I look to Otter for help. He’s staring down at Ty with an almost matching look of anger. I almost want my mother to walk in right now, to see all of us how we are now, to feel the full brunt of our wrath. I want her to shrink away and leave with her tail between her legs and beg our forgiveness as she walks out of our lives forever. She doesn’t deserve to be here. She doesn’t deserve to get to come in and ruin the uneasy stability that we have only just achieved after so long. It’s not fair.
“Otter,” I start.
“No, Bear,” he says, almost with the same vehemence as the Kid. “I know what you’re going to ask, and my answer is no. I’m not going to take the Kid away from here and leave you alone with her.” He looks up at me, and his eyes are hard and blazing, but in more control than either the Kid or myself. “I’ve unknowingly spent the last three years wanting you back and now that I have you, I’m not going to let you face this by yourself. I love you too much for that.” He pauses, considering. Then he reaches up and squeezes the Kid against him again. “I love you both too much for that.”
“You can’t make me leave, Bear,” Ty says, his voice like knives. “You can’t make us leave. I don’t want to see her, but I’m not going away now, either. You can try, but I bet Otter and I can take you down.”
I grin sickly and my boys do the same. “What did she say to you, Kid?” I ask softly. “What was she talking about before I got here?”
Ty shakes his head. “She kept asking me
about school and who my friends are and stuff.” He paws furiously at his eyes, wiping the tears away. “She asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. She asked about you too. A lot. She wanted to know where you worked and who you were hanging out with. She asked how long Otter had been back and if he ever hung out here.”
What the hell is she doing? I think. What game is she trying to play?
Careful, Bear, it whispers. Obviously something’s not right here, so you need to watch yourself.
“Is that all?” I say to the Kid.
He nods. “I didn’t answer too much.” He shrugs. “I didn’t think it was any of her goddamn business what we’re doing now. She doesn’t get to know.”
He’s right, and I know he’s my brother because he’s thinking the same exact thing I am. My heart breaks a little then for the Kid, having to face this kind of obstacle at his age. I groan inwardly at the thought of what this is going to do to him in the long run. I silently curse her again, knowing she’s unraveling everything we’ve worked for, everything we’ve done to finally put ourselves ahead. Pushing her down the stairs suddenly sounds like a good idea again. At least then we’d be rid of her for good.
I stand, as ready as I’m ever going to be. The weight of the world crashes down on my shoulder again and a wave of dizziness crawls over my eyes, and they blur and flash, and I reach my hand out, to steady myself on something, anything. I’m not too surprised when I feel Otter’s arm under my shoulder as he moves to embrace me. I hug him fiercely, putting everything I can into it so he knows just how I feel. He seems to understand as he grips me tightly as well, and I feel crushed, in a good way. I want him to keep clutching me, to force out all of the horror that’s wringing its way through my body. He pulls away and kisses my forehead and turns to pick up the Kid. Ty rests his head on Otter’s shoulders, and his arms hang limply at his sides.
“I hope you don’t expect me to keep quiet if she pisses you or me off,” Otter says as I reach to unlock the door.
“Me either,” Ty chimes in.
I chuckle bitterly. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from my guys,” I tell them, and then I open the door.
Nor I, the voice says as we walk that long walk down the hallway.
As we’re walking that short ten feet back to the living room, time slows down and almost stops. It has to for me to be able to focus on everything that’s on my mind. Oh God, I don’t want to remember these things. I don’t want to think about them, but I can’t stop, and as I take another step toward a fucking cold inevitability, I sink lower and lower into the waves and then and then….
And then—
It’s my fifth birthday and Mom has forgotten and decides to get drunk at ten in the morning with some guy whose name I don’t know. Her eyes are glassy as they run over me, watching me sit at the kitchen table with them, knowing, just knowing that soon she’s going to yell surprise and there will be cake and balloons and presents. She pours herself and Unknown Guy another shot and they toast each other, and then they raise the glasses to me and knock them back and got ready for another. They are both passed out by noon, and I spend the rest of the day in my room, reading to myself and feeling an early tremor.
And then—
I’m eleven now, and begging my mom to let me go to Creed’s house to spend the night again. She’s been cooped up in the apartment for the last three weeks, a strange and scary bout of depression circling over her head. She doesn’t shower, she doesn’t eat. She stays locked in her bedroom and only leaves to buy cigarettes and bourbon before she’s back in her cave. I’m under specific instructions to go to school and then come right home, because, she says, what if she needs me? What if something was to happen to her, and I wasn’t there to help her? Some days, I don’t even get to go to school. But today, Creed has invited me over to his house because Otter is coming home for a break. “Otter’s going to be there,” I plead with her. “You have to let me go!” She stares at me, and for a moment, I think she’s forgotten who I am, and I dare to hope that she has. That shatters as vague recognition encroaches her face, and she shakes her head. “I said no, Der,” she tells me. “What if I needed you? Something could happen to me, and you wouldn’t be here.” She takes another long drag of her smoke that’s dangling from her lips. “Something could happen to me,” she says again, and I can see that she’s gone as she stares out the kitchen window, and I leave the room so I can break down in solitude.
And then—
I’m twelve now and she comes in my room without knocking. I quickly shove the paper I’m writing on and feel my face grow hot. I’m writing a letter to Otter, asking him if when he graduates from college and I graduate from high school, if I could come live with him. It’s a letter I know I will never send as there are dozens more just like it hidden underneath my mattress. She looks around the room and finally sits at the edge of the bed and hangs her head down, playing with her hands. “Derrick, we’ve got a situation here,” she says. “I don’t know how the hell this happened.” I don’t answer, hoping she’ll take the hint and go away so I can get back to my letter. I’m hoping she’ll leave me alone so I can imagine what it would be like to be all grown up and for Otter and me to have our own house, and we could do whatever we wanted and there would be no one to tell us no. She doesn’t get it. “Derrick,” she sighs, “I think I’m pregnant.” When she says this, I feel the ceiling come crashing down, and I squint my eyes shut, praying to Whoever will listen to take her away. To make her leave me alone. Or, at the very least, to be utterly and completely wrong about what she just told me. I don’t know what to say to her, and seven months later, I have a little brother and all those letters go unsent.
I’m thirteen and I’m Bear from then on.
I’m fifteen, and she leaves for three days without telling me where she’s going.
I’m almost seventeen when she mentions someone named Tom.
And then—
I’m about to graduate high school now, and I come home one night from work. There’s no one here, and I try not to panic, and that’s when I see it, the three-page letter sitting on the table, full of misspelled words and broken promises. There’s a moment, a crystal-clear moment of pure clarity, and it’s the closest I have ever been to insanity in my life. I feel myself becoming unhinged and start to break, and the tremors turn into shockwaves, and I clutch the paper in my hands, and the magnitude is like something I’ve never known. It’s brought on by words, words like “I know this is going to be hard for yu to read” and “I have to leave.” I slam a picture into the wall, breaking it against my hand and hear, “Tom sez that Ty can’t go” and “I am going to leave him here with yu.” I bleed, and all I can think of is how she finished it, how she ended it all: “Please don’t try looking for me. Mom.” I scream.
I’m eight and picking up empty beer cans.