T.J. Klune - Bear, Otter, and the Kid 2 - Who We Are (37 page)

Eventually, though, somewhere outside of Portland, as we drive in silence through the dark, he reaches over and grabs my hand and doesn’t let go.

“I
DIDN
’
T
mean to cut your trip short,” Mrs. Paquinn says as she opens the

door at one in the morning. “I’m sorry if you thought I did.”
“It’s fine,” Otter says in reassurance. “We were ready to come home.”

She smiles. “Did you have a nice time? I’m told at those bars they have men who dance around in cages with dollar bills around their privates and not much else. Sounds like my version of heaven.”

“We had fun,” I tell her, itching to go down to the bathroom and wake up the Kid. “A little loud, but it was fun.”

 

“We’re homebodies,” Otter says, raising my hand to kiss the knuckles. “Especially when the Kid needs us.”

“He’s just worried, I think,” Mrs. Paquinn says quietly, no recrimination in her eyes and voice. “Not that it’s founded in anything, but… I think he’s just in a fragile place right now. Probably overwhelmed with all the change that’s occurred in his life.” I try to protest halfheartedly, but Mrs. Paquinn silences me with a gnarled raised hand. “It’s not a bad thing, Bear McKenna; how can it be? All that you two have received in these last months is a blessing, and you’ll never hear me say otherwise. Tyson is an old soul: he might portray strength, but he’s still made of glass and must be handled as such. But he could not be in better hands.” She raises her hand, and it shakes as it touches my cheek gently, and all I can think of is—

bear-rick

—getting down the hallway as fast as I can, to scoop him up and let him know that I will never let the earthquakes get too strong. “Now,” Mrs. Paquinn says, “I will leave you to it and will see myself out.” She starts to protest as Otter hands her a wad of bills for her services, but he ignores her and opens her purse and puts it in her pocketbook for her. She kisses us both on the cheek and steps out into the night. I watch until she’s safely in her car and on her way before shutting the door behind us.

“You want me there with you?” Otter asks me.

I don’t even have to think about it. “Yeah. He needs to see us both, right? It’s not just him and me anymore. Or even you and me. It’s the three of us, and he needs to understand that. Let’s just get him out of the bathtub, and we can talk tomorrow.”

And that’s what we do. Otter follows me into the bathroom, and I have to stop my heart from tearing in two as I see the Kid curled up at the bottom of the bathtub, his hair falling over his face, his pajamas riding up one leg to reveal white skin. He shudders once, and I realize he must be cold. I can’t leave him in there anymore. I bend down and put my right arm under his legs and my left arm under his head and lift him up into me. God, he’s so little. So light. How could something that weighs so little mean so much? I don’t have an answer to that question, even though it seems like it’s all I can think about. I watch him as I walk down the hallway of the Green Monstrosity, and I think he might wake, but he just mutters to himself and rolls his head over and buries it against my chest. There’s a huff, then, and a sigh, and he relaxes. I pass his room with a look, and Otter doesn’t say anything. I know he’s fine with this. I put the Kid in our bed and pull the covers up and over his shoulders to keep him warm. Otter hands me my pajama shorts and we change in the dark, not speaking, but somehow knowing what each other would say if we did.

I crawl in beside the Kid and Otter follows me in, and we pull the covers up and over our heads for the Cave of Bear and Otter, but now made for Bear, Otter, and the Kid. He spoons up behind me as I reach over to brush a fallen lock of hair off the Kid’s forehead. The last thing I remember is the way the moonlight falls across my little brother’s face, allowing me to see him clearly one last time before I fall asleep. It’s enough, for now.

I’
M AWAKENED
to sounds of the bedroom TV quietly playing CNN in the
background and Otter snoring loudly in my ear, his arm laying heavy on my side. I crack open an eye and find the Kid watching me.

 

“You came home,” he says finally, his voice betraying nothing. “I thought you’d be back this afternoon.”

 

“We decided we’d rather be here.” I yawned, stretching to allow my back to pop. Getting old sucks.

“Mrs. Paquinn didn’t call you or anything?”
“About what, Kid?”
He shrugs. “Kinda had a bad night.”

I pat the pillow next to my head, and he sighs as he lays back down, his little hands tucked under his cheek as he faces me, his nose inches from mine. “Why was it a bad night?” I ask him.

He reaches out and touches my cheek, my forehead, my hair. “Just got scared, I guess. I don’t know. It was stupid.”

