Bear, Otter, & the Kid 03 - The Art of Breathing (46 page)

“Bear woke up and we had Lucky Charms. And it was his birthday. I remember that. It was his birthday, and I hoped he would like the present I’d made for him. And then Anna and Creed were there, and somehow, I knew something was wrong. I didn’t want to say anything out loud because I didn’t want to ruin Bear’s day, but I knew. I just
knew
. And then he told me I had to be brave. That I had to be big and brave. I thought she’d died. But it was worse than that. I ended up in the bathtub that day. Because of the earthquakes.”

She had left. As the story spills from me, as I confess to a man I barely know, I remember how Bear’s words had hit me. I was smart, smarter than I had any right to be, but I was still only five years old, and I didn’t understand how a mother, my
mother
, could make a decision to leave her sons behind, like we were nothing to her. Like we didn’t matter to her. I didn’t understand the selfishness that could exist in a person then. Sure, I knew she wasn’t the best mother, but she was still
my
mom, and I loved her. I loved her with my whole heart because that was what a son should do.

So, no. I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand how she could leave and never look back.

But, of course, she did look back. She looked back and tried to hurt us even more. She almost won too. That’s the funny thing about family, though. When you do stupid shit you think is for the best in the most self-sacrificing way possible, they’re there to knock you upside the head and tell you to stop being such an idiot.

I was fifteen years old when I found out. Bear took me for a drive one day. Up the coast. Just me and him. It was a pretty summer day, and there was the sun and the waves and our windows were rolled down, and we let the wind run through our fingers.

“I have something to tell you,” he said to me. We’d stopped at a lookout and we were the only ones there. “Something I should have told you a while ago. I just couldn’t work up the courage.”

My skin felt cold. “Are you okay?” I asked quickly. “Are you sick?” In my head, a million doomsday scenarios ran through my head. Bear had cancer. Bear had AIDS. Bear had a brain tumor. Bear was going to die and he was going to leave me behind. The car shook a little. A precursor to an earthquake, I thought.

“No,” he said. “I’m not sick. I’m not going anywhere. Neither is Otter or anyone else.”

That should have made me feel better, but it didn’t. “What’s wrong?” I asked nervously. “Whatever it is, we’ll fight it, okay? If it’s the courts again, if they’re trying to take me away from you because you and Otter got married, we’ll fight it. I don’t care what it takes.” By the end of my misguided little speech, I was growling and spitting, suddenly sure it’s a custody thing.
Who do they think they’re fucking with?
I thought to myself.
Bring it. Bring it and you will see what it means to have the fight of your life.

He groaned and covered his face with his hands. “I’m going about this all wrong,” he muttered. “No, Kid. It’s not custody. Nothing bad will happen.” He reached over and took my hand in his and squeezed it. “You’re mine, okay? You belong to me. Nothing can ever change that. I promise you. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“Then what is it!”

“Mom.”

“Oh.” And it was like I was five years old again. “She’s dead?”

He shook his head. “No. At least, I don’t think so. I haven’t checked up on her in a while.”

“Then what?”

“The hospital,” he says. “When everything happened at once.”

I closed my eyes. Everything at once.

Mrs. Paquinn.

Otter.

Anna.

“I remember,” I said. “That wasn’t a good day.”

“We’ve had better,” he agreed. “But we picked ourselves up.”

“That’s what we do.”

“There’s… something that happened there that I didn’t tell you.”

“What?”

“I only wanted to protect you,” he said sadly. “All I’ve ever wanted was to keep you safe.”

“And you’ve done that, Papa Bear,” I said gently, trying to make sure he knew I was serious. “Who knows what would have happened if she’d taken me with her when she threatened to?”

“That’s just it, Kid. She was never going to take you away.”

A buzzing enveloped my ears. “What?”

“She came to the hospital. When you were in school.”

Anger, sleek and oily. “What did she want?”

Bear looked older than I’d ever seen him. More tired. “She came to bring the adoption papers. Renouncing her custody of you.”

“You said she sent those in the mail. That they just showed up one day.”

“I know. But she came. And I asked her. For the both of us. I asked her why.”

“And?”

