah, I knew a Katniss once. Less than a lovey mammal. What about Valerie?"

"Too plain. We need something as wonderful as her."

"We go by that logic, and we'll never name her. What can be as wonderful as our baby?" Nick looked at Kathleen's stomach, a little bump that held a little fox. "Hey, sweetie. What do you think? Can mommy and daddy ever make anything as wonderful as you?"

Kathleen giggled and rubbed her belly. "Your father is silly, my love. We didn't make you. We're not clever enough to make something as majestic as you. Only Aurora could do that."

Nick rolled his eyes, smiling. "Oh, here we go again! Mommy is arguing semantics, honey. Will you please tell her to keep her pretty mouth quiet while Daddy thinks?"

"Careful Daddy, thinking is dangerous."

"Careful Mommy, Daddy knows where you sleep."

"I would hope."

Nick snickered. He rested his head in Kathleen's lap, with an ear pressed to her stomach to listen to his daughter's tiny beating heart.

"Ok," he said, "But we do need a name. Think. If we cannot pick a name maybe, we could name her after someone we know or know of."

"That's a good idea, but who?"

"What about Edith? She was said to be the most beautiful vixen in all the world. What's a more perfect name for our baby than that? After all, she really will grow up to be the most beautiful vixen in all the world!"

"True, but that's too on the nose. Oh, I wish my parents were here. I wonder what they would propose."

Nick's eyes widened. He sprung up and slapped his forehead. "We're morons!"

"How so?"

"Your mother!"

"My mother?"

"Yeah. Why don't we name her after your mom? Think about it, your mother was one the most beautiful vixens I ever saw in my life. She was such a hard worker, a wonderful wife, mom, and inspiration, and she had enough class to make a queen look like a peasant. Also, think of how happy that'd make her. She'd probably go around in the afterlife, bragging to everyone that she has such an awesome granddaughter named after her."

Kathleen pecked Nick's cheek. "I don't think there is boasting in Paradise, dear. However, your idea is sublime."

"I know!" Nick smiled and kissed Kathleen's stomach. "You hear that, Isabella? Your daddy's a genius."

And so, their baby was named after her late grandmother.

But then the fourth week arrived. When moonlight skated on ice, and no sound stirred in the falling shadows of snowflakes, a high, guttural scream pierced the air.

Nick jolted awake. "Kathleen, what's wrong?!"

Kathleen sat in their bed holding her stomach. A wet spot had formed under her thighs. Blue eyes overrun with alarm and agony struck Nick, and terror choked them both. Neither said it, yet both knew what had happened. Kathleen had gone into labor. Without a word, Nick snatched his keys and helped Kathleen into the car. He drove as if death chased him.

Seven weeks. This is how long arctic foxes carried their babies. But for Kathleen to give birth at four? It meant nothing good.

Nick halted in front of the hospital. Kathleen's blood-curdling cries chased him as he flew from his car. Fear warmed him. It heated him from his ears to his toes, so the winter had no chance to hinder him while he raced through snow and against the wind in his pajamas. Nick ran with every fiber of his being. His feet slammed against the ground. They crushed ice under him into slush and he moved so fast, that the hospital's sliding doors had no time to get out of his way. Crack! Countless shards twinkled in electric light. Through broken doors, a chill invaded. As he stood, panting in the lobby, Nick's breath turned to mist. Glass had buried itself in his limbs, chest, and head. He bled like someone who had suffered a dozen stabbings. But Nick didn't care. He didn't even notice. His focus rested only on his family.

"My wife! My wife!" Nick cried to a nurse who had witnessed his entrance. "She is going into labor three weeks early, and she's an arctic fox! Please stop it! Please save my baby!" He pointed at his car outside, his tears dripping onto the floor alongside his blood.

The nurse, an older lioness, acted in an instant. She summoned other, younger, nurses to her side. Those she commanded rushed Kathleen in on a gurney, while she tended to Nick's injuries.

