Chapter 6 - A tale of two cities
My eyes open to the dim light of my clock, 3:33am. I roll over, Kaia is laying on her stomach, her head turned away from me. Faint bits of moonlight cast a grey glowing silhouette around the fur exposed by the blanket draped across her lower half.
I reach over and gently tease the tip of her ear with my claw. Her ear flicks batting away imaginary insects.
I whisper into Kaia's ear, "Pssst are you awake?"
She grumbles back, "I am now."
She lifts her head from her pillow and looks at me.
I smirk and run my claw tips down the small of her back.
She rolls over, bundling herself up in the blanket. She whispers, "I'm still mad at you," a small smile purses her lips.
I nuzzle into her neck, and nibble down her to her shoulder. "I'm not *that* mad," she rolls towards me, reaching out of her blanket cocoon to pull me into her warm embrace.
I lay in bed looking at the ceiling of my room, contemplating the experience. I learned a lot about my new body. I feel a body shift closer to me and rest her paw on my chest. She pats me "It's ok, plenty of inexperienced males panic,"
"I just didn't expect it to get stuck like that." I also didn't expect I'd make high pitches yelps when I got scared.
"Hey, I'm not inexperienced."
"Oh, yes, You seemed very capable." She says, with a hint of sarcasm. She pats my head, running her claws down my forehead to the end of my nose, taping on it.
"Again?" She asks.
I look at her, raising my eye brow,
She grins and pulls at the sheets covering me, "Maybe this time you won't cry."
"I don't know, I'm feeling a little emasculated here." I pull back and straighten the thin sheet covering my lower half.
She looks at me with a devious smirk and says "perhaps even you need encouragement." Before dipping her head under the sheet.
"What are you..." I feel her paws on my hips, then she began to 'encourage' me.
Wake up buzzer goes off, nice and early. It's supposed to give me plenty of time to workout, but I am dragging so hard. "Get up, go workout," Kaia groans at me, and pushes me up into the sitting position. "Get to it, I'll be here". She kisses me and lays back down in bed stealing all the covers and hugging my pillow.
I stretch, yawn, work my way to my feet and begin my day.
After I do my living room workout routine, I head back to the bedroom. The door to Gavin's room cracks open, I see a single hazel eye peak out at me.
"Gavin, you awake pal?" I ask rhetorically.
"Yeah," his voice is hoarse, but far better than last night. Gavin opens the door wider and stands there looking sad.
"What's the matter, does your neck hurt?" I crouch and put a paw on his head.
"No, I'm-I'm" he sniffles, "I'm sorry I got you in trouble with Mommy," he sobs, quietly.
With a raspy voice through tearful half breaths, "I heard you crying, I'm sorry Mommy punished you."
"Oh, it's ok, it wasn't your fault. It was mine." I try not to laugh as I pet his head and say, "Let's get you back to bed." When I pick him up he has a faint smell of ammonia on him, and the smell is stronger when I carry him into his room. "What happened in here? Were you cleaning something?"
"I had an accident, I went to get you but I heard you crying."
"Oh, I'm sorry buddy."
"It's ok daddy, men can cry." He pats me on the head.
I smile at him, "I mean, if you need me, you can always come get me, even if I'm busy. Even if I'm crying."
"Well, I wanted mommy, but she was busy punishing you. I didn't want her to punished me too." I guess I can't fault his sense is self-preservation.
When I approach his bed, I notice the bedding is missing. There are about 4 whole paper towel rolls worth of wadded up towel in a pile on his desk, and an empty bottle of house hold cleaner.
"I cleaned it up," he says with pride.
I look at my phone, I have to leave soon if I'm going to catch the bus.
"Well, go get ready for a bath."
"But I just had a bath last week?" He protests
"Well, you need another one." I usher him into the hallway bathroom.
I go back into my bedroom and jostle the wolf burrito in the middle of the bed.
"I need to leave for work and Gavin peed the bed."
"Ok, I'm getting up." She says lazily as she starts to slowly work her way out of the folds of blanket.