 

“Earthquakes?” I ask him lightly.

 

“Yeah,” he whispers. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you. I didn’t feel good, and I didn’t know what else to do.”

“I know you didn’t, Kid,” I say as his hand comes down to play with my fingers, an action so like him that it causes the breath to be knocked from my chest. “Why’re you scared?” I manage to get out.

He rolls his eyes but can’t seem to look at me. “It’s dumb,” he mutters. “I’m a smart person. I know things a lot of other people don’t. I could do everything they throw at me at school with my eyes closed and still do better than everyone else. So I don’t know why I get like this, that I think these dumb things. But I can’t get them out of my head, and it hurts.”

I grow concerned. “Like, you have headaches?”

He shakes his head as he picks at my fingernail. “No it’s… hard to explain, Papa Bear. It’s like… you know how you get sometimes, when a thought gets in your head and you can’t get it out, and Otter and me make fun of you for it because you never end up making sense when you speak?”

“I’m aware of this, yes,” I say dryly, only to see a sliver of a smile ghost its way across his lips before it disappears.

“It’s kind of like that. I know you won’t leave me. I know Otter won’t leave us. I’m smart. I’m rational. But… it just gets in there, and sometimes I don’t know what’s real or not. It’s like I can’t breathe, and I get scared because I don’t know what I’d do without you, Bear. I think I’d just lie down and die.”

Ah, fuck me.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I tell him roughly, grabbing his hand between my own. “I don’t know what it’ll take to make you believe me, but I’ll do it. I don’t care what it takes, Tyson. You tell me what I need to do and nothing will stop me from doing it.”

He sighs as he watches me. “I know, Bear. Don’t you think I know that? I do, I promise I do. I’m just broken, I guess.”

I kiss the back of his hand. “You’re not broken, Kid. You’re just a little guy. You’re just a little guy, and I’ve probably pushed us too fast. Moving and school. That whole thing with Anna. Mom. Otter. I’ll be honest, I don’t know how you’ve done as well as you have. It seems like everything is going so well that sometimes I forget you’re not used to things like this, that you had things the way you like them, and I had to go and change everything.”

He looks slightly panicked. “We don’t have to move again, do we? I
like
it here, Bear! I don’t want to go back to that stupid apartment. I like my room! I like Otter being here every day and Dominic being right down the road. I promise I won’t get upset again, Bear! I don’t want to move.” By the end, his breath was catching in his chest, his face red, eyes wide. I drop his hands and cup his face, holding him still so he won’t try and squirm away.

“Now, you listen here, Tyson,” I say, doing my best to sound like Otter. “We’re not going anywhere, okay? I like our house too, and I like my room and Dominic and I happen to love the guy that sounds like he’s growling behind me. We can’t leave. There’s other people that depend on us now, other people that need us. What do you think would happen if we just left? Dominic would be pissed off because he needs you, because you’re his best friend. Otter needs us because we’re his family now. Did I tell you he said that? He told me he’s proud that he has his very own family now, one that he doesn’t have to share with anyone else.

“There’s always been you and me, Kid, and I’ve always done my best to make sure you’re okay, and you’ve always done the same for me. And I think we did fine, the way we were. But that wasn’t living, Tyson. That was getting by. And you don’t deserve that kind of life. And I’m starting to think I don’t, either. We’ve got people now, people that will be sad if we’re gone, people who want us around. I don’t think I understood what that meant. Not… before she left. Certainly not after. But that doesn’t matter anymore.

“And there’s one thing I want you to remember, one thing I want you to know for the rest of your life, no matter what else happens in the future, no matter where we end up. I need you to remember one thing for me. Can you do that, Kid?”

He nods as his breath trembles from his body.

“You remember that I’ve got you. Okay? Whenever things look rough, whenever you don’t think you can take another step and those fucking earthquakes seem to be able to tear you apart, you have to know that I’ve got you. I promised you that a long time ago, and I think I’ve been pretty good at keeping my word to you. I may have messed up a bunch of other times and probably will again, but I will never let you down. You hear me? I’ve got you, and that will never change.”