Hours passed. Kathleen screamed and gripped onto her bed's metal railing with such power, her claws carved scratches into the steel bar. Her contractions lasted 30 seconds at a time. But each one tormented her with an agony, unlike anything she had known. Time maliciously crawled on. She lived half a year in half a minute. Her body writhed, tears fell, and whimpers wormed their way between clutched teeth. Kathleen welcomed unconsciousness if it meant freedom from suffering for a small moment. Relief came, yet not the way Kathleen wished.

Doctors and nurses flooded Kathleen with drugs. She lost all power to scream, to hold up her arms. A white froth formed about her mouth. Her eyes became glazed and empty, and in all ways, Kathleen seemed dead. Only her beeping heart monitor proved she lived. A rabbit doctor entered. He rushed past his collages with a needle in his claws. He lifted Kathleen's arm, found her vein, and a black paw slammed the syringe out of his grip. It shattered onto the ground. The drug oozed on the floor, and every doctor and nurse found themselves trapped in Holly Wilde's flaming eyes.

"Get out." Holly hissed.

"Ma'am." Said a nurse. "You are not allowed in here. Only-"

"I am her mother!" Holly snarled and murder flashed in her eyes. "And I swear to Aurora, if anyone of you come near her again with another drug, I'll paint the walls with your blood! Stop her giving her medication. I know what you're doing. You're trying to stop Isabella from coming. You're trying to save my granddaughter but look at what you've done to my daughter! If you give her any more, you'll kill her. Just let the baby come, and pray your skill can help her when she does!"

The hospital staff obeyed, and Kathleen gave birth three hours later at 6 am. The doctors and nurses rushed Isabella Holly Wilde to the newborn intensive care unit, without a moment to lose.

Kathleen panted. Her eyes struggled to stay open. Giving birth and fearing for her baby's life had whittled her down. Her vision became hazy, her thoughts unfocused. Exhaustion put her to sleep in seconds. Worry followed her in her nightmares for hours.

When Kathleen did stir, she found a bandaged red paw holding hers. Nick had wrappings over his chest, thighs, elbows, and head. One bandage covered his eye and went around half his skull. It looked like someone had blown half his face with a cannon.

"You all, right?" Nick asked with his eye one puffy and his voice hoarse.

"How is she?" Kathleen asked automatically. She strained to speak with a sand dry throat.

Nick's crushing silence shocked Kathleen's senses into overdrive. She sat up as fast as possible. She squeezed Nick's paw, and the more she stared into those hurting eyes, the more dread gnawed at her.

"How is she?! Nicholas, how is our baby?!"

Nick embraced his wife, and through his one uncovered eye, he wept. "She wasn't even with us for an hour. She's gone, honey. Isabella's dead."

What's worse for a loving parent than to lose their child? I don't know, my dear reader, and I hope you never find out.

Grief mutilated Kathleen and Nick. It scared them, and until their last moments, both missed their Isabella more than any words or actions could show Even in their happiest moments, neither were the same again. A part of them had followed their daughter to her grave. And the days which came after made Hell seem like Heaven.

Rage poisoned Nick. As he stood in front of the door which he and Kathleen had planned to be Isabella's room, his paws quaked. Tears poured down his cheeks. He brought his claws down upon the door, and wood splinters showered his feet. He swore. He wept. He cried for Isabella, as he slashed out her name on the door. He stopped for nothing. He continued as his claws bled, and broke, and only fatigue finished his rampage. When Kathleen later asked why he did it, Nick said, sobbing into her lap, "I don't know! I just want our baby back!"

