to know that this is us, that this is who we are.
Epilogue
Or, Otter’s Perspective, as It Were
(Bear’s Really Gonna Freak)
Six Years Later
FOG in June is going to be one thing I won’t miss when we move. My leg hurts these days when it’s really wet outside, and this morning was no different. The fog came in off the ocean in these great waves, and I felt that old familiar stiffness when I climbed out of bed, trying to keep Bear from hearing the way I groaned when my feet touched the ground. But of course he heard. He hears everything. Without a word, he got out of bed and went to the bathroom, where I heard him rooting around in the medicine cabinet.
The sink turned on, and sure enough, he walked out with a couple of Tylenol and a glass of water, which he handed to me, and watched and waited until I swallowed them right in front of him. Once he was satisfied I’d taken the painkillers, he made me lie back down on the bed and massaged my leg with those gentle hands of his until I was a puddle under his touch.
God, I love that man with all of my heart.
I was told I’d probably have a limp for the rest of my life following that accident so many years ago. I suppose I was lucky that a limp is all I came away with. When you lose seven days like that, it can weigh heavily on a person, especially someone like myself, who feels the need to protect and shelter those that are most important to me. The fact that I was not able to do so caused anger in the days that followed, anger that I tried to keep in. I would still end up lashing out at those around me, those that I wanted to help. This made things worse, at least for me. I was the strong one, after all.
The big guy. The oldest. The protector. I was the one that needed to provide for my family, and I felt like I’d let them down. It wasn’t until Bear told me weeks later that I needed to get over myself that I realized how right he was.
I’ve learned that no matter how much I wish it so, I can’t control everything.
Sometimes things happen beyond my abilities, and I’ve just got to accept that.
Hence the limp. Hence the pain in the fog.
What’s that thing that Bear always says? Oh, yeah: blah, blah, blah.
But today, none of that matters. Today is a day that we’ve been anticipating with no small amount of excitement and trepidation, a day that has come far too soon for Bear and myself: the Kid, who turns sixteen in a couple of weeks, is graduating high school. From here, we move back East for the Kid to go to college on some prestigious scholarship that he was offered after being chased by every Ivy League school in the country. They were like sharks who smelled blood in the water while circling a wounded seal. I made sure the Kid didn’t hear that analogy for fear of some sarcastic reprisal that I’d ever even consider calling him a wounded seal, and didn’t I know that seals were still brutally slaughtered, even though the practice was technically illegal? He’d most likely then provide me with several different pamphlets on the matter and force me to go to some PETA rally where I’d have to hold a sign showing a guy with a baseball bat standing above a baby white seal with huge eyes with words that say THIS ISN’T HUNTING. THIS
IS MURDER. And wouldn’t I feel like the asshole?
There’d been discussion, at least briefly, of the Kid going by himself to school. That was nipped in the bud almost immediately when Bear had told the Kid in no uncertain terms that he could either accept the fact that we were going with, or he could just stay here and pick a local school. I could almost see the terror in Bear’s eyes as he struggled to remain in control at the thought of the Kid thousands of miles away doing God only knows what. I think the Kid saw this as well, and for a moment, I thought he would say that he wanted to stay in Seafare, knowing it would put his brother at ease and that Dominic would still be here.
Dominic’s a cop with the Seafare PD now, and at the age of twenty-one, he’s even bigger than I am. He’s still quiet, his voice still broken and rusty, but he’s intimidating as all hell, and even though he and the Kid had argued bitterly at his choice of profession, he stuck with it, that same stoicism shining through that he’s carried since I’ve known him. I don’t know if the Kid has gotten over it, even though it’s been over a year. “So, what?” the Kid had said furiously. “You want to get shot? You want to get stabbed?
You want to fucking do that, be the big hero? Fine! See if I fucking care if your fat ass gets killed just because you think you owe it to the world after what you went through! I don’t give a damn what you do!” Later that night, when I heard the Kid weeping openly as he struggled to talk to Bear, I knew that his choice had been made for him, and that we’d be leaving Seafare to follow the Kid to school.
The plan, at least at this point, is to come back after the Kid graduates.
We don’t yet know how quickly that will be, though I have a feeling things might change when the Kid turns eighteen ( that’s going to be a fun day, let me tell you). The Kid is looking at any number of the sciences as a major, and the school has pretty much given him carte blanche to do whatever he wants (“Do you think they’d let me open my own environmental detective agency?”). Bear already has a teaching job lined up for ninth-grade English and a few AP classes (“I still don’t understand how you can teach English,”
the Kid had told him after Bear graduated. “You still don’t have a grasp on the language yourself. I don’t know if the school district will appreciate you shaping young minds to essentially be Bear clones. Could you imagine? A whole army of people who suddenly and without provocation randomly say whatever it is in their heads? My God, the consequences will be staggering!”)
I already have several projects lined up for a few travel magazines back East. Apparently everyone wants pictures of old dirt roads surrounded by trees in the fall. I’m not sure how much longer photography will sustain my interest. I’ve lost the passion I used to have for it, though I can’t say why, for sure. My old Nikon doesn’t feel the same in my hands as it used to.
There’s been talk between Bear and I, late at night, when it seems safer to discuss such things, of me going back to school, as well, to do something different. I could even brush the dust off my MBA, but the thought of me going to work in corporate America makes me sick, so I don’t know. We don’t have to worry financially, at least for a while. We have time.
But not today. Today has been a blur, which is why Bear forced me and the Kid out the door to go buy the Kid a new tie, seeing as how the Kid had managed to lose half his other ones, and the ones he did have all had some message on them that Bear didn’t think would be appropriate to wear to a graduation. “A solid color,” he warned us as he put the keys in my hand and kissed me good-bye. “I’ll even take stripes. I swear to God if you both come back with a PETA tie, I’m divorcing you.” He pointed at me. “And I’m putting you up for adoption.” He pointed at the Kid. “And trust me when I say you’ll both be alone forever because no one puts up with your bullshit like me. Now, leave. I have one hundred essays to read about a fourteen-year-old’s take on Wuthering Heights, so you can obviously see I’m not in the mood for shenanigans.”
So we’re at the mall, and we find a tie and decide to give Bear a little time to himself with what I’m sure are glowing interpretations of Heathcliff and Cathy. We walk around aimlessly, randomly people-watching and looking at ideas for a few smaller presents for Bear’s birthday in a couple of days. He doesn’t know the Kid and I have already gotten him a new SUV.
The Kid had agreed, only because it’s electric. It’s the little victories that I love the most.
“You nervous?” I ask the Kid as we stare at goldfish in the pet store.
“About what?” he deflects masterfully.
“Your speech.”