And that’s all he can take, and it’s all I can take, and suddenly he’s in my arms, the weight of him the greatest thing I’ve ever known, and he cries into my neck. I thank God, that malevolent bastard, who’s done his best to knock us down, who’s seemed to have a personal vendetta against the Kid and me. I thank God because the only way that I have the Kid as I do is because of some miraculous occurrence, some unbelievable twist of fate. Throughout the shitstorm that’s been our lives, through everything we’ve had to endure, something somewhere thought I’d do okay by him. That I’d give him what he needed, and that in turn, he’d give me everything.

It’s moments later, and the Kid’s breathing has calmed, my neck wet and snotty and wonderful. Otter’s arm is still draped over my waist, but his snoring has stopped, and I know he’s awake, but I don’t know for how long or how much he’s heard. That’s okay, though. I hope he’s heard enough to know the Kid is good. Not all the way, but getting there. Just like Otter and me.

“This is probably why I’m in therapy, huh?” the Kid finally says, causing me to laugh.

“Probably,” I agree. “That and the fact that you’re the smartest nineyear-old vegetarian ecoterrorist-in-training on the planet. I’m sure Eddie is going to turn you into a well-adjusted adolescent.”

Tyson raises up and smacks me across the chest. “You wish,” he says, scowling as I wipe away the wetness from his cheeks. “I’m going to be like this forever.”

“I hope so, Kid.”

“Can I go get some cereal and eat it in your bed? I like watching CNN in here, and Anderson is coming on to do a special morning report on bovine growth hormones that I just can’t miss. It’s supposed to be life-changing.”

“Sure, Kid. We’ll have breakfast in bed. Can you bring up that pizza in the fridge? Don’t worry about putting it in the microwave. It’s better that way.”

He rolls his eyes as he slides off the bed. “I’m going to pick off the multilevel animal genocide you call toppings. Seriously, Papa Bear, you’re going to have a heart attack by the time you’re thirty. Not even Otter will love a bald man with heart palpitations. He told me.”

I throw a pillow at him as he runs cackling from the room. And then it’s quiet.
“How much did you hear?” I finally ask him.

Otter rolls over on top of me, his massiveness giving me serious ideas of either asphyxiating or getting a boner. I think some people try to do that at the same time. Weirdos.

He looks down at me with the gold-green shining and says the only thing he can, the only thing that’s necessary. There’s that Otter grin, and before his lips touch mine, I think of the sun.

“Enough,” he says as he lowers into the kiss. “And you know what? I’ve got you both.”
8. Where Bear Marks the Passage of Time
A
ND
so we lived. Or at least as best we could.

It seemed like time sped up then, and the next few months flew by quicker than I expected. Several things of note occurred, which I will explain here. Some good, some not so good. There were days that were rough, days when Ty needed the bathtub, days when I needed it. Otter would always find himself sitting with us in there, holding onto us both until the earthquakes subsided. They never lasted long. But the one thing that you should know during those past few months is that we
did
live, and we
were
okay, for the most part. There were still issues, to be sure, but I think that there always will be. People like Ty and myself aren’t ever going to be completely free of our damnable neuroses, no matter how hard we try. Acceptance is the next step, I’m told. Hell, at least I’m no longer in denial.

Mostly.

Probably the biggest thing you should know is that sometime in October I received a phone call from Erica Sharp, one that I knew was coming but still could not prepare for. It’s like being aware that a car accident is about to happen. You see it coming, you know there’s nothing you can do, and you brace yourself for impact and hope that it won’t be enough to shatter you into a billion little pieces. I braced for that impact and had apparently been doing so for a while, but it didn’t seem to matter. Hearing the words sent chills down my spine, and I gripped the phone so tight that I thought it would break apart in my hands. Lucky for me, the Kid was in the backyard with Dominic. Otter was going over prints for an upcoming show displaying his work at an AIDS benefit. It was a pretty big deal, and he’d been busy for the past couple of weeks, getting everything ready.

The words?
“Derrick,” Erica said gently. “We’ve found her.”

At first, I didn’t know what she meant. I think it was my brain’s last ditch effort to avoid insanity, but it only lasted for a split second before my hand started to squeeze the phone and my jaw began to ache. My heart thumped erratically in my chest. I felt a cold sweat bead out on my forehead, and all I can remember thinking is
finally. Finally we’ve found you
. It wasn’t a relief born out of need; well, not the need of Julie McKenna. It was more the necessity of finally knowing where she was, that I could look at a map and point and say, “There she is. She’s somewhere right there.” It took away a layer of the mysteriousness off it all, but I didn’t know how much further I wanted to dig.