Kathleen fared no better. She ate little, played no music, and cut off Zelda's music lessons for weeks. When she tried to force herself to write lyrics she wrote: Isabella, Isabella, Isabella, again and again until her paw cramped, or tears made the paper unusable. She cried in her sleep and when she did sleep, it was never longer than two hours. Joy had abandoned her. Peace evaded her. She stared at the winter wonderland on her front lawn. As snow glimmered in the sunlight like diamonds, sorrow had ravaged Kathleen's face. She held in her lap the same stuffed eagle Nick had bought for Isabella, and she prayed. She prayed twice every hour. Each time she did, her prayers were not to Aurora or her parents, but to her daughter. Kathleen hoped somewhere, Isabella listened. Her prayer went like this. "Mommy is sorry I wasn't strong enough to carry you longer. Forgive me. Please. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for being so weak.'

Time worsted everything. Since she had messed up orders, came hours late, and tripped more than once, drenching customers in soda and food, Kathleen lost her job. Bills buried them. They lost electricity. Much of the food in their refrigerator spoiled, and they went without water for days after. Kathleen had to collect rainwater in a bucket, and this severed as their bathing water for a time. But both Kathleen and Nick would have gone without power or water for a hundred years if such sacrifice reduced one bill to a bad dream: Isabella's coffin.

Nick and Kathleen had buried her next to her grandparents. Few appeared at the service. Yet it was one of the few times Nick said he had seen the hard-hearted Finick cry.

Then it happened.

One night, Kathleen lay alone in bed, holding Isabella's stuffed golden eagle to her breast when her phone rang.

"Hello?" Kathleen said, her voice flat and dull.

"Hey, Honey." Said, Nick

At once, Kathleen sat up. Grief had dulled her passion for music, but no force in creation could steal her instinct to protect Nick. His speech, while normal to others, had tipped her off.

"What's wrong, Nicholas?" She said.

"Nothing's wrong. I-"

"Do not lie!" Kathleen snapped. Isabella's death, funeral, her losing her job, the bills. Everything had erased Kathleen's patience. "Now tell me what is wrong!"

"Your hubby," said another voice, "just wanted to tell you goodbye."

Kathleen's rage boiled. One time she had met the voice's owner in the flesh, and to recall his tiny, cold, face made her shiver in disgust.

"Mr. Big, what has my husband done now?" Kathleen asked, tapping a claw against her arm.

"Nicky here sold me a rug not too long ago," Said Mr. Big, "this rug Nicky sold me was made from a skunk's behind, and it so happens that I buried my grandmother in this rug." (Kathleen pinched the bridge of her nose.) "This is why your husband is hanging over an ice pit, with my polar bears ready to drop him in at any a second. I only wished to let you have your last goodbye before he fell in."

"Might I propose a worse punishment?"

"No!" Nick yelled before Mr. Big ordered a bear to wrap its paw around Nick's mouth.

"Go on." Mr. Big said with calm curiosity.

"Let him live," Kathleen said.

"Child, do you think I am so stupid as to-"

"Do you not know about Isabella? She's dead, Mr. Big. Nicholas and I had to bury our baby. Can you imagine what's that like? To bury your wonderful little girl? No? I hope not, and I hope for every sin you've wrought you never have to know. If you kill Nicholas, you'll only help him. If you kill him, you ensure he goes to Paradise. There he will meet our baby and be with her for eternity, free from any torment, free to explore an infinite realm of love and bliss. But if you let him live, you will ensure his pain goes on and on, far worse than anything you could ever hope to deal him. So let my husband live. Not for his sake, but against it. What do you think is worse? To suffer for a few moments in a pit of ice, or to live with grief and to grieve forever over what might have been? Think, Mr. Big. Nicholas never even got to hold her! How can you and your little puddle do any worse?"

At first, Mr. Big said nothing, and Kathleen thought she heard a polar bear weeping in the background.

"Nicholas," Mr. Big said at last, "count yourself lucky you have such a wife. But never show your face to me again. If you do, I promise to reunite you and your baby, and Kathleen? I'm sorry for your loss. Truly, I am."

"Just put my husband on the phone."

"You are on speaker, honey." Said Nick.

"Come home now."

"Okay. I love-"

Kathleen hung up.

It was a long wait.