"He cleaned it up himself."
"Oh no." She starts to move with more urgency.
I spend my ride to work researching predator friendly schools. I discover it's even more difficult than I had expected. Nearly all of these schools have exclusion lists. Which are just flat out a list of species which aren't allowed to attend. The closest all inclusive school is 200 miles away, just outside the Burrows. Little by little I'm seeing the dark side of Zootopia. Organized crime, and institutionalized Pred-judice. It seems the prey schools directly disenfranchise one, or many, species of predators. The predator schools do not seem to explicitly reject anyone.
When I get to the rail car station I look for my big black brother-in-law, Levi.
I spot him directing foot traffic near a control both. I don't know if he picked that slot specifically, but the light above him makes his muscular physique show through his red uniform. The white 'W' on his face and chevron fur pattern on his collarbone have really good contrast in this light too. I'm not gay or anything, but that's a good looking wolf.
"Hey brother!" I slap him on the shoulder.
"Brother?" He looks at me quizzically "it's Levi Wolfard," he corrects.
"Ok, I apologize, I meant no offense."
"None taken, how's Gavin doing?"
"He's doing better... I guess Kaia told you about that?"
"Of course, everyone knows. I warned you guys about those collars, but Kaia wants your kid to play with food."
"Um, you mean prey don't you?"
"What's the difference?" Touché.
"Touché, but we don't eat other animals anymore, do we?" I ask raising an eye brow.
"No of course not, we are much more *civilized* now." He said that with so much contempt he spit a little.
He clasps his paw on my uninjured shoulder and says, "Brother, do you want to try something?"
"It's Kyle Wulfric."
He nods with a toothy grin, "I meant no offense."
"None taken," A moment of silence. I don't know if I like how he's looking at me. Then he breaks the silence. "Come with me, I want you to try something". He takes his paw off my shoulder. He takes a few steps then turns to look at me and says, "Coming?"
I nod.
He leads me to an elevator, close to where I approached him. The elevator opens, he puts a paw on my back, ushering me in.
"Had sex with my sister this morning"
"Yes, I've been known to be intimate with my wife." I guess they talk about everything. Oh no, please don't tell me she told him I cried.
"That's good, I was starting to think you where cheating on her," he uses a key that illuminates s2-s8 and he presses s6. The numbers go from 6 to B2 which is where the rail cars are and then s1-s12.
"You two really talk about everything."
"Of course not, that's private. When you have the sense to keep it private." He taps his nose.
Damnit, didn't even occur to me.
I sigh, "is that what you want to show me? A new deodorant, or soap?"
"Our R&D department hasn't invented a soap that could cover that up."
"What's down there?" I point at S12
"I don't know, over my pay grade."
"What's on S8?"
"Over your pay grade."
I shrug "fair enough."
The elevator opens into a white room with 2 more elevators adjacent from the one I exited. A set of double doors to my left, and a single door on the right. He leads me through those doors on my right, into what looks like a small cafeteria.
"Have a seat, I'll be right back."
I have a seat and look around as he leaves through the doors we came from. This feels like the opening scene to a Resident Evil game. Any minute there will be zombies and a rogue AI trying to kill me.
I check my cell phone, no service. Yep, zombies. Well they better hurry I'm going to be late for work.
The doors open and Levi walks in out carrying a cafeteria lunch tray with a TV dinner on it.
"What's this?"
He sits the tray on the table, looks at me, as he sits. Without breaking eye contact he slides the tray in front of me.
"Are you ready?" I look at the tray, it looks like a grey TV dinner tray with a reflective cellophane covers.
"You are making me a little scared, I don't know"
Without breaking eye contact he pulls back the cellophane. I flinch, bringing up a paw to shield by face. My first thought is oh no!
Then the smell hits me, I sniff cautiously, the scent teases my nostrils. I sniff harder bringing my nose closer and lowering my paws. The steak is the perfect light brown, with a pink center visible through the cross section. My mouth begins to water so heavily I lap at air trying to prevent it from spilling out onto the table. Fluid puddles around the edges of the tray, the steaks own weight is enough to force the juices out.