He shrugged. “Said she wasn’t meant to be a mother. That we were better off without her.”

“What about when she came back? That day to the apartment. She wanted me then! She
told
me!” It didn’t matter that I never wanted to leave with her. It didn’t matter that it did nothing to offer her redemption in my eyes. But it had mattered, at least a little bit, to my nine-year-old heart, that my mother wanted me. That she wanted me enough to try and fight my brother for custody. That she cared about me enough to make petty demands.

That she loved me.

“It was for money,” Bear said. “Otter dated a man before he came back to Seafare. They broke up. He knew Otter had feelings for me. He wanted us to break up. He tracked her down. Offered her money. She took it. And did what she did.”

“Money,” I said stupidly. “It was about money.”

“Yeah, Kid. Money.”

“Did she get it? Did she get her money?”

Bear looked stricken. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.”

“You lied to me.”

“Yes. I did.”

“Why tell me the truth now?”

“Because,” he said, “you’re old enough now to understand such things. And there might come a day when you feel the need to track her down yourself. I hope that never happens, but that’s me being selfish and I can’t do that to you. If it
does
happen, I wanted you to know everything about her. It’s only fair.”

“
Fair
,” I spat at him. “How is any of this
fair
? What the fuck do you know about
fair
?”

“It’s not,” he said, his voice growing hard. “It never was and it never will be. But I have done my
damnedest
to make sure you’ve had a home, that you’ve known every single day that you were loved like no one else on this earth. Yes, I’ve made mistakes. Yes, I’ve fucked up and made decisions based upon what
I
thought was right, but if it meant keeping you healthy and sane and alive, then I’d do the same thing. Again. And again. And again.”

I laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Sane? Think we kind of lapsed on that one, Papa Bear.”

“Don’t you dare talk like that,” he growled at me. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“I think the medical community would disagree with you.”

“Fuck them!” he cried at me, slamming his hands on the steering wheel. “Fuck them! Fuck a goddamn diagnosis! Fuck her! And fuck you too, if you think I’m going to stand aside and let you think that about yourself. You are going to make this world a better place, and you are going to prove everyone wrong who thinks you needed a mother and father to grow up good. There’s never been a moment when I haven’t looked at you and thought,
This is why I’m doing this. He’s the reason I’m doing all that I do.
”

“Earthquake,” I whispered at him, barely able to breathe. The slamming of his hands was like shutting the door on my lungs. “B-breathe. H-hard t-t-to—”

He was out the door and around the car before I could even blink. In the panic that was my mind, the red waves and shifting ground, I felt anger at myself for being so weak.
I have to fix this
, I thought.
I have to find a way to fix this somehow.

But then the ground broke up beneath my feet and I started falling, falling, falling and I couldn’t
breathe
and—

My brother was there. As he always was. And as always, he talked me through it. It took a while, but eventually, the earthquakes stopped. My throat and lungs opened up.

We sat there, for a time. Bear and me.

“And that’s why,” I tell Sandy now, my voice hoarse from talking so long, “it matters what my brother thinks. For the longest time, it was just Bear and me. That’s all we knew about how to survive. Eventually, it got better, but no matter where life takes us, no matter where our stories go, it always will come down to Bear and me. There might come a time when we’ll be apart, but everything I’ll do will be because of him, and everything I’ll do will be
for
him. He’s not just my brother, Sandy. Bear is the reason I’m alive.”

“Oh, baby doll,” Sandy says, wiping his eyes. “I do believe that’s possibly the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard. Forgive my ignorance earlier. Of course you should care about what your brother says. But you shouldn’t let it define you. You are your own man, and while the path might have been started by Bear, it’s your own now.”

“He’s still going to flip out.”

“Doesn’t he do that normally?”

I laugh. I feel better. A little bit. “Yeah. I guess he does.”

“Well, then. It’ll be par for the course.” Sandy hesitates. Then, “Was he right?”

“About what?”

“Your mom.”

“What about her?”

“Do you want to find her? Ask her the questions yourself?”

“No,” I tell him honestly. “But I’ve been thinking about her more and more lately. I even dream about her. Sometimes, they’re good dreams. But most of the time they’re not. And I’m not where I want to be. If anything, I’m worse.”

