When she says this last, it takes all of my strength to keep from reaching out and knocking her across the mouth. Even that is almost not enough. I picture it in my head: my fist would bash into her face and the blood would fly as her mouth breaks, and her nose shatters. She would reel back and trip over the low coffee table that is resting at the back of her legs. She would fall backward, and her head would bounce off the table, and it would crack open, and she would lay there and not move. This shakes me more than her presence here. It shakes me to know that I could do this and not feel a single ounce of remorse. I close my eyes and try to rid myself of the dizzying sense of vertigo that threatens to take over my mind.
“What do you want?” I say, trying to keep my voice even.
“I’ll tell you what I didn’t want,” she sniffs. “I didn’t want to come home and find this—”
“This isn’t your home. Answer the question.”
“Bear,” she cries, her voice high and whining, like I remember it being. “I told you, I just wanted to see my boys!”
“I know that’s what you said,” I tell her, my eyes still closed. “But you were lying. What do you want?”
“I don’t have to stand here and let you talk to me like this,” she says, and I can feel her step away. “I don’t deserve to be treated like this,” she mutters, almost to herself. “I am still your mother, and I know what’s right for you.”
My eyes flash open, and I’ve had enough. “WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT!” I scream, my throat tearing as the words burst out of me. I swim further out to sea. In the distance, the sounds of thunder ripples through the sky, and in my mind I look to the horizon and see enormous thunderheads building. Wind slides gently over my hair, bringing with it the promise of rain. Bear, it whispers. Bear, you need to get to shore. You need to get to shore before the storm gets here. If you don’t, you’ll be pulled out and not even I can follow you there.
My mother eyes me fearfully, and for the first time in my life, I’m glad that she left when she did. Oh, I’ve felt some things that could border the relief I feel now, but never in the last three years has this overwhelming sense of rightness been so prevalent in my mind. She said that if she had stayed, Otter and I would never be Otter and me, and as much as I’d like to deny it, I have this horrible feeling that she’s right. Otter would have stayed here, and I would have gone away to school, and the chances of Otter and me aligning the way we did might never have happened. And to make matters worse, I would have left the Kid here with her. Sure, I would have kicked and berated myself every day for doing so, but I think I would have done it anyway. If she had stayed, so many things would be different, so many things would be out of place in the world. I would have never found the last pieces of the puzzle to fit together to make everything complete. I would have never been able to see the Kid become what he is today. I understand now that I can never truly hate her, because she gave me the ultimate gift: she gave me my family.
“Mom,” I sigh, the fight draining out of me, “I think you should go. I don’t want to do this with you anymore. I think you need to just go and not come back again.”
“Bear,” she says, shuddering, “I can’t leave you here like this. Not when I know now that you need your mom the most.” She shakes her head. “I need to be here for you.”
“I don’t need you,” I tell her as gently as I can. “I haven’t needed you for a very long time. You said you came here to see how the Kid and I were doing. You have your answer. You saw it with your own eyes and can go back to where ever it is you came from knowing that we are both doing fine. And we will always be that way.”
She looks like she is going to reach out and grab my shoulders, and for a moment, I think I will let her. I think I will hug her back. I think it will be the last contact that I will probably have with her. If Ty wants to try and find her someday, then that’s his choice. This will be the last time I see my mother, and however sad that sounds, it’s going to be for the best. I’ll leave here and go to Otter’s house, and I’ll let my boys wrap me in their arms, and maybe I’ll cry a little, but goddammit, I think I’ve earned it. Creed will be there, probably already filled in on the goings-on of the McKenna household, and I’ll look him in the eye and tell him that I am in love with his brother. He’ll look at me funny for a moment and then turn to Otter, who I know will be wearing that lopsided grin of his, and then he’ll look back at me, and a smile will split his face in half. He’ll laugh and shake his head and chide me for not telling him sooner. Ty will tell him that’s why he can’t say fag anymore, and Creed will walk over and hug the Kid until his back cracks, and then we’ll all go out to the living room and spend the rest of the night talking. Ty will fall asleep on the couch between us, and Creed will carry him up to his room, and Otter will look at me sleepily and hold out his hand. I’ll take it, and he will lead me to his room, and Creed will chuckle and tell us that he better not hear anything gross, and we’ll all laugh at that, and Otter will close the door behind me.
The lights will be off but the early gray dawn that can only be found on the Oregon coast will be streaming softly through the window. There will be shadows on the walls that play and dance against Otter’s skin as I lift his shirt slowly over his head. The neck of the shirt will catch on his nose, and his eyes will be hidden and his arms raised above his head, and I’ll lean in and kiss him gently. I’ll feel him smile into my mouth and pull his shirt off the rest of the way. He’ll take me into his arms, his biceps flexing and warm and hard against my body. The rest of our clothes will melt away, and when he enters me I know, I just know, the ocean will once again dry up and the clouds will fly away and there will be stars shooting across the sky, and I will cry out against him, and he’ll groan something back that sounds suspiciously like I love you, and I’ll know it to be true. The slap of skin against skin will ring throughout my head, and I will be taken to an edge that I’ve never been to before, and then we’ll both go over, and we’ll be flying. Afterward, he’ll play with my hair, and I’ll fall asleep in my spot on his shoulder, hearing him say, “The fight for you is all I’ve ever known,” and when I dream, it will be of him because she gave him to me. She gave me the chance to find him, and for that, I will never truly hate her.