My hypnosis is broke by the handle of a fork intruding upon the visage of the steak.
Levi is holding out a fork, "Go ahead."
I whimper in anticipation, my shaky paw takes the fork from Levi.
I press the edge of the fork into the steak and it passes through easily cutting a morsel free. The juiced pool, I resist the urge to lap at them. I skewer a piece, I wipe the drool from my face and place a piece on my tongue. The explosion of flavor blinds me, I don't even notice the two new faces staring at me as I savor the steak.
"What do you think?" Levi says.
"I think I had an orgasm." I say as I cut another piece.
The two new animals, a leopard and Tasmanian Devil wearing white lab coats jot down notes on their clipboard.
"How does it make you feel?" Says the leopard.
I think about it, I actually do feel great, even when I was human I never tasted anything so good. "Fucking great, this is the most delicious thing I've tasted in either of my lives."
"Excuse me? Either of your lives?"
Oh fuck. "Yeah, figure of speech. Best thing I've ever tasted, or probably will ever taste"
They jot more notes.
"You want some, Levi?"
"Nah, I'm good."
"Are you mad? This is amazing." Then I pause, "is it drugged?" I look at him nervously and eat another piece.
"Relax, my sister loves you. I'd never do anything to hurt you out of love for her."
I eat another piece of steak. "That's very reassuring," I say.
"Did you see that? He ate a piece even when he thought you had a nefarious plan." The leopard says.
"That should do it, thank you." The Tasmanian devil says and the two animals in lab coats leave.
"What is this?"
"A new product, a new *meat* product." He winks at me.
"Holy shit, who am I eating?" I eat another piece.
"You aren't eating anyone, that meat was grown in a vat, but would you have stopped eating it if I told you it was a sheep we killed in the other room?"
"Ya know, I don't think I would. But this isn't sheep, looks like beef steak." I eat another piece.
"It's just a little crazy you didn't have to think about it. But yes, that was vat grown cow meat. Tell me, between me and you. How do you know the difference between sheep and cow meat?"
I shrug "smell?"
He shakes his head and leans forward in his chair.
"You know, once upon a time we ate prey, and we kept their numbers in check. If we didn't, the prey would increase and eat until the land was bare and they would start to starve. Then they would move and do the same someplace else. We only ate as many as we needed, and everything was in balance. We did them a favor by culling their numbers. Now we are all civilized, prey multiply and disproportionately consume every resource. And predators suffer and scrape."
"Yes, and once upon a time wolves gave birth to large litters because of such high mortality rate. How many pups have you lost to famine or disease?"
He stands up, and says, "How many children do you have?"
"I have 1."
"I have 3," he volunteers
I shrug and stick my fork into the tray for another piece but find it empty, "What's your point?"
He leans forward, resting his weight on his paws against the table.
"There is a nice ground hog family that lives in a nice big apartment over mine, they have 8 pups. They makes less money than me, and my wife has to work so we can afford our lifestyle. How can he afford a nicer apartment, and more children? I had to pay 15k for my 3rd pups's license and they initially declined me. I had to appeal and watch my loving mate beg a panel of prey. That's 30k and our pride, that I've had to pay just to be allowed to have children that can enjoy civil liberties in Zootopia ."
I lap the juices off the bottom of the tray and lick it clean.
"So what? You want to swing by after work, tell them it isn't fair and eat 5 of his kids?"
"No, are you crazy? I would never eat someone, let alone a child. But don't you see how the scales are tipped against us? Your son can't even go to a decent school without having a torture device strapped to his neck. How many prey have to suffer such indignity?"
"Somehow , I feel like we went off on a crazy tangent. What does that have to do with this steak?"
