Bear, Otter, & the Kid 03 - The Art of Breathing (30 page)

He smiles at her, and for a moment, I’m reminded of when I caught them in the hallway, years ago, his hand in her hair. “Always,” he says. “Call you?”

She nods. “Time to go, Benny boy.” She takes his hand as Dom leans down to hug him with one arm.

“You be good for your mom,” he says.

Ben looks back at me as his dad stands back up. “You live here now?”

“In my house, yes,” I say.

He nods as if this makes perfect sense. Then they’re gone. I hear the door shut. The car starts. And then it’s almost perfectly quiet, aside from the creaking of the house and the screaming in my head.

Get out. Get out. Get out getoutgetoutgetout.

“I have to go,” I say. I take a step toward the doorway. Dom blocks it again. He doesn’t move. Just stares out the window. “Dominic. I need to—”

“Divorced,” he says without looking at me. “A little while after Ben was born. What did you call it? Shotgun wedding.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought it was for the best. Funny how these things turn out. We made better friends than we ever did husband and wife. I suppose that’s more than most people could ask for.”

I say nothing.

“She remarried. Last year. Great guy. He’s a doctor at the hospital. Loves Ben as if he were his own. Treats him like a prince. Treats her like she’s a queen. I couldn’t ask for more.”

I can.
What about you? What do you get from all of it?

He finally looks at me. “And I’d do it again,” he says roughly. “If it meant I could have Ben, I’d do it all again. The same way. Every time. Nothing has been the same because of him. I’d do it again.”

“Yeah. Okay.” I don’t know what else to say.

“You left.”

“I know.”

“You cut me out.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What?” He shouldn’t be. He’s done nothing wrong. “Why?”

“That I’d do it again. For him.”

“He’s your son. You’re supposed to say things like that.”

“What about you?” He looks out the window again. Soft sunlight follows the strong curve of his jaw.

“What about me?”

“You… you’re you.”

“I’m me.”

“I know how my life is,” he says. “Because of Ben, I know routine. That’s all I know.”

“As it should be.”

“But you….”

I see what he’s saying.
You’re not routine. You mess things up. You break everything, and I can’t have you here. I can’t.
It’s getting harder to breathe. “I… I d-don’t w-w-want—”
Stop stuttering!

“You fit,” he says simply. “Somehow, you fit.”

In. Hold for three seconds. Out. Hold for three seconds.

“Even after all this time,” he says, “somehow, some way, you fit. Like it’s nothing at all.” He shakes his head.

And steps aside.

I take the chance I’ve been given. I can’t let him see me break. Not him. Not now. I rush toward the doorway. I’m barely past him when he reaches out again and circles my wrist, holding it tight. It’s now or never. The words almost don’t come out. “I’m sorry too,” I gasp. “This whole… everything. I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean for this to happen. Any of it.” I struggle, trying to get away. I’ve said it, said what I’ve needed to, and I need to leave. Now.

Dom bends down and presses his forehead against my cheek, his mouth near my ear. “That’s a start,” he growls in a voice that zings right through me. “But you should know, Tyson, that if you try to run again, I
will
find you. That’s a promise. This bullshit is
over
. You’d do well to remember that.”

He lets me go, and I blindly run away, away, away.

Where Tyson Remembers Theresa Jean Paquinn

A
S
I
run, his words echoing in my ears, I think of Mrs. P.

I was five years old when we first met. It was early afternoon, and I sat outside our shitty apartment on a ratty lawn chair trying to read a book, waiting for Bear to get home. He was in high school, approaching the end, and more and more, all I could think about was how soon he would be gone and it would just be me and Mom left here in this place. I was too smart for my age (as I’ve always been), and coupled with an overactive imagination, I was sure it’d be the end of me with my brother gone. I was trying to devise a way to convince Bear to take me with him.
I’d keep out of your way!
I thought I’d tell him.
I’d even sleep under your bed. Just please don’t leave me here alone. Please don’t leave me behind.

The door to our apartment opened and my mother poked her head out, a cigarette dangling from her lips. “What are you doing?” she asked as if it wasn’t plainly obvious.

