I narrow my eyes. “Get it through your head, right now: he hasn’t done anything to me that I didn’t want him to do.”
“You weren’t like this when I was here!” she wails. “I would have never let you become this… this thing that you seem to think you are!”
“Then it’s probably a good thing you left!” I roar at her. “And if you think that you’re staying would have made one goddamned bit of difference, then you’re even more stupid than I thought!”
“Don’t… don’t even…,” she stutters. “Don’t you dare….”
I jump to my feet, my face inches from hers. “Dare what?” I sneer, feeling my lip curl up, and I know I look like Otter did just moments ago. Savage pride rolls up through me, starting at my toes and kicking its way up my spine. “Dare what?” I say again, low and hot.
“The bible says—”
“I said drop that bullshit!” I shout at her. “Who the hell are you, coming into my house, telling me what’s right and wrong? Just who the hell do you think you are?”
She attempts to pull herself up to her full height, which was never very impressive. “I know who I am,” she shivers at me. “And I know who you are… or who you were. You used to be my son, and now all I see is—is this queer standing in front of me.”
When she says this last, it takes all of my strength to keep from reaching out and knocking her across the mouth. Even that is almost not enough. I picture it in my head: my fist would bash into her face and the blood would fly as her mouth breaks, and her nose shatters. She would reel back and trip over the low coffee table that is resting at the back of her legs. She would fall backward, and her head would bounce off the table, and it would crack open, and she would lay there and not move. This shakes me more than her presence here. It shakes me to know that I could do this and not feel a single ounce of remorse. I close my eyes and try to rid myself of the dizzying sense of vertigo that threatens to take over my mind.
“What do you want?” I say, trying to keep my voice even.
“I’ll tell you what I didn’t want,” she sniffs. “I didn’t want to come home and find this—”
“This isn’t your home. Answer the question.”
“Bear,” she cries, her voice high and whining, like I remember it being. “I told you, I just wanted to see my boys!”
“I know that’s what you said,” I tell her, my eyes still closed. “But you were lying. What do you want?”
“I don’t have to stand here and let you talk to me like this,” she says, and I can feel her step away. “I don’t deserve to be treated like this,” she mutters, almost to herself. “I am still your mother, and I know what’s right for you.”
My eyes flash open, and I’ve had enough. “WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT!” I scream, my throat tearing as the words burst out of me. I swim further out to sea. In the distance, the sounds of thunder ripples through the sky, and in my mind I look to the horizon and see enormous thunderheads building. Wind slides gently over my hair, bringing with it the promise of rain. Bear, it whispers. Bear, you need to get to shore. You need to get to shore before the storm gets here. If you don’t, you’ll be pulled out and not even I can follow you there.
My mother eyes me fearfully, and for the first time in my life, I’m glad that she left when she did. Oh, I’ve felt some things that could border the relief I feel now, but never in the last three years has this overwhelming sense of rightness been so prevalent in my mind. She said that if she had stayed, Otter and I would never be Otter and me, and as much as I’d like to deny it, I have this horrible feeling that she’s right. Otter would have stayed here, and I would have gone away to school, and the chances of Otter and me aligning the way we did might never have happened. And to make matters worse, I would have left the Kid here with her. Sure, I would have kicked and berated myself every day for doing so, but I think I would have done it anyway. If she had stayed, so many things would be different, so many things would be out of place in the world. I would have never found the last pieces of the puzzle to fit together to make everything complete. I would have never been able to see the Kid become what he is today. I understand now that I can never truly hate her, because she gave me the ultimate gift: she gave me my family.
“Mom,” I sigh, the fight draining out of me, “I think you should go. I don’t want to do this with you anymore. I think you need to just go and not come back again.”
“Bear,” she says, shuddering, “I can’t leave you here like this. Not when I know now that you need your mom the most.” She shakes her head. “I need to be here for you.”
“I don’t need you,” I tell her as gently as I can. “I haven’t needed you for a very long time. You said you came here to see how the Kid and I were doing. You have your answer. You saw it with your own eyes and can go back to where ever it is you came from knowing that we are both doing fine. And we will always be that way.”
She looks like she is going to reach out and grab my shoulders, and for a moment, I think I will let her. I think I will hug her back. I think it will be the last contact that I will probably have with her. If Ty wants to try and find her someday, then that’s his choice. This will be the last time I see my mother, and however sad that sounds, it’s going to be for the best. I’ll leave here and go to Otter’s house, and I’ll let my boys wrap me in their arms, and maybe I’ll cry a little, but goddammit, I think I’ve earned it. Creed will be there, probably already filled in on the goings-on of the McKenna household, and I’ll look him in the eye and tell him that I am in love with his brother. He’ll look at me funny for a moment and then turn to Otter, who I know will be wearing that lopsided grin of his, and then he’ll look back at me, and a smile will split his face in half. He’ll laugh and shake his head and chide me for not telling him sooner. Ty will tell him that’s why he can’t say fag anymore, and Creed will walk over and hug the Kid until his back cracks, and then we’ll all go out to the living room and spend the rest of the night talking. Ty will fall asleep on the couch between us, and Creed will carry him up to his room, and Otter will look at me sleepily and hold out his hand. I’ll take it, and he will lead me to his room, and Creed will chuckle and tell us that he better not hear anything gross, and we’ll all laugh at that, and Otter will close the door behind me.
The lights will be off but the early gray dawn that can only be found on the Oregon coast will be streaming softly through the window. There will be shadows on the walls that play and dance against Otter’s skin as I lift his shirt slowly over his head. The neck of the shirt will catch on his nose, and his eyes will be hidden and his arms raised above his head, and I’ll lean in and kiss him gently. I’ll feel him smile into my mouth and pull his shirt off the rest of the way. He’ll take me into his arms, his biceps flexing and warm and hard against my body. The rest of our clothes will melt away, and when he enters me I know, I just know, the ocean will once again dry up and the clouds will fly away and there will be stars shooting across the sky, and I will cry out against him, and he’ll groan something back that sounds suspiciously like I love you, and I’ll know it to be true. The slap of skin against skin will ring throughout my head, and I will be taken to an edge that I’ve never been to before, and then we’ll both go over, and we’ll be flying. Afterward, he’ll play with my hair, and I’ll fall asleep in my spot on his shoulder, hearing him say, “The fight for you is all I’ve ever known,” and when I dream, it will be of him because she gave him to me. She gave me the chance to find him, and for that, I will never truly hate her.
I smile at my mother and start to raise my arms.
“I’m taking Ty with me,” she says.
“You’re… what?” I say, sure I have heard her wrong.
“Tyson, Bear,” she says. “I am taking Tyson with me. I can see that you are not going to go back to the way you were, the way you should be, so I have no choice.”
“You can’t,” I whisper.
She eyes me evenly. “I can and I will,” she says stonily. “I am his mother, and he is only eight years old, and he belongs to me.”
“He’s nine, you stupid bitch,” I say. “And you will never take him away from here. This is his home, and Otter and me are his family.”
“You just try and stop me,” she says and pokes me in the chest. “I told you already, Bear. Who do you think people are going to believe? Who are they going to trust? I am his mother and you… you are a disgrace. You’re barely able to take care of yourself, much less a child.”