Chapter 247
I tell them yes.
There is no authority attached to it. No expectation that they listen because I outrank them. If they want to leave, they leave. If they disagree, we talk it through or move on. Training without command feels strange at first. Lighter. Slower. More honest.
I correct one of them mid-spar and he grins instead of bristling. Another argues with me about stance and we test both versions until one clearly works better. No one looks to me for permission to improve.
They get better because they want to.
I do not carry them.
I sleep through the night for the first time in weeks.
It startles me when I realize it. I wake up to sunlight already filling the room, not from
a nightmare, not from adrenaline, not from a phantom sense of urgency snapping
me awake. Just from having slept enough.
My body feels heavy in a way that does not hurt.
I lie there for a moment, hands resting on my stomach, and let myself exist without scanning for danger. My breath stays even. My mind stays quiet.
Sally notices before I say anything.
“You look different,” she says one afternoon, leaning against the counter while I cut vegetables for soup. She watches my hands the way she always does, like she is checking for tremors.
“I got more sleep,” I reply.
She snorts. “You look like you remembered how.”
I glance at her. “Is that a compliment?”
“It is a diagnosis,” she says. “And a relief.”
I keep chopping. “You always did exaggerate.”
She rolls her eyes. “You always did lie badly.”
I do not argue.
Days pass. Then more. The quiet settles into something almost companionable. I still check reports out of habit, scanning them over breakfast or before bed. But they no longer feel like a summons. I am informed, not responsible. The distinction is sharper than I expected.
Sometimes I catch myself reaching for my tablet with urgency that no longer has a target. When that happens, I put it down and go outside instead.
The fence holds.
The cabin stands.
The younger wolves laugh more as they train. They tease each other. They fail loudly and recover without shame. I watch from the edge sometimes instead of stepping in, and nothing falls apart.
When the news finally comes, it does not arrive with ceremony.
A message. Brief. Factual.
Reforms continuing. Mediation bodies operating under shared oversight. Regional
councils rotating facilitators. Some friction. Some success. No collapse.
I read it twice.
Then I sit very still.
The emotions arrive tangled, refusing to line up neatly. Relief first. A deep, unexpected exhale that loosens something I did not realize I was still holding. Grief close behind it, sharp and small, like mourning something I did not know was attached to Pride threads through both, quiet but steady, the kind that does not need to be witnessed.
They are doing it without me.
Nothing broke.
I step outside and watch the younger wolves spar in the clearing. One of them slips and goes down hard. The others pause, check in, then continue once he waves them off. They correct each other without looking to me for permission. They adapt. They keep moving?
The fence holds. The cabin stands. The world keeps moving, unbothered by my absence from the center of things.
For years, I believed stepping back would cause collapse. That the only reason things held together was because I kept my hands on the
seams. I believed if stopped
carrying the weight, it would fall on
someone else and crush them.
It did not.
The weight redistributed instead. Spread out. Shared. The structure adjusted around
the absence and became something else.
I realize something then, slow and undeniable.
Stepping back did not destroy anything.
It just changed the shape of what I am holding now.
Instead of the world, I hold a fence post steady while someone else ties the wire. I
hold a stance long enough for someone younger to find their balance. I hold my own quiet without filling it with obligation.
And for the first time, that feels like a choice.
Not an abdication.
Not a failure.
A choice.
I sit on the porch as evening settles, soup cooling beside me, and let the quiet stay.
It no longer feels like something waiting to be filled.
It feels like space.
And for now, that is enough.