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“That sounds good to me,” I said as I found my spot in the hollow of his neck. As I drifted away, his hand rubbed my back, and he whispered quietly in my ear, and when I fell asleep, I dreamt of him and me, because there would be a him and me. I’d been given a gift, and I would never forget it.
FOUR weeks later, the cast was removed from Otter’s arm. The first thing he did was slide the ring from the chain around his neck and put it on his finger.
It was a little loose, but that’s okay.
12.
Bear, Otter, and the Kid
I SUCK at saying good-byes. It seems like I’ve said too many of them in my lifetime, and one would think I’d be a pro at it by now, that it wouldn’t affect me as much. But I’m not, and I don’t think I ever will be. Saying good-bye can hurt, because you don’t know when and if you’ll ever see the other person again. You don’t know what will happen to them, what their lives will be like after you part. So I try to avoid them at all costs. Unless it’s inevitable, like this is.
It’s almost time for you and me to say good-bye.
I don’t know when we’ll see each other, or if we’ll ever talk like this again, you know: you and me. Besides, aren’t you just sick and tired of hearing from me by now? Christ, I know I can go on and on. Sometimes I get sick of hearing myself, so I know how it must be for you. Who knows, maybe it’ll be someone else’s turn to tell you about themselves. There’s so many other stories out there aside from my own, and I think it’s time to see what else there is to hear, what else there is to be told.
It’s not like—
Sorry, what was that?
The Kid? What about the Kid?
Oh. Right. I got custody. Duh. Did you really think I wouldn’t? Come on. I know that sometimes it got sad (totally not my fault, by the way. I just told it as it was—don’t blame me if you looked like a Wookiee when you cried), but even I wouldn’t end it on such a downer. Please tell me you never had any doubt. Of course I got the Kid. He’s mine, and no one can say otherwise.
As I was saying, it sucks that—
Sorry, didn’t catch that?
The wedding? Oh, come on. You don’t want to hear about that. It was just—
Really? Oh, Jesus Christ. You act like you’ve never been to a wedding before. It was pretty much the same as every other wedding ever. There was a beach and cake and balloons and tears and trite vows and tuxedos and smiling, happy people. Okay, there might have been some differences. Well, maybe quite a few, now that I think
about it. Fine, it really wasn’t like any wedding you’ve been to at all. You happy now? I mean, how many weddings have you been to with a vindictive seagull, bad poetry, and placenta? Well, I can proudly say I’ve been to one, and that it was my own.
All right, all right. You win. I can’t tease about custody and placenta, for God’s sakes, and not follow through with it. I’m not that big of an asshole.
So, one last story, then.
One last story before we say good-bye.
ON A day in March that looked like any day that had come before it, Eddie and Georgia gave their final report to the judge, a surly-looking man named Theodore Higgins. I had told myself not to be intimidated each time we’d gone before him but had failed spectacularly, knowing that he was judging me (ha!) every time he laid eyes on me. It didn’t help that his eyebrows had commandeered his face and grew out in great tufts that twitched when he moved his face from side to side. He looked like the quintessential villain; the only thing he was missing was a handlebar mustache and an eye patch.
Intimidated, indeed.
Georgia and Eddie sang our praises, testifying that the Kid had a good home in the Green Monstrosity, and that he had good role models in Otter and me. It’s odd, really, to hear other people talk about you like you’re not in the room, speaking to another who could change your life with a single decision. It didn’t help that I was absolutely convinced that the judge hated my guts for reasons I couldn’t quite figure out. I was sure he glared at me every time I entered the courtroom, my tie choking the life out of me (“Geez, Bear,” the Kid had said. “Stop acting like a freaking drama queen!”), the look on my face obviously indicating that I would be an unfit guardian to Ty. I told Erica I didn’t think I was going to do so well under cross-examination. She told me that there wouldn’t be cross-examination. I told her that there is always cross-examination on lawyer shows on TV. She told me to stop watching TV.
