Who We Are

by T. J. Klune

  I nod, not trusting myself to speak. If anyone here is lucky, it’s me.

  Otter may be the reason I can live now, but the Kid is the reason I’m alive at all.

  Eddie watches me for a moment before clapping his hands together.

  “Okay! Let’s go get your Otter-man and allow me to talk with him for a bit.

  You and Tyson can sit tight, and then I’ll pull you all back in to discuss what’s next.” He puts his hands on the doorknob and is about to turn it when he looks back at me. “Why do you call him Kid?” he asks. “I noticed in some of the intake paperwork that you referred to him like that was his name.”

  I shrug. “Just something—”

  did you hear what he called you derrick

  —“that we’ve always called him.”

  “We?” he asks.

  I lower my eyes. “My mother and I. It started when—”

  it sounded like he called you a bear oh oh his first word

  —“he was a baby.”

  He nods and looks like he’ll say something more but opens the door instead and follows me out. Otter sees us coming and stands.

  “Oliver!” Eddie bellows. “It’s your turn.”

  Otter eyes him warily. “Give us a moment?”

  Eddie nods and walks back into his office.

  Otter reaches and grips my chin, forcing me to look him in the eye.

  “You okay?” he asks, looking frustrated. “I heard yelling and I wanted to come in, but I didn’t know if I should. Did you need me in there?”

  I shake my head gently, not wanting him to let go. “I think I handled myself, big guy. He’s not as bad as he seems. I think.”

  Otter looks like he doesn’t believe me, like he wants to wrap himself around me and not let anyone at me ever again, and this causes my heart to skip a few beats in my chest, because I almost want him to do it. Fuck me.

  Maybe I am a submissive bottom bitch dumpster whatever, after all.

  But I’m drawing the line at a baseball bat.

  He leans forward and kisses me gently, his tongue briefly touching mine before he moves past me and toward the office. “I totally believe in Santa Claus,” I hear him say as he enters the doorway.

  “You do?” Eddie asks, sounding impressed. “That’s fascinating. Please, shut the door and tell me more.”

  I turn toward the Kid, who’s watching me with those big eyes of his, and I can’t help but think of a time when I was only Derrick and he was only Tyson and how we didn’t come alive until we’d been given our true names, that I was—

  I WAS sitting with Tyson on my lap, watching TV as he slept against my chest, waiting for my mom to get home from wherever she was so I could start my homework. Tyson—

  is nine months he’s nine months old

  —had been fussy all day, and the moment I laid him down, he started crying again, only to quiet when he was in my arms. I wondered briefly if he had nightmares while he slept, and for some reason that scared me, so I figured if he could lay against me while he was asleep, he would know that I was there and that nothing in his dreams was real.

  I stared at the television blankly, feeling every breath he took, every twitch of his arms and legs. He sighed in his sleep and smacked his lips, raising a tiny hand in a stretch above his head, letting it fall and rest on my shoulder. I bent down and kissed the top of his head gently, and he yawned then, opening his eyes, first one, and then the other, staring up at me until he smiled and lay back down.

  Mom came home two hours later, her eyes glassy, smelling like smoke and booze. I didn’t ask if she’d been driving because I knew she had. She would’ve just told me it was none of my business, so I chose to ignore it. I was starting not to care anymore. She slammed the door behind her and dropped her purse on the ground. Ty startled against my chest at the noise, his hands bunching against my shirt as I stood.

  “I have homework to do,” I told her, keeping my voice as level as possible. “I need you to take him for a bit.”

  “Homework,” she slurred as I followed her into the kitchen, that ever present cigarette dangling from her lips. “Fat lot of good it’ll do you. I say fuck it! Live a little, Der! You want a drink? I’m going to have a drink.”

  “I just need you to take Ty,” I pleaded. “Just for a little while.”

  “Put him down in his crib, then,” she snapped as she pulled down her bottle of Jack. “I’ve had a long fucking day. I don’t want to put up with a screaming kid right now.”

  “You have to! You have to because—”

  you’re his mother

  —“he doesn’t want to lie down, and I’ve got a test tomorrow I have to study for!”

