The Wolf at My Door

by Luc Reid

We’ve gotten into a kind of rhythm, the wolf and I. I go sit outside the back door in an old kitchen chair, watching the dark shadows of the trees shiver in the wind when the moon shows them out. After a while–sometimes right away, sometimes not for hours–she comes up quietly and curls up a few feet away, watching the trees with me, and the stars beyond, and the moon setting. I sometimes fall asleep and wake up chilled and full to the brim with starlight, but if she begins nodding off she gets up and trots back into the darkness, to some hidden place she has there.

For a week or so I was sick and couldn’t stay outside for the coughing, so I left the door wide open and hoped she’d come inside. Several times that week she sat just outside the door, waiting for me. Sometimes she’d even come up and look in, and then she’d see me, and seem to be satisfied, and turn and go. She wouldn’t come into the house, though, not even when I shambled out of bed one still afternoon and took the front door right off the hinges to show her I wouldn’t close it on her. Maybe wolves never come indoors. Maybe they do, but just not at first.

I’ll keep leaving it open, just in case.