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I was done. I held my future in my hands as I stared at my past. I took a step toward her. “You know,” I said bitterly, “you almost won. You almost destroyed me. You almost destroyed the Kid. You almost took Otter from me. But you didn’t. In the end, you didn’t win. You want to know why, Mom? You want to know why you didn’t win?”
She said nothing.
I crouched down before her and took her hand in mine, ignoring how she tried to pull it away. I squeezed, not hard enough to hurt, not hard enough to leave bruises, but hard enough to get her attention. “You didn’t win,” I said, “because we don’t belong to you. You didn’t win because you have no part in who we are. Our family made us. My brothers made me who I am. They may not all be blood, but it doesn’t matter. They’re mine. And you will never take them away from me.” I tightened my grip before I stood up and stepped away.
“Don’t come back here,” I said quietly. “Maybe Ty will want to find you one day. That’s his choice. Maybe our sister will want to know us, if you tell her about us. That’s her choice. But don’t you come back here.
You’ve done enough.” I looked at her once more, trying to remember anything good. I couldn’t find a thing.
I t
urned and walked away. Or, at least I tried.
“Derrick,” she called out, her voice broken.
Against my better judgment, I stopped. I didn’t turn around.
“I’m sorry about Oliver,” she said. She almost sounded like she meant it.
“How did you hear about him?”
“It… it was on the news? You didn’t know?”
“Know what?”
“The guy who hit him was drunk. There… his daughter was in the car.
She died.”
I nodded.
“I agreed to give you Tyson,” she said, her words rushed, “because I couldn’t stop thinking about that little girl. I stared at the court papers, thinking about the girl and wondering what would have happened if it was Tyson. I didn’t know if that… if that power of attorney I gave you for your birthday would have been enough to take care of him, should he be hurt. I didn’t know how you’d survived this long. I thought this would make things easier. I thought that you’d understand, maybe even—”
“Don’t.”
“But—”
I whirled around, and my eyes felt like fire, and I burned. My jaw twitched as I repeated, “Don’t.”
She nodded. And stood. And watched me for a moment. What went through her head then, I don’t know. I don’t think I’ll ever know. I don’t think I’ll ever care. It doesn’t matter. Out of everything, it mattered the least.
And then she walked away.
I was back in Otter’s room before I even realized I was running. He looked the same. I took up my post next to his bed, his hand in mine, the wedding ring flashing in the light. “Enough,” I whispered harshly. “Enough.
I don’t want to be strong anymore. I need you. Wake up, goddamn you.
Wake up. Wake up.”
Wake up.
I want you to be mine, can’t you see?
THE fifth and the sixth days were the hardest. The fifth and the sixth days were the hardest because I kept my mother to myself. I didn’t tell anyone about her visit, nor did I show anyone the custody paperwork she’d brought to me. I found the nurse and told her in a rough voice that she was to keep what she saw to herself. She nodded, her eyes wide.
Those two days were the hardest because Otter didn’t wake up. Those two days were the hardest because Mrs. Paquinn continued to waste away, the shunt in her skull relieving the pressure but not enough to make a difference. I could see the veins, pronounced in her arms. Her skin was white. The doctors didn’t think she’d be able to breathe on her own, and they left her on the respirator. They told us that we should be prepared. They told us that we should start saying our good-byes.
They told me privately that if it came down to it, I would need to decide to take her off life support. That decision buried me under an ocean so vast it couldn’t be real. Aftershocks built in strength, and I trembled, I quaked.
