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A knock on the door. More of a pounding, really. My mother smiled, and for the first time in a long time, it looked real, like she was actually happy, that she was actually smiling because she felt like it. She was getting away and she knew it. It might have only been for a couple of days, but it was two days she felt she needed, that she felt she was owed. I never really saw that smile much.
“That would be Joe,” she said, and only then did I notice the small beat-up overnight bag next to her.
“You’re leaving now?”
She sighed as she finished off her drink and stood up. She took a wad of bills from her pocket and dropped it on the table, crumpled ones and fives.
“Derrick, don’t make a scene. I don’t have time to deal with your bullshit right now.” She took the fives out of the pile of money, leaving fourteen dollars on the table in ones. “That should be enough for a couple of days.
There’s diapers in the hall closet, and Tyson’s food is in the cabinet.”
“Wait—”
Pounding on the door again. Harder, angrier. Tyson started to cry.
“Jesus Christ,” my mom muttered as she picked up her bag and started walking down the hall.
“Mom, you can’t leave me here alone with him!” I was panicking, my voice coming out high, and it cracked like it was a fragile thing. She’d left me alone before when she’d felt the need to get away, but not since Ty had been born. I thought that was the one good thing about him coming along, that he’d somehow made her stationary, that he’d put roots down for her like I’d never been able to do. I was wrong.
“Derrick, you’re thirteen years old now,” she said over her shoulder, never stopping. “It’s time for you to act like it.” She opened the door, and Joe (I’d met him once, he’d shaken my hand and then promptly forgot I existed) looked cross as he asked her if she was ready to go. Tyson began to scream in that way he did when he was crying and no one was paying attention to him. My mom looked back at me, and I could see the relief on her face as she started to close the door behind her, the tension dropping out of her shoulders, the lines on her forehead disappearing, the smile once again on her face. “Just for a couple of days,” she told me.
“You can’t do this!”
“Babe!” Joe snapped. “We’re running late already. We gotta go. Shut the fucking door!”
“I love you, Derrick,” she said as she closed the door behind her.
Tyson screamed louder, demanding attention.
I walked over to him and looked down into the crib, and the moment he saw my face, the crying stopped, the yelling stopped. Those crocodile tears dried from his eyes, and he kicked his legs up again and started babbling at me, reaching his hands up, wanting me closer. I told myself not to hate him.
I told myself it wasn’t his fault. He didn’t ask to be born. He didn’t ask for the mother he was given. He didn’t deserve my anger, no matter how much I wanted to give it to him.
I sighed as I bent over and picked him up, and he laughed as he was lifted to my shoulder, his hands immediately going to my hair and yanking it as he talked in my ear in that way that only he could. I walked around in circles, trying to get him to calm down, talking out loud, telling him stories made up on the fly, telling him about my day, telling him about something stupid Creed had done. And before I could stop myself, I told him how much I missed Otter, how I wanted him home, how everything seemed different with him away at school, how different it was when he was near. I told him that Otter was so cool, that he was the greatest guy, how scared I was to meet him at first because he was bigger than me, and that I’d never met a big brother before, and I thought that he would hate me. I told Tyson that Otter made me want to be a good big brother too, that I was going to do whatever it took to make sure he was taken care of. As I spoke, he sat back in my arms and watched my face, and there was such a spark there, such a recognition of my words in his eyes. I knew he couldn’t understand me, not really, but he looked as if he did. That look was everything.
“Gotta take care of you,” I told him quietly as his eyes started to droop.
“You’re just a little guy. Just a kid, you know? I may not know what I’m doing all the time, but we’ll figure it out. Otter taught me, so I think I can teach you, I guess. Okay, kid?”
I placed him back down in the crib and covered him with a blanket, and I watched him for a moment, hating my mother but never him. Only then did I realize how much I needed to speak to the one person I knew who could understand.
“Hello?” he said as he answered his phone.
“I thought you’d be in class,” I mumbled.
“I am,” Otter said. “I saw it was you and stepped out. What’s up, Derrick? You sound upset.” His voice was warm, concerned. It was Otter, and I was immediately calmed.
“Am I going to be a good brother?” I asked, hedging.
He laughed. “The best,” he said. “You learned from me, didn’t you?”
I picked at a chip in the countertop. “Yeah.”
“Now tell me what’s really wrong.”
I thought about bullshitting, but I knew he would see right through it.
“Mom went out of town.”