Bitterness built up within her. Fury consumed her, fury at the world for taking her parents away, for dangling hope and motherhood in front of her nose, fury at life's unfairness, fury at her husband's actions. Kathleen inched closer to erupting each second. When at last Nick came home half an hour later, it wasn't his loving wife who greeted him, but a vixen convinced from years of anger, bitterness, and grief.

"You witless fox!" Kathleen said. "What made you think that you could cross someone like that evil little shrew and get away with it?!"

"I was just-"

"Just what?! You were just trying to con more mammals of their money?! You cannot keep doing that! You need to stop! You need to get a real job and do something more with your life. You need to be a real fox! Maybe if you did Isabella would've lived!"

You could have heard a pin drop. Kathleen covered her mouth, but it was too late. Rage had controlled her. Rage had pulled those words from some dark, shameful place in her mind and flung them into her husband's heart.

"What?" Nick growled.

Against her better judgment, Kathleen let her rage flow.

"Do you ever stop to think that our baby's death was punishment for your sins?! Maybe if you acted like a real, better fox, we wouldn't have lost her!"

" You think that I didn't try?!" Nick stomped over to Kathleen, standing close enough for his furious breath shoved back her whiskers. "You think I didn't try for you and her?! I tried and failed! I'll always fail at being a 'real fox' for the same reason that you'll never be anything more than no name, musician working at fast food joints! The world hates us. It will always hate us! Every fox suffers like we've suffered one or another. Heck, you know what? When I think about how hard she could've had it, I'm a little glad Isabelle's dead!"

Both Nick and Kathleen recoiled at his words. He didn't mean them. He never meant them, but wild thoughts and emotions make way for wild words.

Kathleen stepped away from him. A heavy, nauseating, silence coiled around them. With her arms crossed over her heaving chest, Kathleen said something which she never forgave herself for.

"Those kids were right to muzzle you."

Nick's fist trembled. Ugly anger possessed his beautiful eyes. Tears fell off his whiskers and, for the first and last time in her life, Kathleen feared, for half of a second, he would hit her. Some part of her wished he had. The next words Nick spat at Kathleen hurt worse than a hammer against her skull.

"I never should've loved you."

So, she left without a word, and he did nothing to stop her.

Kathleen packed a little spare change of clothes, paid for a cab, and got a cheap hotel room for three nights. Holly and John called. But she never picked up. The shock of their fight, what they had both said, what she had said to her beloved Arthur, everything trampled over Kathleen's heart. Overcome with regret and shame she wept until she had no more tears to shed, and misery drove her to illness.

My mother, father, and my baby are dead, and the only fox I've ever loved hates my very existence. I have nothing and I am nothing.

Had she spent another night alone I don't think Kathleen would've survived her solitude. But on her second day at the hotel, Zelda texted her. Her student had got a record deal and wanted to take Kathleen with her as her partner. How could Kathleen say no? She had nothing to lose. She had already lost everything. Kathleen met Zelda the next day. She told her student everything and how she needed to borrow some money to help file for divorce.

The sad and relucent Zelda helped. Soon they flew westward to finalize the first steps in Zelda's career. Kathleen acted as the 13-year-old's chaperone.

When they laned, Kathleen felt strange. She rushed to the nearest pharmacy, grabbed a vixen pregnancy test, and took it in the bathroom of her and Zelda's shared hotel room. When she saw the plus sign, fell to her knees. Slowly, her paw went to her stomach. The world spun around her. She gripped onto the counter to steady herself and sat staring at her test until Zelda knocked on the door after twenty minutes

"Are you alright, Kat?" She asked.

The door opened. Kathleen showed Zelda her test, and Zelda's jaw dropped.

"How do you feel?" Zelda asked

In answer, Kathleen could only wept.


Writing this chapter reminded me of my favorite quotes about losing someone you love.

"The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not 'get over' the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same...Nor should you want to be." Elizabeth Kubler-Ross