I smile at my mother and start to raise my arms.
“I’m taking Ty with me,” she says.
“You’re… what?” I say, sure I have heard her wrong.
“Tyson, Bear,” she says. “I am taking Tyson with me. I can see that you are not going to go back to the way you were, the way you should be, so I have no choice.”
“You can’t,” I whisper.
She eyes me evenly. “I can and I will,” she says stonily. “I am his mother, and he is only eight years old, and he belongs to me.”
“He’s nine, you stupid bitch,” I say. “And you will never take him away from here. This is his home, and Otter and me are his family.”
“You just try and stop me,” she says and pokes me in the chest. “I told you already, Bear. Who do you think people are going to believe? Who are they going to trust? I am his mother and you… you are a disgrace. You’re barely able to take care of yourself, much less a child.”
“I’ve done it well enough for the last three years,” I pant, blood pounding in my ears. “Or have you forgotten already? Have you forgotten how you were a coward and left everything behind? You don’t think that people are going to ask questions about you?”
She shrugs, and the feeling to hit her comes rising back up. “They can ask all they want, Bear. I’ll say I was sick and needed to go away. Or that I had to leave for work and left you in charge. Or any number of things that I can think of. I will not have my son being raised by you. You’re too late for me to save, but it will not happen to Tyson.”
“You would never do that,” I say incredulously. “You’re not that coldhearted, to do that to him. If you take him away from here, you will destroy him, and I swear on everything I have that I would die before l
etting you do that.”
She smiles at me, displaying slightly yellowed teeth. “I would be helping him, in the long run. He’ll see. He’ll hate it at first, but one day, he’ll understand why I did what I did. Tyson will learn that everything that you’ve become would have led him down the same path. He’ll thank me, and he’ll love me, because I am his mother.”
I shake my head. “I won’t let you do this.”
“You don’t have a choice, Bear,” she says. “You should have thought of this before you lowered yourself to the gutter. You could have stopped this from happening. In a way, all of this is your fault.”
“No,” I say, not wanting to believe her. She’s not right. She can’t be right. The storm roars deftly overhead, and I think I hear the voice screaming in my head, but I can’t make out what it’s saying, and then it’s gone, lost in the wind.
“Yes,” she says. “Yes, and now, if you don’t mind, call Otter and tell him to bring Tyson back here. If you don’t, I will call the police, and we will let them decide.”
“I’ll tell them everything you’ve done,” I say forcefully. “You won’t get away with this. You gave me a signed power of attorney over Tyson.”
She arches her eyebrow at me, and it lifts her face, and for a moment, she looks years younger and I see my mom in this woman standing in front of me, and I almost break then, but I see that regardless of who I think she is, she’s enjoying pulling the snare, trapping me until I start to choke.
“Won’t I?” she says. “At the very least, the police will come, and you’ll say what you have to say, and I’ll say what I have to say, and what do you think will happen then? All you have is an illegally notarized power of attorney that was started before you turned eighteen. Do you think they would let him stay here, Bear? They’ll take one look at you and see you’re just a child yourself and that you’ve sinned against God, and they’ll all know what it is you’ve become. And you can say whatever you want about me. Maybe they’ll let him come with me, maybe they won’t. If they don’t, Bear, they’ll still take him away from here and put him somewhere until all of this gets sorted out. How do you think Tyson would do in foster care? Do you think he’ll be placed with a family who loves him? A family whose moral compass isn’t spinning out of control? He’ll be taken away from both of us, but I can live with that. At least he won’t be here. At least he won’t be here with you.”
My eyes are wide and my mouth is dry, and I can’t think of a single thing to say to her. Is that what would happen? I think. Would they really take him away from me? She can’t be right about that! She’s just saying that to scare me! Nobody, not even her, is that cruel. She knows what that would do to the Kid. Somehow she knows, and I’ll be damned if I am going to let this happen.
“You can’t do this,” I repeat.
She smiles again and pulls the snare complete. “I can and I will. But….” She pauses, as if considering. “Maybe it wouldn’t have to come to that.”
“What?” I ask, confused.
Careful, Bear! I hear it scream. Oh God, don’t do this—
“If you and I can come to an agreement, maybe I’ll reconsider,” she says, pacing in front of me again. I notice wildly that her tears have completely dried up, and I think that this whole thing has been a game. I think that somehow, she’s planned this, down to the last detail. That somehow, she’s known about us all along.
“What agreement?” I say dully.
She stops in front of me. “If I leave Ty here with you, you have to promise to do something for me. If you do this one little thing, I promise to stay out of the way. I promise to leave Seafare, and you will never have to see me again.”
“What?”
“You will end things with Otter,” she says coldly. “This has gone on long enough. I will not have my son become a faggot. I will not have you raise Tyson to be a faggot. You will tell Otter that you’ve had a change of heart and that you never want to see him again. Tell him to go back to San Diego.”