"That meat has been ready for market for a year. But the prey politicians and regulators won't let it go to market without an enormous tax. It costs 20 cents to make a mytoprotein burger patty, 10 cents for a mealworm burger patty, a real meat burger costs 25 cents to make. The tax on those items is 2%, they want to tax this product at 100% doubling the cost of the end product. It's deliciously amazing and the prey won't even let us have this, without trying to break us financially."
"If this was a conspiracy to keep us predators down, why wouldn't they tax all our food the same?"
"Because some connected prey politicians own plants that produce those products. Apex Industries, a predator owned corporation, would have the only patent for this product. But once a prey business starts producing a similar product, the cost will plummet."
"Why don't we have any predator politicians to back our interests?"
"We do, but it's not enough. Predators are outnumbered 10:1, we can't vote in great enough numbers to elect anyone. The districts are drawn in such a way that predators are always out numbered at the voting booth. So every predator politician needs to pander to his prey constituents."
"So, what do we do?"
Levi shrugs helplessly saying, "What can we do?"
"Well, what I can do is go to work, which I'm now late for... and by the way, I won't allow any politics to inhibit my families happiness or success."
He laughs "what can *you* do?"
"Whatever it takes... how do I get to my work area from here?"
"I'll take you up."
He leads me back to the rail car plateform, my phone chims indicating available service. My shift supervisor was less than thrilled about my tardiness. I spent my day inspecting and inventorying tools. Which is just as well, I forgot to replace the bolt gun I took the other day. This gave me the opportunity to conceal my crime and give me another day to return it.
Kaia sends me a text during my lunch break.
'Dr. Grover called, he said you have elevated white blood cell count. You could just be fighting an infection, but he would like you to call to make an appointment.'
I reply 'ok, I'll call him after work, how are you doing?'
'I'm good, I was called into work early. I'll be home in time to make a late dinner. How's work?'
'Good, had a fun conversation with Levi about politics.'
'What did he say?'
'Just a lot of anger and frustration about the unfair treatment we endure.'
'He has a lot of anger, our niece was hurt by an adolescent Ram.'
'I'm sorry to hear that, what happened?'
'It's not something I like to talk about.'
'Ok, I'm sorry.'
'It's ok, I'll cya at home.'
I didn't mean to bring up bad memories, I'd like to do something nice for her.
Derek's voice snaps me out of my day dream. "Hey, Kyle, mind if I join you?"
"Nah, have a seat." I take a bite out of my fish taco, this tastes even worse than the crayfish I had on Monday. I spit it out, much to the amusement of Derek.
"Never ever get the fish taco, they don't even list the kind of fish that is."
"Yeah, I keep forgetting to make myself something at home."
He leans in and sniffs in my direction, then makes a lewd grin.
"Hey, hey, keep your nose to yourself." I think about my first day in public, and how many people told me that very thing.
"You coming today?"
"Kaia got called away to work, I'm thinking I might swing by her job to surprise her."
"You rather go visit Kaia than come put away a couple beers and play cards with us?"
I already spent a life time drinking and neglecting my women so I could hangout with the boys and bang other less important women.
"Yes, I'd rather put a smile on my loving wife's face. Rather than leave her alone at home with Gavin."
"Fair enough, fine. Mr.-Too-Good-For-The-Fellas.""
"I'm not too good for the fellas, just your cheap beer."
"You wound me! Hey, on a different note, Charlotte been having a hard time making friends. Gavin's what 7, 8?"
"He's 5 1/2."
"Close enough, can we have a play date? maybe you and Kaia can have a nice evening out or something"
I counter offer "Or drop Charlotte off at my place, and you can take Ashley someplace nice?"
"Oh m, thank you so much! I love my pup, but we need some time to ourselves. When can I drop her off?"
"Let me talk to Kaia, and we'll nail down a time. I'll text you this evening, promise."
"Ok, I'll hold you to it! I have to get back to work. Look forward to hearing from you."
Two seconds later I get a text from Derek. 'I'll even bring you some beignets.'
I chuckle to myself, I'm actually a little excited to try his wife's beignets.
