T.J. Klune - Bear, Otter, and the Kid 2 - Who We Are (41 page)

“Anna! Which one is it!” I cry out, unable to stand up straight.

She doesn’t seem to hear me as she stumbles toward me, and then her arms are around me, and she cries into me. “How did you know?” she asks. “How did you know to come here?”

What does that matter? It doesn’t. It doesn’t matter.
Give me a fucking name!
“Tyson called,” I manage to say.

 

She pulls back and looks confused through her tears. “Tyson? How would he know? I didn’t tell anyone I was here!”

 

I don’t understand. “Otter?” I say meekly. “Mrs. Paquinn?”

She doesn’t get it. “I didn’t tell them, either! I just started feeling sick a couple of days ago, and it didn’t go away, so I came in to get checked out and… and… oh, Bear. Oh, I don’t know how or why or what now!” She starts crying again into my neck, and I want her to stop. I’ve got to find him. I’ve got to find my family. She’s part of it, but I need to find the rest. I want to tell her that she can go with me, that we can look for them together, but I don’t know how to say it.

“Creed’s going to kill me,” she sobs.
Creed? Creed?

Then she says, “Oh, Christ. I can’t be a mother! I can’t do that! How could we have been so stupid?”

Mother? I hate my mother. She left, and the Kid and I were alone, although not really. We had others. We had people. We had family. They weren’t blood, but blood doesn’t matter. They were ours and we were theirs. I need. I need them now.

“Bear,” she cries. “I can’t be pregnant! I just can’t be!”
Oh. Oh. That. She’s pregnant. Creed.
“How far?” someone asks, and I realize it’s me.

“Six weeks,” she sniffs. “Creed’s Christmas break. The condom must have broken.”

And suddenly I can speak. “Anna. I love you. I love you. We’ll fix this, somehow. But if you don’t let me go right now and let me find them, I’m going to shove you, and I know you’re having a baby and that’s bad, but I’ve got to find them. They’re here and I don’t know where, but I have to find them.”

She looks scared. “Who’s here, Bear? How’d you know to come here?”

I don’t want to say it out loud, because if I do it’ll make it true. But I have no choice because I’m not in my right mind. I’m on the edge of everything, and I am about to float away without my tether. But somehow, I do it anyways. Ah God, it hurts. It hurts so much. “Mrs. Paquinn had a stroke, I think. The Kid is here with her.”

The tears spill over her eyes again, and she moans. “Otter?” she asks. “Where is he? Tonight was supposed to be… tonight was….” She looks down at my left hand for some reason.

“Accident,” I say. “The hospital called and said there’s been an accident.”

She’s horrified, but then something happens to her. Something happens to Anna. The tears don’t exactly dry up, and she’s still hiccupping, but her face hardens and her eyes flash, and it’s like she’s
alive
, it’s like she
knows
. She pulls me into her arms, and her lips are near my ear and—

you’ve broken my heart

 

—I want to collapse against her, to let her carry the weight because I can’t. I can’t—

 

but it was mine to give

—take it anymore. I can’t take gifts only to have them taken away from me. I can’t have something to call my own because it will always be taken back. I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve this woman holding me as she gathers her strength, as she gathers her courage to be the strong one, to be the one I can’t be right now. Everyone always leaves.

“We’ll find them,” she says harshly, in control. “We’ll find them all.”

T
HE
Kid is first, as he rightly should be. I try not to think about the fact that he’s the only one out of the three that can probably hear me, that can actually know I’m there. Anna asked someone something, and we were led down a long hallway, the lights overhead buzzing. One of them flickered. I wanted to ask if they had someone to change that, but didn’t know why I should care.

And then I see the Kid, sitting in a plastic chair, a nurse bent down in front of him, talking to him quietly. His eyes are closed and his face scrunched up, and I know he’s been that way since I told him to do it. Anna lets me go, and I move quickly. The nurse sees me coming and takes a step back, looking like she’s about to say something, but I don’t listen. I don’t know who she is. The Kid is all I see. He gasps out and starts to shudder when he feels my arms go under his, and I pull him up, up, up, and he wraps himself around my neck and shakes and cries out. I try to tell him it will be okay. I try to tell him that everything will be all right, but I can’t seem to find the words. And it’s because I
don’t
know if things will be okay. I’m supposed to be the adult here, and I can’t even tell my nine-year-old brother that things will be fine because I don’t know if they will be. I’m ashamed, but it doesn’t free the words from my mouth.

