But I’m not at our old apartment. I must be still half-asleep. I’m in my room at the Green Monstrosity. I’m where I was when I fell asleep.
The doorbell rings again.
“Bear?” I call out as I walk down the stairs.
There’s no answer.
“Otter?”
Nothing.
Someone knocks on the door. My hands are sweating, because I immediately go to the worse thought ever, that it’s going to be Dominic, he’s going to be in uniform, and he’s going to say, “I’m sorry, Kid. I’m sorry, but there’s been an accident.”
I throw the door open.
“Hi, Tyson,” Julie McKenna says. “Hi, honey. You’ve gotten so big!” Her smile falters slightly. “Do you remember me?”
And I’m nine years old again. I’m in that shitty apartment again. I’m waiting for Bear and Otter to come home. They’re hanging out without me, and although I understand the need for it, the why of it, I still can’t help but feel a bit left out. I may not understand completely, but I know my brother loves Otter and Otter loves my brother, and they need time away to make sure this works, because it has to work. I may be just a little guy, but I know this is Bear’s last chance to find what he needs, to find the last bits of his ragged sanity and hold them together so tightly they never drift apart. And if it’s Bear’s last chance, it means it’s mine too.
But here she is, Julie McKenna, and I am nine years old and I know she is going to take it all away from me, take back everything that we’ve built up over the past few months. And as I stand there, staring up at her, her smile starting to slip from her face, I remember the last time I’d seen her, when she’d driven me to Anna’s house, saying she had some things to do, some things that little boys such as myself could not be a part of.
I was five then, and as I sat in the backseat of the car whose paint was chipped and whose body was rusted, I thought to myself, Bear, oh Bear. Please come find me.
I’m nine now, and she asks me if she can come in, and I can’t think and I can’t move, and there’s an earthquake underneath my feet, and my mind shrieks BATHTUB.
I was five when she knocked on Anna’s door, my hand in hers, her fingernails scraping roughly against my skin. Anna answers the door, so much younger then, so pretty, and her eyes widen slightly when she sees us. She recovers quickly and smiles down at me, and such love swells in my heart because I know her. I know Anna.
I’m nine and my mother takes a step toward me and holds out her hands, and I know in my heart that she’s not trying to hug me, she’s trying to grab me and take me away. I’ll never see my friends again. I’ll never see my family again. I’ll never see Otter and Dominic (though this last causes a weird pulling sensation in my head, because I don’t know who Dominic is yet, but I still think his name). But it is my brother I think of the most. It is Bear. Bear is my life. He is my everything now. I am nine years old and I don’t know anything different. Without him, there would be no me. I know this down to my very bones.
I was five when my mother told Anna something had come up, that she needed Anna to watch me for a couple of hours. There was a strange lilt to her voice, as if she was distracted, talking from far away. I know Anna heard it, too, because a worried look crossed her face, but she pushed it aside and told my mother of course she would. Of course she could help.
“If it’s not me,” Julie said when I was five, “then Bear will pick him up.”
“I just came to see you,” Julie says when I am nine. “I came to see you because I missed you and I thought maybe we could talk. I thought maybe we could make it like it used to be, even for a little while. Wouldn’t you like that? Don’t you think we could do that?”
I back away and she must take it as an invitation, because she walks through the door and closes it behind her. “Where is your brother?” she asks, and I think, That’s why you’re here. That’s why you came back. Bear.
I was five years old when she leaned down in front of me and put her hands on my shoulders. I was five years old when she looked me in the eye and said, “You be good, okay?” And wasn’t there something in her eyes right then? Something so close to joy and freedom that it bordered on insanity? There was, but I was only five years old and I didn’t yet have the capacity to understand the sharp edges of the world. I didn’t yet understand that when you put your hand out, you could get bitten.
I am nine years old when I find my voice, and I shout for Mrs. Paquinn. I hear the worry in her voice as she calls back, and I run for her. I run for her even as my mother says my name behind me. Mrs. Paquinn has pushed herself up from the couch and opens her arms for me and I jump into them, because I’m just a little guy still, and things are changing. Once again, things are changing.
I was five years old while I stood on the porch of Anna’s house and watched my mother drive away. Her last words to me were I’ll see you later.
I am nine years old when she comes back for her own selfish reasons that I won’t know for years to come.
“Tyson,” she said when I was five.
“Tyson,” she says when I am nine.
I open my eyes and I am nineteen years old, lying in my bed, awoken from a dream, the dream I’m having more and more.
And for the first time in a long time, I continue to think about my mother long after the dream fades.
“YOU LOOK tired,” Corey tells me a few days later. We’re lying on the beach, a stretch of warm weather ahead of us, the sky a clear blue above. It’s the first sunny day we’ve had since I’ve come back home, and Corey’s not allowing me to wallow in my superimportant and totally reasonable angst alone in my room. He dragged me out, telling me that if he didn’t, soon I’d be pale, listening to Mary Chapin Carpenter, and writing sad poetry about how nobody understands my existence because nobody can understand the breaking of my heart like I was some overly emotional lovesick teenager.
Of course, I feigned outrage, telling him that I would never write angst-filled poetry, and even if I did, I was a teenager, so I could totally be forgiven. This, of course, was me lying through my teeth, as I’d already written the following on the back of an old protest flyer with a gnawed-on Bic pen, my soul poured into and piercing every single word:
Consternation, Thy Name Is Me