  “Jesus Christ, Derrick! I don’t care if he doesn’t want to lie down!

  Babies cry themselves to sleep all the time. It’s the only way they learn that they can’t get what they want by screaming about it. Give him to me. I’ll do it since apparently it’s too much to ask for you to do!”

  Tyson watched this back and forth with those big eyes of his, those eyes that had such knowledge in them, such awareness that each day it took my breath away. He saw our mom’s outstretched hands reaching for him, and his grip tightened in my shirt, and he buried his face in my neck and opened his mouth and said my name.

  Or, at least as close to my name as he could possibly get. It was garbled and quiet, but it came out in two distinct syllables, “Bear-rick,” and my mother stopped, and I stopped, and we both looked down at the little guy in my arms, who started to mutter the same thing over and over: “Bear- rick, Bear- rick, Bear- rick.”

  “Did you hear what he just called you, Derrick?” my mom asked, her eyes wide.

  “Yeah,” I croaked out as his head bonked against my chin, and he sighed.

  “It sounded like he called you a bear,” she said, giggling drunkenly.

  “Oh, oh, his first word, and he calls you a bear? He must think you’re ferocious!” She started laughing loudly, bending over and slapping her thighs as if it was the funniest damn thing she’d ever heard.

  Tyson stared at her for a moment before turning back to me, his hands coming up to my face as he poked my lips and chin, laughing at how he could press my cheeks in. “Bear- rick,” he said confidently.

  I turned and walked out of the kitchen, leaving my mother laughing. I sat him in one arm and dragged his crib from my mother’s room with the other, pulling it into my room, not caring when it banged against the walls, when it gouged out part of the doorway. I shut the door behind me and set him in the crib, and he immediately stood up against the bars, looking at his new surroundings, obviously wondering how and why his bed had been moved, chattering in that way he did, only now punctuated with the occasional, “Bear- rick.”

  I leaned over on the railing of the crib, setting my face on my arms so we were at eye level. He watched me as I watched him. “You and me,” I finally told him. “It looks like we’re stuck with each other. Just you and me.

  Derrick and the baby. Fantastic.”

  “Bear- rick!” he shouted happily.

  I grinned and shook my head. “Bear, huh? You know I’m never going to hear the end of that, right? Bear and the baby. Bear and a kid. Christ.” I rubbed my hands against my face. “Well, kid,” I told him. “I’ve got a history test tomorrow. Don’t suppose you can help me?”

  “Bear- rick.”

  “Yeah, Ty. Bear-rick. I hear you. Jesus, you’re going to be a little kid before long. Already talking. Not a baby. What the hell am I going to do with you?”

  He smiled.

  And then, I made a promise, even though I didn’t know then what it would mean. “I got you,” I told him quietly. “I got you. You’re just a little guy. Just a Kid.”

  Tyson slept in my room from that point on.

  I had been named, and I was Bear.

  Tyson had been named, and he was the Kid.

  Looking back now, I can see that was the beginning.

  THE Kid scowls at me, pulling me
out of my reverie. “Did you see the size of those cats, Bear?” Bear- rick. “I swear to God those are just miniature mountain lions. You really think a wannabe cat lady should be giving me therapy? Call Erica back. Tell her to recommend someone else so that we can give him a therapist to go to.”

  “I dunno, Kid. He seems to be alright.”

  His eyes narrow. “You were yelling at him. He pissed you off somehow, and you think he’s ‘alright’?” Air quotes. Fun. “You need to check yourself before you wreck yourself.”

  “Oh, Lord,” I groan. “Where’d you learn that?”

  “You DVR’d Maury Povich again, and I couldn’t figure out how to turn it off. Before I knew it, the show was half over, and I needed to find out if Jerome was the father to Sharelle’s son J’real.”

  Oooooh. That had been a good one. Jerome apparently had a twin brother that—

  My phone rings. Alice Thompson, the display says.

  Shit.

  “I gotta take this,” I tell the Kid. “Give me, like, two seconds.”

  “Oh, sure!” he calls after me. “Go take your secret phone calls! I’ll just sit here and wonder about all these scary feelings the therapist has brought up in me! Maybe I’ll find out I have daddy issues too! Won’t that be special?”

