Otter’s right. I saw an opportunity to make a statement, and I took it. Like I’ve done my whole life. It’s part of who I am. It’s part of who we are.
This is my brother. This is Derrick. Bear. The one in the world I trust the most. The one in the world I love the most. I can’t stand the thought of disappointing him, though I don’t think I did. I don’t know. There’s a bright ringing in my ears, and my skin feels like it’s crawling. My breath holds, but just barely.
I reach the fence on which his elbows rest. He watches the sun as it sets. It’s scary how much we look alike. Sure, he’s older now, but only by a little (though I give him so much crap for being close to thirty; it’s the end of the world as you know it, I told him a little while ago with great glee. Pretty sure that’s when the hairline starts to recede in this family. He didn’t find that to be very funny). He looks as he always has. Like Bear.
Except that he doesn’t turn to look at me.
I wait too.
“I remember, once,” he finally says. “You were… five… I think…. Maybe. I don’t know. Some age. It was after she left, at least. I know that much.”
We don’t need to say out loud who she is. We both know.
“You were at home, with Mrs. Paquinn, while I was working at the store. There was an announcement over the intercom, saying I had a phone call. Somehow, I knew. Even before I got to the phone, I knew something was wrong. I don’t know how I knew. I just did. Of course, my mind took it in a billion different directions. I thought maybe the apartment had burned down. Or that Mrs. P had….” He stops. Takes a breath. “That she’d gotten sick.” Oh, Bear. “Or that she’d come back out of the blue and wanted to make things different again. Wanted to destroy what I’d somehow managed to cobble together. I think that’s what I was expecting the most. Her. I think I always knew she’d come back at some point. I don’t know why I was so surprised when it finally happened. But… that doesn’t matter now.
“So, I knew I had a phone call and everything from plague and fire to meteors and infestation ran through my head. I ran. As soon as my name was called, I ran. And through every doomsday scenario I had running through my head, I thought to myself, just let him be okay. Just let him be okay.”
“Papa Bear, I—”
“Hush, Kid,” he admonishes softly without looking at me. “Let me finish.” He takes a deep breath. “It was Mrs. Paquinn on the phone. I asked her what was wrong. She asked me why I sounded like I was crying. That she was sure I had snot running down my face and I was probably really embarrassing and she’d have to shop in a new grocery store because she didn’t want to be associated with the guy who runs crying down the frozen foods aisle.”
Oh, Mrs. P. That sounds just like you.
“I asked her what was wrong. ‘Can’t I just call to say hi?’ she asked me. I told her she’d never done that before. ‘Traditions have to start somewhere,’ she said. ‘There should be a first time for everything.’
“‘So you’re just calling me to say hi?’ I asked her. I was pretty sure I was about to explode.
“‘Well, no,’ she said. ‘But you need to take a deep breath before you defecate your work khakis. That would be extremely embarrassing for you.’
“I very calmly asked her then what was wrong. She told me I needed to stop yelling.” Bear paused then, gripping the fence. Finally, “You’d fallen down. Outside. On those shitty steps of those shitty apartments. Your knee had caught the edge of one of the steps just right and had split open. You were at the hospital, getting stitches.
“I panicked then, I think. I don’t really remember it all that well. I drove to the emergency room, sure I’d get there and find that you’d had your leg amputated or that you’d gotten gangrene.”
“Or SARS,” I say, a small smile on my face.
“Or SARS,” he agrees. “I got there, and wonder of all wonder, you were sitting on the edge of one of the beds, looking down at your knee with this look on your face, like you were completely and utterly fascinated by the little black threads. I stood by the door, just watching you. Taking you in. Every piece. Every part. All of it was still there. Your knee was a little red and swollen, but it was still there.
“You must have heard me, because you looked up and said, ‘Hi, Bear! I fell down and cut myself. It bled a lot, and that was gross, but I’ve been sewed back together, and I think deserve some ice cream now.’ You got up from the edge of the bed. Walked over to me. Took my hand. You looked up at me and asked me why I looked so pale. I couldn’t really say then that it was one of the first times I knew you were more than a brother to me. It hit me then that what I was feeling, all the horrors in my head, were what most parents must go through when they get a phone call like that.”
“You took me for ice cream,” I tell him. I remember that much, at least.
He smiles distantly. “Yeah. I did. And now you’re here. Now you’re… you. It’
s funny, isn’t it. You were up there, on the stage, being braver than anyone else I know, and all I could think about was the scar. That little scar on your leg.”
“It’s certainly ruined my chance of becoming a kneecap model,” I say.
“You sure?”
I know what he’s asking. “Pretty sure.”
“You haven’t… tried… anything? Right?”
“Tried what?”
He turns red. “You know.” He mimes something that looks like he’s petting a giraffe. Or molesting one.
Oh sweet Jesus. He better not be—“Bear, are you asking me if I’ve had sex?”