Only Erica and Otter knew of my mother’s visit to the hospital. We’d led the others to believe that she had mailed the papers to Erica’s office. It wasn’t meant to be a lie, nor did we want to purposefully deceive the others, especially The Kid. It was a decision born out of the need to protect, the desire to keep her as far away from the situation as possible. I’d been nervous when I first told Otter, sure that he was going to get pissed off at me for not telling him sooner. I’d waited until he was home and settled before I finally worked up the courage to tell him. I should have known what his reaction would be. He was angry, oh yes, probably angrier than I’d ever seen him, but it was not directed toward me. If anything, part of it was directed toward himself, that frustration again building from his missing week, where he felt he had let me down, when he wasn’t there to protect the Kid and me from the world around us. I’d rubbed his back as he gripped me tightly, again whispering that he had us, that he would never leave, and that he was going to be the strong one for me, for us. I didn’t want to push it any further, knowing that flash in his eyes when I told him about Jonah’s part in all of this meant that he was giving serious consideration to committing first-degree murder. So I let him think he was consoling me, when I was actually clutching at him to keep him from flying out of the house in a violent rage.
He told me later that he’d suspected as much about Jonah’s involvement. I almost allowed myself to become angry with him for keeping that from me, but he was already kicking himself because of it, like it’d been all his fault, and I just didn’t have it in me to make it worse.
We made the decision, between the three of us, to leave my mother’s visit and confession out of any discussion having to do with Tyson. When I showed him the paperwork, that his mother had given him up, I expected there to be anger there, too, maybe even a few tears. It’s not every day you receive a piece of paper showing that the woman who gave you life doesn’t want you anymore. A piece of paper with a signature was the last piece of the puzzle started almost four years ago. But none of that came: no anger, no sadness. There was a sense of relief on his face as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened his eyes and grinned at me and jumped into my arms and babbled in my ear, I knew we’d be okay.
We had the signature, we had the support of Child Protective Services, we had the clearance from a licensed counselor. We had the backing of our friends and family, all of whom wrote letters to the judge indicating that there was no better role model for Tyson than myself. Erica told me that she thought everything would be fine and that by the end of that day in March, the Kid would be mine and that would be the end of it.
So of course I was a nervous wreck. Of course I didn’t believe a goddamn word I was told, knowing that there would be some last-minute intervention where everything would go to shit and the Kid would be torn from me and put into a foster home that was really just a cover for a sweatshop that forced children to slaughter farm animals and carve their tasty cutlets out for mass distribution. I could easily imagine the look of horror on the Kid’s face as he was forced to take a nail gun and put it against the skull of a baby cow he’d named Beverly Bovine and pull the trigger. The light would fade from Beverly’s eyes as she slumped to the floor, and the Kid would then get handed a butcher knife and be told that once he was finished, Beverly’s parts would be sent to Burger King, where she’d become a Whopper with cheese.
I told the Kid as we walked in that I’d never let Beverly go to Burger King. He asked me who Beverly was. I told him not even to worry about it, because he’d never have to find out, not on my watch. He asked Eddie if he was able to write scrips for antipsychotics. Eddie said he could not, but that he knew a guy who knew a guy. Georgia and Erica glared at him. Eddie said he was just kidding. I don’t think Eddie was kidding.
We sat in the courtroom, and Judge Eyebrows looked evil as he glared at me, not even seeming to listen as Georgia and Eddie told him how fucking spectacular I was. I whispered to Otter and asked if he thought that the judge hated me for some reason. He whispered back that the only reason the judge hated me was because my eyebrows looked plucked, and his looked like they were eating his face. This caused me laugh out loud before I could stop myself, and I tried to cover it up by coughing, but that led to me half swallowing my tongue, and court was halted until everyone was sure I was not going to die as my face turned red and saliva dripped out of my mouth. Otter smirked at me as I wiped my chin with my arm, and I asked Erica if we could ask for a recess so I could murder my boyfriend.