“What happened?” I ask him finally.

“She just fell,” he says as he trembles. “She said something was wrong, and her face was wrong, and she
fell
.” This starts him off again, and I am finally able to whisper nothings to him, telling him I’ve got him, can’t he feel that? I look over at Anna and see she’s on the phone, and tears are on her face, and she says, “Otter,” and “Mr. Thompson,” so she must be on the phone with his parents, letting them know what little she does.

And that almost knocks me flat. I have Tyson and he’s safe, but I have a choice. I can find Otter. Or I can find Mrs. Paquinn. I can’t do both right now. It has to be one or the other, and my heart cracks a little as there really is no question.

“Where’s Otter?” the Kid says miserably. “Did he come with you?” “Oh,” is all I’m able to get out. Where is Otter?

But I’m saved again by my pregnant ex-girlfriend. She hangs up the phone and wipes her face as she walks toward us. “I’ve called the Thompsons,” she says quietly as she touches the Kid’s face. “They’re on their way. They’re going to call ahead to make sure you don’t have any… issues trying to get in.” I know she’s being vague on purpose, and I’m almost stunned when I realize what she means. I never thought that the hospital might not let me in to see him, to get information. It didn’t seem to be an issue when the doctor called me, so I didn’t stop to think it might be one when I got here. Anger starts to fill in that pit in my stomach, and it’s unwarranted (at least so far), but I already know that if anyone tries to stop me from getting to my man, it’s going to be the last thing they ever do. Nothing is going to stop me from getting to him.

I nod. “Kid? I need you to listen to me for a moment, okay? I have to go check on something, and I’ll be back as soon as I can. Anna’s going to be here with you, and she’s going to talk to the doctor for me to find out what is going on with Mrs. Paquinn.”

I turn to look at the nurse who is hovering nearby. “My name is Derrick McKenna. Theresa Paquinn is a member of my family, and I think I have permission to hear from her doctor about her condition. Is that correct?”

The nurse nods. “She filed a power of attorney with her health insurance a couple of years ago, and we already had it in her file. I just need to see a driver’s license.”

Anna pulls my wallet out of the tux pocket and shows my ID as I hold the Kid. Once the nurse seems to be satisfied, I tell her Anna can get information in my stead. The nurse reluctantly agrees but must see something in my eyes that tells her I’m not in any mood to be fucked with.

“Where are you going?” the Kid asks me, starting to panic again. He clings to my neck, the suit coat.

“I have to make sure everything else is okay,” I tell him as gently as I can with a voice that I don’t recognize. “I promise I’ll be back, okay? Anna will stay with you the whole time.”

The Kid looks like he wants to resist, but he allows Anna to help him slide down me, and she takes his hand and pulls him close, hugging him to her side. He’s still shaking. It’s almost impossible for me to walk away.

But I do.

I make it down the elevator and try to find someone who can help me, anyone who can point the way. I finally come to a nurses station and a name comes to me: Moore. Dr. Moore. I ask the nurse on duty if she can page Dr. Moore. She tells me she can and asks me to have a seat. I do, only because I don’t know where else to go.

I watch my hands as an unknown amount of time passes. My thoughts are jumbled and tied together, the common thread being Otter. Otter is there no matter where I look. Is he alive? Is he awake? How bad is he hurt? He’s such a baby when it comes to pain, and I don’t know how much I can stand the thought of him hurting. He complains when he stubs his toe, and for such a big guy, it’s funny. It’s so funny it hurts. And… it’s… and….

He can’t. He just can’t.
“Derrick McKenna?” A voice says.

I look up and see an older woman staring down at me, a soft look on her face. She’s in scrubs, and for a moment, I think they’re covered in blood, but it’s just my mind playing tricks on me and the illusion vanishes as quickly as it arrived.

“Dr. Moore?” I ask.

 

She shakes her head. “Dr. Moore is in surgery, Derrick. My name is Dr. Woods. I was asked to come out and give you what information we have.” I’m almost able to breathe a sigh of relief. “So… you can tell me things? Even though he’s my….” I can’t finish because of the lump in my throat.

But she’s kind and seems to understand. “Yes. You’re listed as next of kin, which is just fine for now. We may need to make some… medical decision in the future, but for now, we’re okay.”