Man, I'd kill to have another piece of that steak from this morning. I go to the vending machine and grab a bugaburger. It's not great, but edible. I eat the burger and head back to my work area. I spend the rest of the work day scrubbing industrial dumpsters. I shower and change into a pair of slacks in my locker and white button down shirt. It takes me a few tries but I fumble my way through tying a nice double windsor knot in my neck tie. I look at myself in the mirror. I still don't recognize myself, but it feels more like me than the old me did when I would look at myself in the mirror.
I Zoogle the address for the Cactus Cafe, this will be my first time going someplace out of town that isn't my job.
Zootopia has an amazing mass transit system and to the best of my knowledge it's free for citizen. You just swipe your Zootopia ID card and away you go. I had to take a bus from the Apex rail car station to a metro stop not far away. That metro car took me across a very noticeable change of scenery. The buildings went from being glass and brick buildings with neatly manicured grass lawns lining cement walkways, to buildings that appear to be made of adobe or clay with smaller windows that are tinted or mirrored on many of the shops. When I exited the metro I discovered the reason for the mirror or tinted glass. It's HOT, Sahara Square is 102 degrees, which is at least 35 degrees warmer then the Apex Industry rail car station. And 50 degrees warmer than my home in Happytown. Right out front of the kiosk is a male kangaroo wearing tan cargo shorts, with matching short sleeved button down shirt. He's selling bouquets, but the whole thing, stem to pedals, is made of beef jerky. It smells delicious. I worry about the cost, but am relieved when he quoted me 30 dollars for a dozen. I get them and have them wrapped. 90 seconds out the metro and I'm forced to loosen my tie. After 10 minutes of walking I start to wonder how Kaia works in this weather.
Fortunately, the Cactus Cafe was only a few blocks from the metro stop. The front of the cafe is an angled wall of black tinted glass, with a 8ft tall rotating door as the main entrance. The door has smaller rotating panels in it, like a Russian nesting doll of doors. Likely to accommodate smaller sized patrons.
As I enter the Cafe through the rotating door, a marvelous gust of cooler air hits me in the face. Accompanied by a myriad of scents and flavors. I'm momentarily stunned as my brain works it's way around all the smells in here. The booths and walls are the same off white, the dividers between the booths are white marble with cactus and other desert fauna planted in the tops. The place is packed with a small line of lion, jaguars and cheetah families and one small hyenas family.
Something large bumps into me from behind
"Excuse me, sir." a large lioness says, holding a cub in her arms with a teenage boy besides her. He can't be more than 15 years old, but he's a fair bit taller than myself.
I step out of her way, and go about looking for Kaia. A small female lynx with blue dyed ear tips, wearing a black uniform and white apron, just like Kaia's uniform approaches me, "Hey Kyle, are you hear to surprise Kaia?"
"Yeah, can you tell me where she is?"
"She's in the locker room, right that way." She points toward the back wall of the restaurant.
I find the employee only door, beyond it is a hallway with separate bathrooms and a door labeled locker room.
I put my paw on the door but before I step in I hear Kaia's voice "it's our secret."
A male's voice "Good, I don't want anyone to know."
"How long do you think this can go on?"
"I just want to keep our secret as long as possible."
Wtf?! I push open the door and go into the locker room. The locker room is a fairly small room, with 8 lockers divided evenly between two walls and a bench in the middle. Barely enough room for 4 people to stand in here.
Kaia and this male quickly turns their heads to face me. The male looks about my age, a little taller, light grey, with white around his eyes and down his muzzle. Reminds me of a cross on his face.
Kaia runs up and hugs me. I hug her back and sniff her heavily. I smell this stranger on her, if only faintly. Must have been brief contact, like a hug.
She holds my face and looks in my worried eyes.
"What's the matter?" She asks me.
"He heard," the other male says nervously
"I heard," I say
"Look, you can't tell anyone. This is our secret." Kaia says.
"Your secret, you don't think about how I'd feel about this?" I say sadly. I knew this shit was too good to be truth.