“And you think she has something to do with that.”

“Maybe. I don’t know. So, no. I don’t want to find her. I don’t want to ask her questions myself.” I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “But I think I’m going to. Not for Bear. Not for Dom. For me.”

“You might not get the answers you want,” he tells me. “You’re more likely not to get anything at all. If she’ll even talk to you.”

“I have a sister,” I tell him. “That’s the last thing Bear told me that day. After my mom left, she got pregnant again. She’d be eleven now, I think. Maybe twelve. Her name’s Isabelle.” I sniffle. “Izzie, for short.”

“I’m sorry, honey,” Sandy says, pulling me close again. “I wish I could take away all this hurt from you. You don’t deserve it.”

“I lied to you,” I admit. “Just now.”

“About?”

“Doing it just for me. It would be for Bear too. And for Dom.”

“I know, baby doll. But they love you just the way you are.”

“I know.” And I do. “But in order for me to be who I want to be for them, I’ve got to clear this blockage. In my head.”

“When will you do it?” he asks me quietly. Outside, the sky is beginning to lighten.

“I’ll take Dom home,” I say, making the first firm decision in a long time. “Then I’ll leave again.” It’s best to do it now and get it over with.

“You need to tell him.”

I shake my head. “He’ll just worry.”

Sandy laughs. “If you two are headed where I think you’re headed, he’s going to do that regardless. I think he does it already. Probably has for a very long while.”

“What do you mean?”

He gives me a small smile. “You’ll find out, I’m sure.”

“This is my fight,” I say.

“But you just admitted it was for him too.”

“Shit.”

“Indeed.”

He holds me close.

Where Tyson Makes a Phone Call

H
E
ANSWERS
on the first ring, like he’s been waiting for my call, even though it’s only five in the morning on a Sunday. “Tyson?” His voice is clogged with sleep.

“Hi,” I say, keeping my voice low. I’m in the bathroom off the bedroom, the door shut. Dom was still asleep when I grabbed my phone. I’m on the floor against the door. I almost climbed into the bathtub, but I don’t need it. I don’t. I don’t.

“Everything okay?” He sounds more alert.

“Can we… can we just talk? For a minute?”

“Sure, Kid. About anything in particular?”

“I don’t know.”

But Bear understands. He always does. “I almost burned down the house last night,” he says. “I tried making popcorn and accidentally put it the microwave for thirty minutes. You would have hated it anyway. It was bacon flavored. And, actually, it tasted like ass. Like bacon-flavored ass corn. Oh, and Otter misses you. I caught him staring forlornly into your room.”

I laugh. It feels good. “It’s only been four days.”

“Yeah, but it’s the longest you’ve been away. He also wants to get a dog. I told him just as long as he picks up the shit, I have no problem. Why the hell not.”

“Big dog?”

“Of course! You’re not going to see me with a little wussy dog that barks like a squeak toy. I have a reputation to uphold.”

“Dog and kids, huh? Domestic bliss.”

“Seriously,” he says. “We’ll just have to fuck with that bliss by staying in the Green Monstrosity. No house in the burbs for us, that’s for damn sure. How’s Tucson?”

“Hot,” I say. “No trees. It’s bigger than I thought too.”

I hear him cover the phone, and murmured voices go back and forth. He comes back on. “Otter says hey.”

“Hey, yourself,” I say back, knowing he’s listening in. I hear Otter chuckle. That’s enough, knowing they’re both there. I can do it now. I think. “Bear?”

“Yeah, Kid?”

“Things… have changed.” I swallow past the lump in my throat.

“Oh?” I hear him say carefully. “How’s that?”

“Dom… he… I think….” I stop. “No. That’s not it.”

“Then what is it?”

“I’m not coming home. At least not right away. Maybe a few more days.”

“Staying down in Tucson?” He knows better, but he’s giving me the chance.

“No.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to bring Dom back. And then I’m going… I’m going to Idaho.”

“Idaho,” he says flatly. “I hear it’s nice this time of year.”

“I have to go.”

“Do you?”