“There he is,” I hear a woman cry out. “Derrick!” I look up and see Alice and Jerry running toward me. Alice looks like she’s been crying, and Jerry’s face is lined and hard. I try to stand, but my legs won’t work, and they come to me, and I’m surrounded by them as they hug me and ask me what I know, to please say he’s okay, and that they’re here now, that I won’t have to be alone,
but is he okay
?

Dr. Woods clears her throat.
“Otter’s parents,” I say.
Dr. Woods arches an eyebrow. “Otter?”

“Nickname. Oliver. This is Dr. Woods. She was about to tell me stuff, I think.”

 

“He can hear everything we can,” Alice snarls. “He’s my son’s partner.”

“She knows that,” I say, trying to calm her down. “She said she could tell me because Otter already made sure that if something happened, I wouldn’t be left out.”

“How is he?” Jerry asks.

“He’s in surgery right now,” Dr. Woods says. “He has a broken femur”—she points to her left thigh—“and a broken radius”—she points to her left arm. “There also appears to be a laceration to his kidney, but that doesn’t look too severe. What we’re most concerned about at the moment is the swelling in his brain. It appears he hit his head against the window when he was struck. It’s too soon to say if there is any damage there that needs to be addressed, but if the swelling does not go down in a day or two, most likely a portion of his skull will need to be removed to help relieve the pressure there. Once the swelling has gone down, we’ll be able to perform a CT scan with some dye that we’ll inject to be able to determine if there is any brain damage.”

Words. So many words. And all I can hear is “brain damage.” That’s all I focus on. That’s all there seems to be.

“Now,” the doctor continues, “he’s going to be in surgery for a while longer, and then he’ll be moved into the ICU, and you’ll be allowed to see him. I will tell you that no matter how much I can prepare you, no matter what I say to you, it’s always a shock to see a loved one after having been involved in an accident. He won’t necessarily look like the Oliver that you know. He’ll have some pretty severe bruising, some superficial burns on his arms and face from the airbag. He’ll be hooked up to a respirator to assist him with his breathing. There are other machines he’ll be hooked up to that monitor his vitals. He’ll have stitches above his right eye for a cut he sustained, and temporary casts on his leg and arm. But, he still
is
the Oliver you know. He is still your son and partner and that is what you have to remember.” Her face and voice are kind. It’s almost too much. “I think it’s safe for you all to be cautiously optimistic. He’s a big guy, and he’s in great shape, so his body will be able to heal because of that. He won’t wake up right away, and it actually may be up to a couple of weeks, so just please remember to have patience. I like to think that people in his situation can hear you, so talk to him, love him, let him know you’re there.”

Jerry and Alice ask question after question, but I’m numb. Cautiously optimistic? What does that even mean? Proceed with caution. Caution means to slow down. To be wary. To be watchful.

“When can I see him?” I blurt out, interrupting the conversation around me.

 

Dr. Woods watches me for a moment. “Did you say his nickname was Otter?”

I nod, a tear spilling from my eye.
“You wouldn’t happen to be Bear, would you?”
“Yes,” I gasp out.

She smiles sadly at me as she reaches into her pocket and pulls out a plastic bag, smeared lightly with blood. Inside I see a wallet. It’s Otter’s. That’s Otter’s blood. My eyes burn.

She opens the bag and pulls out a piece of paper with bloody fingerprints on it wrapped around a little box. “I think this is yours. He had it clutched in his hand when he was brought in here. The EMTs told us that he was conscious for a brief moment at the scene when they arrived, and that he said he couldn’t lose what was in his hand, that he needed to get to Bear. He… seemed to think you were in the car. It was still in his hand when they brought him in, and the note has your name on it, and I knew he’d want you to have it. I put a rubber band around it to hold them together.”

She hands the bag to Jerry and the note-wrapped box to me. The blood is still tacky against my hands. Otter’s blood. In my hands.

Dr. Woods tells us that she’ll be back once she has an update, and that we should just sit tight for now. She’ll let us know once he’s done with surgery and we can see him.

I wait until she walks away before I start to breathe again.
This box. This little box in my hand.

I slide off the rubber band and peel off the note, opening it to see Otter’s handwriting mixed in with the Kid’s scrawled across the lined paper, the blood smudging some of the words, but not enough to make them illegible. I wish they were. The words are a beginning, and I feel like I’m at the end.