The male crosses his arms and says, "Frankly, I don't care how you feel about this, I'm in love and you should be happy for me regardless of who it is I love."
"Ok...I'm going to fucking kill you." I take a step towards him.
He puts his paws up "You can't beat me, don't make me embarrass you in front of your wife!"
I try to slip by Kaia to fuck this dickhead up. Kaia grabs me as I slip past her and holds me still. I don't have the will to resist Kaia. "You two idiots are going to get me fired." She whispers angrily
I just realize something, "where is Gavin?"
"Mom is watching him," the male says.
"Mom is watching him?" I ask.
Kaia lets me go and says "yeah, Lupine came with mom to watch Gavin while I work."
"Lupine can you go get Gavin, please?"
Lupine nods and steps around me.
"Kyle, thank you for visiting, but you can't tell anyone about Lupine's girlfriend"
I look at her for a second and try to recall the conversation I heard.
"Lupine's your brother?"
"He's your's," she says flatly and crosses her arms. She says "you didn't know about his girlfriend did you?"
"No, I did not."
"You thought I was betraying your trust."
I smile weakly and try to deflect "I got these for you." I hold up the beef jerky bouquet.
She sighs, "you know I'm your's forever and you are mine, right."
I nod "definitely."
"Good" she gives me a kiss and says. "Now, let's go get our son. Just so you are prepared, your mom is rude." She takes my paw and leads me out.
Out front of the Cactus Cafe is a large Silver Sedan. Lupine, Gavin and an older big female wolf, her face is all white, with black from the crown of her head down her neck. White paws stick out of her sleeves. She's wearing a yellow and grey shawl draped over her shoulders.
"Hi, mom," I say
"My dear boy, look how scrawny you are, has Kaia not been feeding you?" She hugs me at arms reach, so our bodies don't touch, and she leans in to kiss me on each cheek. When I touch her, her body feels like a piece of steel. Damn, my mom
is jacked, my brother is pretty jacked, my wife is jacked, my brother-in-law is REAL jacked, and I'm a skinny little bitch. Man, I'm low man on the totem pole out here.
"Kaia you look well, Gavin's a handsome boy."
"Thank you, he has good genes." Kaia says with a smile, squeezing my paw
"Indeed, any plans for this season?"
"Yes, we are going to try for another cub"
"Try? What's there to try, my son puts his seed in you and 3 months later a cub comes out." Kaia's posture slouches as her ears fold in embarrassment, and she hugs Gavin close to her hips. The whole time I've been with her, I've never seen her be anything but proud and confident.
My mom turns to me and says, "Does she satisfy you?"
"Ok! That's enough, you will respect Kaia, she has never been anything but loving and supportive towards me. I will not tolerate this disrespect. Least of all in front of my son." I put my arm around Kaia and feel her posture straighten.
She looks at me coldly, I can see the muscles in her jaw flex. "I just want to make sure my little boy isn't taken advantage of." Her eye sweep over me from foot to ear tip, "any weakness in you, reflects poorly upon me and MY bloodline."
"They are met and exceeded. Good to see you again Lupine, Mother." I hold Kaia tight as we pivot away from my mother and walk down the street with Gavin in tow.
Kaia looks at me while we are walking away "you've never defended me before, least of all from your mother."
"I doubt you ever needed to be defended, except this time. I'm not going to allow anyone to talk to or about you like that."
"Careful, all this masculinity your exuding is going to make me ovulate before season"
"What's av-ool-ate?" Gavin says.
Kaia quickly responds "It's when a woman is ready to make a baby with her male."
"Am I going to have a brother or sister soon?" Gavin asks excitedly.
Kaia smiles at me "Maybe in 4-6 months."
Gavin says excitedly "Yeah! I'd prefer a little sister"
I whisper in Kaia's ear, "very direct."
She reply's in a conversational volume. "honest answer for an honest question,"
"I'm hot," Gavin says.
"Me too, buddy".
Kaia bites a jerky rose and gives Gavin a bite of the stem.