“Reading,” I said, showing her the book.

“You were reading all morning,” she said, blowing out smoke. Her eyes were red-rimmed and gummy. “That’s what your teacher told me.”

“I like reading,” I mumbled. Other kids in my kindergarten class made fun of me for having a book all the time. I didn’t see what the big deal was.

“You didn’t get that from me,” she said.

“I know.”

“Your brother isn’t much of a reader, either.”

“I know.”

“You’re a strange one, Kid.”

“I know.”

She nodded, as if she’d expected that. “I’m going out tonight and won’t be back until late. Bear will need to take you to school in the morning so I don’t have to get up.”

I said nothing.

“I think there’s Pop-Tarts in the kitchen if you get hungry later. I’m going to go lay down.”

Please leave. I just want to read and dream that I can leave with Bear.

“Kid? You hear me?”

“Yeah.”

“Then answer me when I’m talking to you.”

“Sorry.”

She finished her cigarette and stubbed it out on the cracked wood of the doorway. She flicked the butt up and over the railing. She leaned over and ruffled my hair, and I smelled her, smoke and dying flowers. “Don’t look so mopey,” she said with a half smile. “It’s never as bad as you think it is.”

She left me alone and shut the door as I thought,
No. It can get worse. Much worse.

I looked down at my
Star Wars
watch. Bear would be home in two hours and twenty-six minutes. He didn’t have to work tonight, so maybe we could go out and do something, just me and him. Then I’d ask him if I could go with him again. By then, I’d surely think of something. He was my brother, after all. He wouldn’t leave me here. He just wouldn’t.

Feeling better, I started reading again about Aslan and Narnia.

Only a short while later, I met her.

A car pulled into the cracked parking lot, one bigger than any car I’d ever seen before. It was loud and brown and exhaust spewed from the tailpipe. It parked in a space near the stairs and shuddered as it died.

The front door swung open, so loud it sounded as if it were breaking. I couldn’t see who got out of the vehicle since stairs blocked the way. The front door slammed shut and then the rear door opened.

I went back to my book. It was none of my business.

I’d only read another paragraph or so when I heard huffing on the stairs, and a voice said, “C’mon, old girl. You’re not
that
old yet. Get your ass up these stairs.”

And she did. I first saw her gray-white hair. Then her elderly face, scrunched up in concentration. A box in her arms. A large purse over her small shoulder. She reached the landing and teetered for a moment, and I was sure she was about to tumble head over heels down the stairs. I put the book down and rushed toward her. I took the box from her arms and almost dropped it myself. It was heavy. I was only five, after all. Just a little guy, really.

“Why, thank you, young man!” she said as if volume wasn’t a concern. “For a moment there, I was pretty sure I was about to follow my Joseph, God love him. Life is supposed to flash before your eyes, I’ve heard, but all I could think about was how the firefighters would have come out here to move my body and seen I was wearing the ugliest pair of underwear I own. Unbefitting a lady, they are. Can you just
imagine
the embarrassment that would have caused me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said because I was unsure of what else to say.

“Ma’am,” she snorted. “
Ma’am
. How polite you are. That just won’t do. My name is Theresa Jean Paquinn, and you may call me Mrs. Paquinn.”

“Yes, Mrs. Paquinn.”

“Now, boy, the next step would be for you to tell me your name.”

I thought for a fleeting moment about how I wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers, but surely they didn’t mean
her
? She was an old lady! What harm could she do?

“Tyson,” I told her. “Tyson McKenna. But everyone calls me Kid.”

“What a handsome name! Tyson. I
do
like that. Why aren’t you in school?”

I was starting to sweat because the box was heavy, but she was nice, so I thought I should answer her question. “I only go in the mornings. Next year, I’ll go all day. Like my brother. He’s about to graduate.”
And take me with him.

She smiled at me. “You’re well-spoken for being so young.”

“I like to read,” I said by way of explanation.

“Do you? I do too. There’s nothing more wonderful, I should think, aside from meeting new people.”

“Heavy,” I gasped.

