Page 21 of Teddy Tea Time

Instead of arguing – and losing again – with an eight-year-old and his giant teddy bear of a big brother, I slip off the borrowed flip flops and lay down, making sure to not jostle my left arm too much. According to the x-rays, it doesn’t appear to be broken, but the doc gave me a brace and some pain killers for the next couple of days. If the swelling doesn’t go away in forty-eight hours, somehow I am supposed to come up with the money for a trip to the Emergency Room to see an actual orthopedic specialist.

It’s bad enough that today’s little excursion cost me nearly three hundred dollars. Thousands for the Emergency Room would force me to move back to Georgia to work at Uncle Mike’s factory.

Shit… I can’t even sling dog food with a busted arm. I’m fucking destined to be jobless.

“Move in with us.”

Either taking the pain meds are making me loopy or my resolve is faltering. Maybe it’s a little bit of both. After all, they got me Korean cheesecake…before realizing I was hurt.

Closing my eyes, I try to clear my mind of all of the million-bajillion problems in my life right now to focus on what I really want. If I truly move in here, I want it to be because it is something we all want, not just because I’m a broke mo-fo with no real job and a busted front door.

“Brother Bear says it’s time to eat and take your pill, Ash.”

The room is significantly darker when I open my eyes to see Gerry standing in the doorway to the bedroom. Pain meds always make me sleepy, and I guess I must have dozed off. Looking around the room, I don’t see my phone. Hell, I don’t remember touching it at all after turning off the music and seeing the wreckage that used to be my front door.

“Let him sleep if he doesn’t want to come eat,” Jace calls softly from the kitchen.

“Okay, Brother Bear!” Gerry yells back, making me flinch at the sudden noise.

While the nickname seems to be new, the lack of volume control is not. From our time together the last couple of months, I’ve figured out from Gerry that Jace takes after their father in a lot of ways with his mannerisms while Gerry takes after his wild and crazy mother – his words, not mine. Considering what I know about Jace’s mother, I think David Whitetower was attracted to the adventure of being with someone so completely opposite to himself. Gerry loved the man dearly, and the photos he shared with me tells me it was absolutely mutual.

“I’m up,” I groan before the boy sprints the length of the trailer to inform his brother.

I refuse to admit that the food smells amazing, and there is not a chance in hell that I am going to miss out on trying it. Korean barbecue is something I miss from living down in Georgia.

There is a rather large population of Korean immigrants around where my grandmother lived, so I was always stocked up on the good ramyeon and instant tteokbokki. The actual barbecue restaurants were typically outside of my price range as a teenager, so I never got to try authentic Korean food beyond the instant stuff or my own feeble attempts with cooking it when my parents weren’t going to be home. Collard greens and fried catfish are too ethnic for my mother. She could never survive kimchi.

I duck into the attached bathroom to splash some water on my face to wake up. I didn’t realize he led me back to the master bedroom earlier, which only intensifies my feelings of guilt. My arm is throbbing in the brace with each movement, but I just have to deal with it. At least the pain will remind me to remove the brace before going to sleep tonight… after I convince him to move me into the smaller room across from the back door.

An hour later, Jace is at the sink washing the few dishes we used for dinner while Gerry sits on the giant sectional with me to pick out a movie on Netflix. Apparently, we are going to do a tasting session with Korean cheesecake and various sauces. It doesn’t need anything else in my opinion, but I am not going to deprive the child of his fun. He has pulled out the caramel, hot fudge, regular chocolate syrup, maple syrup – the real stuff in the glass bottle – and strawberry jam.

“Brother Bear says the stuff in the squeeze bottle is just pure sugar, so if we want to know how it tastes with strawberry, we need something with real strawberries.”

I reach up with my right hand to ruffle his hair as he starts unwrapping what looks like at least half a dozen individual cheesecakes. Anticipation flutters in my gut as I imagine his surprise at the taste and texture combination being so different from any “cheesecake” he has likely ever had in his life. I just hope that the side effects from the pain medication I took with dinner don’t kick in until after he heads to bed. I don’t want to fall asleep in the middle of the execution of his master culinary discoveries.

“Hey, Jace? Where’s my phone?” I call out, hoping he knows where it ended up because I sure as hell keep losing track of it.

Instead of an answer, the water shuts off and the man himself walks into the living room wiping his hands on his shirt. He lets out a chuckle at the sight of the tasting extravaganza Gerry has set up before pulling my phone off the stand charger two feet away from me. Okay, so I am fucking blind. Maybe I don’t have a couple of hours before the meds kick in.

Soon enough, Gerry pushes play on one of the Naruto movies, and we begin the great cheesecake tasting session of the summer. I manage to snap a pic of both of their reactions to biting into Korean cheesecake for the first time, and it is priceless.

That pic is absolutely going to get framed and hung up for them.

19

JACE

Ash didn’t even make it halfway through the movie before they were out cold. They warned the doctor earlier that the last time they were on anything stronger than acetaminophen with codeine that they had some weird side effects, so the doctor prescribed Dilaudid for them. According to the doc, it should keep him relaxed and pain free for the next couple of days. He said most people just report needing to sleep a lot while on it.

My anxiety always creeps up when someone I love has to take prescription pain medication because of my mother. She was always just one back spasm or sprained ankle away from me almost dying on the streets because the rent money and food stamps card would get handed over to her dealer. There was almost always a delay between her falling back into her addictions and when social services would step in because I never turned her in. I wanted her to choose me over the drugs, the booze, the revolving door of men and parties…

“Can we watch another one?” Gerry asks softly when the credits start rolling on the television.

Glancing at the time on my phone, I want to say no. It’s now well after ten, and his bedtime for the summer is an agreed upon eleven each night. However, I also don’t know if Ash is going to have any issues tonight. Some people have vivid night terrors on pain medication, and I don’t want to have Gerry ever be scared of Ash.

“I’ll lift the time restrictions on your TV for tonight only, but you gotta go take your bath now and get ready for bed.”

The joy on his face gives me the warm and fuzzies even though I know he’s just happy he gets to watch cartoons in bed all night. He will likely fall asleep before midnight, but the constant noise all night will help to drown out anything with Ash at the back of the trailer.