I tried to smile at that. I knew she was coming from a good place.

Eventually, she said, “Don’t worry, Sully. He’ll come back.”

“How do you know? Have you heard anything? When are they getting back?”

She didn’t answer any of my questions. She just said, “’Course he’ll come back. He has to.”

“Why does he have to? His brothers didn’t.”

“Jules has to come back because you’re here, aren’t you?”

The thing about Mrs. O’Malley was that sometimes you couldn’t tell when she actually knew something, and when she was trying to be nice.

“Come on, sad face. Let’s sit for a while and I’ll tell you all about the White Wolf.” We moved to the sofa. The plastic cover squelched as I sat down. There was a time I’d have done anything, and I mean anything, to have Mrs. O’Malley tell me about the White Wolf. Of all her stories it was my favorite by far. I wasn’t a boy though and I wasn’t even sure I believed in the White Wolf anymore. In fact, I was pretty sure I didn’t. Still, it was a good story, and no one told it better.

“The White Wolf,” she said several times over, as if she was psyching herself up, or getting into character, I couldn’t tell which. “The White Wolf will walk among us. He has before and he will again. It has been told. It was set in motion a long time ago and it can’t be undone.”

“What’s so special about the White Wolf?” I knew the answer. I’d heard it over and over. I knew it by heart, but I also knew that if I didn’t ask the question, Mrs. O’Malley wouldn’t continue the story.