I think I’ll balk at it. Sandy’s nice and he’s becoming my friend, but I’ve known him all of two days, and there are things I haven’t told people I’ve known for years. I open my mouth to tell him thanks, but no thanks, but instead I say, “One morning when I was five years old, I woke up on the couch. I looked down, and Bear and Otter were sleeping on the floor. Otter was curled around Bear protectively, and I remember thinking how happy I was about that, how Bear needed someone to look out for him. I thought I couldn’t do it on my own because I was just a little guy.
“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.”