She laughed. For the first time, I heard her laugh, and I thought it possibly the most wonderful sound I’d ever heard. “Forgive me,” she said. “Here I am blathering away like we’ve got all the time in the world.” She set her purse on the floor and took the box from me. “Be a dear, would you? The keys are in my purse, and one of them unlocks the door to my new abode that undoubtedly will put all my past dwellings to shame.”

“My brother says this place is a hole,” I told her as I looked for her keys. I found them, buried under packages of tissues and hard candies and what I was pretty sure was a switchblade.

“And it probably is,” she said. “Your brother sounds very smart.”

“Sometimes.” I pulled the keys out. “Where to?”

“That one,” she said, pointing the box toward a door.

That delighted me. “You’re going to live there? I live next door.”

“Do you? With your brother?”

“Yeah. And my mom. She’s… sleeping now.”

I unlocked the door for her and pushed it open. The air inside smelled of carpet cleaner and dust. She set the box on the carpet inside the doorway. She looked around the small apartment, and for a moment, a fleeting look of sadness crossed her face and she sighed.

“It will be okay,” I told her with the logic only five-year-olds have. “It’s not so bad. I can help you do stuff. If you need it.”

“And that is the best thing I’ve heard all day,” she said. “You truly are a gentleman, Tyson.”

“Do you need some help? With the rest of your stuff?”

“I don’t have much.”

“Neither do we.”

“I have some boxes in the car. The bigger stuff will come tonight, I think. I would appreciate the help. We should probably speak to your mother first, though. I wouldn’t want you getting into trouble.”

“I won’t. She won’t care.”

She watched me closely. “She won’t, huh?”

“No. Honest. She’s sleeping, anyway, and doesn’t like to get woken up.”

“Well. Let’s go get the rest of the boxes, then, shall we? When we’re done, I think I have some lemonade mix we could stir up. Then we can sit and you can tell me about the book you’re reading.”

And we did just that. She was right when she’d said there wasn’t much. Only a few boxes in the back of her big car. Some were heavier than others, and she told me that her husband. Joseph, God love him, had given her most of what she still had. She’d had to sell a lot when she lost their house, but she’d kept the most important things. Her photos. The dishes he’d bought her. His work shirt. Her wedding dress. His pipe. All the things that made up who they were. She’d kept those things.

And we did just what she said. She found the lemonade, nothing more than a powdery mix to make with water. But somehow she made it sweet and tart at the same time, and it was the best thing I’d had in a long while. I sat in my ratty lawn chair and she sat on her own folding chair and she told me about the first time she’d gone to Narnia. And to Middle-earth. And to Mars. She liked to read, but now she mostly read romances with damsels in distress and swashbuckling heroes with swords and pirate ships. “I have to get my kicks somewhere,” she said without any hint of shame.

We were still sitting there when Bear came home that afternoon. “This is my big brother,” I said rather proudly. “He’s Derrick, but everyone calls him Bear.”

“Ah, I see,” she said as if she understood perfectly. I think she did. Somehow. “Then Bear it is.”

I could see the questions in his eyes about this strange old lady, but they could wait until later. I was just happy to have him home and to have a new friend. Nothing else really seemed to matter then.

When we said good-bye that first time, she hugged me. It was unexpected but not unwelcome. “I’ll see you soon,” she said. “I promise.”

And as jaded as I already was, as much anger and hurt I’d already seen, somehow, some way, I believed her.

And she kept that promise until the day she died. Weird, wonderful Mrs. Paquinn.

A
ND
THOUGH
I run now, running from the thundering in my ears, the beat of my heart, the sound of
his
voice in my head telling me that this bullshit was
over
and that he’d find me, all I can think about is
her
. How I left her behind, too, and not just him.

And even though he told me not to run, I do. I run toward her, because that seems to be the only place left I have to go. The Green Monstrosity is tense and awkward because of me. Dominic showed me too much today for me to stay there. I wouldn’t be able to breathe there anymore. Even out here in the open, it’s still difficult.

I stop only when I feel sand sneakers. The crash of the waves ahead. The call of the birds above. Somewhere a cell phone rings again and again, and I think it might be my own, but I can’t find it.