Who We Are (The Seafare Chronicles 2)

How the hell can she ask that? “Of course I am!” I snap at her. “Isn’t it pretty fucking obvious by now?”

“Two things: one, try to watch the language when the social worker is in the house. I’ve heard she can be kind of a hard-ass, and we don’t need anything knocking you down on her list.”

“Oh, dang,” I say. How fucking stupid is that?

“Better. Two: it would be pretty obvious to me had you already called and set up the appointment like I told you to do. Do I need to call Otter? Or Mrs. Paquinn? Or Anna or Creed? Don’t make me tell on you.”

And she would too. Our lawyer is a tattletale, and my family is nosy as all hell. They’ve all already gotten on my case about my signing the initial petition a day later than I was supposed to. (Creed: “It’s only a signature, dude. The first step and all that jazz.” Anna: “Won’t you feel better once this whole thing is over with? Just sign the damn thing!” Mrs. Paquinn: “I would forge your signature if I thought it would help, but I can’t do that because that would be bad karma and my face would probably fall off and I’d forever be known as The Woman Who Pissed Off Buddha” (don’t ask).

Otter: “I’ll blow you if you do it right now” (I totally took him up on that one). The Kid, his lip trembling, his eyes wide but glinting: “Don’t you want to get custody of me, Papa Bear? I thought you loved me! I wish my mom were here!”) So I don’t take Erica’s threats idly, knowing full well she has the rest of the cool kids on speed dial.

I mumble something at her, to which she replies, “Sorry, didn’t catch that.”

“The Kid is going to freak,” I say again, a little louder.

“And yet, you both don’t have a choice. You forget I know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of one of his rampages. Do you remember what happened when he found out I’m a registered Republican?”

He’d asked her what it felt like to live without a soul and to have Fox News make love to her without having bought her dinner first. And that’s me cleaning it up quite a bit, knowing I’ll now have to have a darn filter with the social worker coming in. We’d had a long talk with the Kid after that little colorful burst of Kid-ism (“Do you even know what a Republican is, Bear? Pretty soon, she’s going to be having me want to vacation back East with my perfectly coifed hair and starched sweater vests and vote on giving tax breaks to the rich! I demand you fire her!”). He might act like an adult, but he’s still a Kid and needs to watch his mouth, and I told him as much. He’d looked at me so incredulously when I’d threatened to ground him for a week for every curse word he used. When he saw that I was serious, he grumbled dark things at my person that undoubtedly would have been hilarious had I not been trying to prove a point.

“I remember,” I sigh. “But you haven’t heard his views on psychotherapy yet. And trust me; you’ve heard nothing until you’ve heard that.”

“I know,” she says. “And I know sometimes it can feel like a burden to be in charge of a gifted child, but you have to make him understand, Bear.

And you can’t be worried about the reprisal. You’re the adult, remember?

It’s not as if you are doing this just to upset him. It’s a state requirement, and it’s going to be the only way the courts will agree to grant you custody.”

“I’ll call today,” I say, knowing there’s nothing left to argue with.

“And then?” she asks.

God, she’s so annoying! “And then I’ll call you back with the date and time of the appointment so you can call to verify. You’re a flipping hardcore female dog, you know that?”

Erica laughs. “Subtle, Bear. Real subtle. I can see where the Kid gets it from. And for the amount I’m being paid for this, you bet I’m going to be a flipping hard-core female dog.”

There’s a question I’ve been avoiding, and it’s one that I want to ask but am not sure if I want to know the answer. I’m sure she would have told me had she found anything out, but I still can’t help but wonder. Gathering my resolve and trying to sound as casual as possible, I ask, “Have you found her yet? Or anything?”

I hear her stop typing on her keyboard, a sure sign that I have her undivided attention. There’s tiny little sigh, and I almost want to know what she’s thinking right now, wanting to see everything she sees. But instead of saying anything further, I wait.

Silence. Then, “I’m surprised you haven’t brought that up sooner, Bear.

What happens if I say yes?”

I think hard for a moment, only to realize it would change nothing. I tell her as much. “Have you, then?” I ask. “You know, found her?”

“No, Bear. We haven’t.” I don’t know which answer I was expecting, and I don’t know if the one I’ve gotten makes me feel relieved or not. “She hasn’t filed taxes in the last three years, so it’s unknown if she has a job or not. And so far, the search through the DMV database still only shows her Oregon driver’s license. And an old unpaid speeding ticket from 2004.”

“I remember that ticket,” I tell her quietly. “She was late for work.

Again. The cop almost arrested her for screaming at him. She got fired, and for weeks afterward, all she could do was blame the cop, that the cop got her fired, that she was going to sue him and the Pizza Shack and get a bunch of money and travel. She said she always wanted to travel.”

Wow, it sighs. That didn’t come out sounding like you have issues at all.

Why do you remember these things? Why do you care? Could it be that Bear still wuvs his mommy? It chuckles. I wonder what she would say if asked to name a memory she has about you. A good one. Any good one. What do you think she would say, Bear? You think she would say anything at all? Let’s be honest: if she did say anything, it would probably be the clichés she seems to live her life as now, the evil mother quoting scripture against the horror that is homosexuality. The Bible says … Leviticus says … God says . Fuck her.

Fuck her and your memory of her. The quicker it’s gone, the better off you’ll be. You can’t forget unless you consciously decide to do it. Why hold on to her when she thinks nothing of you?

“Bear?” Erica asks, and then she hesitates, but only for a moment. “Do you ever miss her?”