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I have the urge to tell him more of my story, just to take away some of the isolation I’m sure he must feel. But it only takes me half a second to realize my story is about a wreck that happened on a trip with a friend. His probably involves dead friends, extreme scenarios beyond the imagination of a civilian like me.
“Anyway.” I take a deep breath. Let it out. “You should keep in mind that you can use me for advice or referrals and stuff. For PTSD stuff. If you even need it. And you can talk to me, if you ever want some Squirrel help.” I give him what I hope and pray is a kind, low-key type smile. “When I say that, I mean it, too. When my thing happened, my people didn’t really get it. I was too overwhelmed to explain it to them. I got really depressed and things were bad for a while. You might have more friends. Other vets and all that. But you know, if you need another one.”
I salute him, then double over and hold my head, laughing like the lunatic I am. I peek up at him. “Is that offensive? Army equivalent of the Atlanta Braves tomahawk chop? Tell me no. Please.”
I look up and find him looking down at me with a surprised look that softens as my heart pounds. “Gwenna.” He blinks at me. My stomach flips because he’s so serious. I start to sweat because I’m worried I hurt or offended him or made him mad.
Instead, he asks softly, “Are you really this way with everyone?”
I lean away from him, snariling apologetically. “I told you! Yes: insane.”
“No.”
“Crazy?”
“Kind.” The word is low and so soft, for a moment I wonder if I imagined it.
My cheeks go hot. I go to roll my eyes but end up leaning my head back, looking up at the ceiling and giving an awkward little laugh. “I try to be.” I wink. “Just so you know, BTW, you’ve won me over as a friend. I don’t feel nervous when I smile around you.”
“That’s good. You have a lovely smile.”
I swallow. “Thank you.”
He stares at me for a long moment, so long my heart pounds. Finally, he nods and says, “You’re welcome.”
I choose that moment to take our dishes to the sink. As I tidy up the kitchen and he tries to help, we touch on the subject of my dad, and how he died of a heart defect no one even knew he had.
Barrett listens, drinking up my words, or seeming to. His eyes never leave my face, not even when we walk into the den. As I curl up with the remotes on one side of the couch, he’s leaning into the corner of the other side.
I turn one of the iron lamps on—a sun-shaped one with little holes all in it, creating dozens of tiny dots of light. “Does this bother you?”
His eyelids look a little heavy, but he gives a small smile. “Not at all.”
I reach into the basket beside my end of the couch and grab two blankets, a big, fuzzy bear blanket for me and a bigger brown fleece for him.
“You’re going to like this movie. I swear. Everyone does.”
I’m right—for a little while. He watches Nemo with apparent interest. Then, around eight thirty, his eyelids start to sag. I start to shake his shoulder but remember what he said. About his trouble sleeping. I remember how I used to hate to sleep alone. Here at my house, maybe he would sleep more soundly.
Maybe I just want to look at him.
FOURTEEN
GWENNA
I take care of real bears, but I sell plush ones. Right after the sanctuary opened, I used some money from my own savings to buy the two bear suits for visits to St. Jude Children’s Hospital. The first time I went—with my brother Rett—I thought about how nice it would be to hand out teddy bears to the kids there. So I reached out to a few toy companies. On sanctuary letterhead, of course.
I asked to buy some bears at half-off, just for distribution at St. Jude. They offered them to me at two-thirds off the regular price, and after a year of seeing happy sick kid pictures, they started donating for free.
When I asked for the half-off price and proposed selling them for twice that on the sanctuary’s web site, they again offered them at a two-thirds discount. Which is how it came to be that the large closet in my office and the top two shelves of my bedroom closet are filled with small, stuffed black bears.
I spend fifteen minutes packaging some orders, stepping into the doorway between office and den a few times to watch human Bear. I feel slightly strange about myself for not waking him, for watching quietly as he sags into the corner of my couch, his long legs covered with the blanket, his bearded jaw tipped up as the back of his head rests between the couch’s back and arm.
I tell myself I’ll wake him up at 10:00 p.m. if he doesn’t wake up first. To my kind-of surprise, he doesn’t. I package more bears and check some emails in my office, peeking in on him a few times here and there.
Around 10:10, I remember I washed a load of laundry earlier today and never turned it over.
I walk softly from my office toward the laundry room, stopping by the couch to stand there like a creeper. Now he’s got an arm around himself. His shoulders seem pulled a little more inward; he’s slouched deeper into the corner of the couch. He’s so big: long legs stretching across the couch, so his feet reach the couch’s other arm. I can’t lie to myself: I like him here. It feels deeply right to have a man in my house, covered in one of my blankets, dozing by the TV. It reminds me of my parents. Of my dad.