San Diego? How did she know—
“You can’t be serious,” I whisper.
“I’m very serious, Bear,” she says. “I know more than you think I do, and I will not have my sons disgrace me like this. If you do this one thing for me, you can keep Ty here with you, and I will stay out of the way. But,” she says, shoving her finger into my chest again, “if I leave and hear any different, it will be over, and I will come back here so fast your head will spin. Ty will be taken from you, and I can promise you that you will never see him again.”
“Why are you doing this?” I mutter, feeling tears welling inside me.
She shakes her head. “Haven’t you listened to a single word I’ve said? God, Bear, you would think you were still five. I told you: no son of mine is queer. No son of mine will ever be queer. I will not stand for this, ever.”
I blink back the stinging in my eyes. “You realize,” I tell her weakly, “that I’m going to hate you forever for this.”
Her eyes soften and the wrinkles around her mouth disappear, and for a moment, just a moment, I think all of this is a dream and we’ve gone back in time, and she’s never left, and Ty hasn’t been born, and I’m six years old, waiting for my mother to say something sweet to me, waiting for her to show me that she cares.
“I can live with that,” she says, smiling. “At least I’ll know that I’ve saved your soul.”
“He’ll fight for me,” I say, knowing it’s a last resort. “Otter will know something is wrong, and he will fight for me.”
She nods. “He probably will. People like him are soft. That’s why, Bear, you have to make him believe you. That’s why you have to make sure he won’t want to fight for you.”
“He’ll fight for me,” I mumble.
“Let him, then. You know what’s at stake.”
“You can’t do this.”
“I am your mother, Bear. I can do anything to you that I want.”
“I hate you.”
“You’ll get over it in time.”
My head hangs low. “You can’t…,” I say, knowing she can.
“Who’s more important to you?” she says gently. “Who needs you more?”
I look up, staring into the woman who gave me life but taught me nothing about it.
She doesn’t flinch away this time. “Do we have a deal?” she asks.
I KNOCK on the door. I can feel the wood under my hands, but I can’t hear the sound it makes, because the storm has finally broken open, and the winds are howling in my ears every time I attempt to come up for air. I lower my hand back to my side as another wave crashes over my head and forces me under. Water pours into my nose, and I know I’m drowning now. I want to fight to the surface, but I can’t. It’s so far overhead and would require more effort than my body can expend.
The door opens and Creed is in front of me and saying something, his face twisted. His words are muffled underneath the roaring storm, the beating of the ocean. I walk in and mumble something; what, I don’t know. He tries to grab onto my arm, but I shake him off and walk slowly up the stairs. I know he wants to follow me, but he doesn’t. I reach Otter’s door and place my hand on the doorknob. It feels cool under my skin, and thunder rumbles deep in my head and heart, and I think that if there is to ever be a moment for me to salvage today, that this will be it. All it will take is for me to thrust my head above the water and take a gasp of air. Just one is all it will take. I try to rise, and then a voice in my head repeats my breaking point—
who’s more important to you? who needs you more?
—and it’s not the voice, but her voice. Something grabs onto my ankle and pulls me further into the depths.
I twist the knob and the latch frees and the door opens. Light from the hallway spills into the darkened room and splays itself onto the bed where Otter and the Kid lay. Otter’s head is to the side, and he takes long, deep breaths, and I know he’s asleep. The Kid rises and falls with every inhalation from his position on Otter’s chest. The s
eafloor shifts beneath me, and I know that it will soon break apart and suck me down into it. I walk slowly into the room and shake the Kid gently. His eyes come alert instantly, searching the room wearily until they alight upon me. His smile is cautious, and I know he is testing the waters to see how I am. I summon what strength I have left and smile back, and it must be enough because he relaxes visibly, and I put a finger to my lips, telling him to be quiet. He nods and slowly extricates himself from Otter’s grasp. Otter shifts subtly in his sleep, and a lock of hair falls onto his forehead, and my heart breaks. The Kid walks to the door and looks back at me. I follow him and shut the door behind me.
Ty grasps my hand, and we walk back down the stairs, where Creed stands, arms crossed, tapping his foot impatiently. He sees us and rolls his eyes. “What the hell is going on?” he growls. “Your mother?”
I shrug.
“What the fuck did she want, Bear? Where the fuck has she been?”
“Creed, I need you to do me a favor,” I say. My voice sounds low and rusty, like it hasn’t been used in years.
“Anything, Bear. You know that.”
I grip the Kid’s hand tighter. “I need you to take Ty home for me. There’s something I have to do before I can go.”
I feel the Kid jerk my hand, and I look down at him, and he sees something in my eyes and just like that, he knows. His eyes widen and his bottom lip quivers, and the accusation in his glare is almost more than I can take. “What have you done?” he whispers. “Oh, Bear. What did you do?”
“The only thing I could do,” I tell him, and a tear slips from his eye.
“You promised me,” he says angrily. “You promised me that nothing would change.”
Creed looks back and forth between us, confused. “What? What’s changing? What the hell is going on, Bear? What do you have to do? Your mom’s still not at your house, is she? Because if she is, I swear to God I’m going to kick her fucking ass—”