We walk to a bus terminal which takes us to the metro. We had to wait a few minutes before our metro train arrived. We shared the bouquet of rose jerky, they were quite delicious. When the metro train arrived, several of the cars where listed as Predator or Prey cars. It seems segregation between the two biggest groups is institutionalized.
No laws against discrimination, it cuts both ways, while we sat waiting for our train I saw a Gazelle and her child be refused service by a walking jaguar vendor selling what looks like stuffed chew toys.
I don't know why a gazelle child would want a chew toy meant for a predator, but let a kid play with the toys he wants.
At some point that jaguar was discriminated against, and now he has passed that pain and hate onto the next generation. And back and forth it will go, zigzagging until someone breaks the cycle.
"I'll be right back." I say to Kaia
"Where are you going?"
"To make the world a better place." I stand up and catch up to the jaguar vendor. At first he didn't want to sell to me, I suppose I shouldn't have asked what toy the gazelle was interested in. But I bought a rabbit stuffed animal, its body is made of plastic fibers woven together. When I approached the gazelle she seemed down right frightened of me. With some apprehension, she stepped forward and plucked it from my grasp at the maximum range of her arm. She offered to pay me for it, but I declined. The look of joy on that gazelle fawn's face when she hugged a toy clearly not meant for her was all the payment I wished for.
When I rejoined Kaia and Gavin, she just smiled at me.
The rest of our trip was uneventful, when we arrived home, Kaia made dinner. I tried to help but I've always been fairly useless in the kitchen. The fact Kaia shooed me out of the kitchen tells me that hasn't changed.
We had dinner, and put Gavin to bed.
Before I even closed the door Kaia pounced on me. Afterward, while we laid in bed, "Do you know my co-worker Derek?"
"Yeah, he's kinda your best friend, but I don't like him nearly as much as you did."
"He's a good guy?"
"He's lewd, and immature. I'd prefer you didn't spend all your time with him."
"Ok, well, I won't. But I agreed to a play date with his daughter Charlotte. Is that ok with you?"
"Yes, as long as he is ok with us taking her to a BBQ out of town."
"I'm sure he won't mind, who's BBQ?"
"It's a family outing, my immediate family, maybe a few pack mates."
I text Derek, '10am Saturday, going to BBQ, if she can come, it's all good'
He replies almost immediately
'Thanks,'
"Ok, I messaged Derek, I can't wait to meet your family... I mean... you know?" I shrug
"Yeah, I know, before we go I'll give you another refresher course."
"Ok, if I may ask you something?"
"Of course, anything"
"when my mom was being... my mom, you looked really upset for a minute, like she hit a nerve. I don't mean to bring up bad memories, I've just never seen you look vulnerable." Her ears fold in the middle, indicating worry.
"You have forgotten so much, do you want to remember the bad stuff? Or would you rather not know."
"I want to know, we are a team, through the good and the bad."
She sits up to face me and says, "What if I tell you and you want to leave?"
"You have to trust, that I love you. What you tell me now won't change that."
"Ok... I believe you." She sits and looks at me for a moment before saying, "2 years ago we saved enough money to pay the cub tax, we moved here to this bigger apartment and got approved to have another child. I got pregnant. But...it uh, it didn't workout, I got very sick, the cub came early. The doctors thought it was a miracle he survived... but then he didn't. I shouldn't have pushed myself so hard, I had just started a new job that paid so well... I wanted to impress them, I was so happy I could help us financially. You were so happy. But after the birth, I was sick for 2 weeks, and they replaced me with another. So I had no job, we couldn't get the cub tax back. It was a rough time for us. You lost a lot of weight." Her eyes water, waiting for my responses
"I don't know what to say..."
Through teary eyes she sags "Just say you still love me."
I brush my paw through her cheek fur. "I love you". She hugs me so tight she squeezes the breath out of me. She steps her knee over me, straddling my stomach. She looks down at me and smiles "Again?"
I grin and nod "Again."