  “Hello?” I say as I round the corner.

  “Bear, it’s Alice,” Otter’s mom says. “How are you?”

  I shrug, but realize she can’t see me. We haven’t spoken since we’d been at their house for dinner. It’s only been a few days, but so much has happened during that time that it feels like so much longer. It’s odd, too, having them back in Seafare after such a long absence. Before they left, we tried to touch base at least once a week. I guess I’d gotten used to them being gone. And, of course, the last time I’d seen her, I’d gotten drunk and told her that I was in love with her son. You know, in case you forgot. “I’m okay,” I reply.

  “Good,” she says, sounding relieved. “What are you doing right now?

  I’d like to meet you for lunch if you‘re available.”

  “Uh, now’s not a good time, Alice. We’re at the therapist’s office for the first time, and the Kid and I have already gone, and now it’s Otter’s turn, so he’s in there.”

  “Why is Otter speaking to the therapist?” she asked, sounding baffled.

  Dangerous ground. I need to tread carefully. “He’s my… partner. The attorney recommended that he be as much a part of this as I am, seeing as how we all live together and he’ll essentially have the same authority over Tyson, even if he’s not listed on any custody paperwork.”

  “And he agreed to this?”

  I sigh. “It was his idea,” I say. “He made sure the attorney knew how big his level of involvement would be, and he has done everything she’s told him to do. More, really.” I don’t have the words to describe to her just what her son means to me, not in the way that I think she’ll want to hear. I don’t know.

  She hesitates. “This isn’t just… a phase… is it?”

  This angers me, that someone so intelligent, so articulate, could utter such bullshit. Who the fuck is she to judge her son like that? “No,” I tell her coldly. “It’s not a phase. Otter’s gay. You would think you of all people could accept that.”

  She immediately backtracks. “That’s not what I meant, Bear. I meant…

  about the two of you.”

  If anything, it makes it worse. “Look,” I say, trying to keep my cool. “I know this is a shock for you and Jerry. I know it came out of nowhere. You can think about me what you want. But what I won’t stand for is you treating Otter like crap just because he has the balls to know what he wants.

  You’re his mother, for Christ’s sake. Given the history of this family and mothers, you would think you would tread just a bit more carefully.”

  “You always were his biggest supporter,” she says, sounding amused by me more than anything. “I don’t really know why I was so surprised by this, given your history. Even after he went to San Diego and even through the anger you showed, I could see how much you were hurting. Did you know?

  Even then?”

  “Know what?”

  She’s not fooled by my hedging. “That you loved him.”

  “I don’t know,” I say honestly. “I’m sure I knew something.”

  That’s one way to put it, it whispers. Maybe you should tell her about that kiss, that one little kiss that knocked you on your ass.

  Yeah. Or maybe not.

  Alice sighs. “Bear, there’s some things you should know. Things that might cause our… reluctance… to make more sense.”

  Ah, Jesus. Not what I need. More secrets. “Why tell me? You should talk to Otter about this. He’s the one that needs to hear it. Not me. He deserves your honesty, Alice, not your indifference. I’m sorry if you can never accept me. But don’t do that to your son.”

  There’s a sharp inhale, and I know she’s suddenly having a hard time keeping her emotions in check. “Does he love you, Bear?”

  I laugh, not unkindly. “If you had to guess, what would you think?” I say this not to come off as arrogant, but to get her honest opinion.

  But she doesn’t even go there. She doesn’t have to. “And you love him?”

  “With everything I have.”

  “Silly boy,” she says with a laugh, her voice cracking. “You are my son, as well. You know this. Don’t forget it. Are we clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Bear?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You know why I called you first, right? And not him?”

  I think for a moment. “You wanted to make sure I was in this all the way. Because you knew already he was. Otter wears his heart on his sleeve.

  You can see everything he feels in his eyes. And you saw what he looked like when he watched me. But I’m harder to read. You just wanted to make sure I felt the same.”

  “Yes,” she breathes. “Yes.”

  “Don’t doubt that. Ever.”

  “He’s very lucky, you know. To have found you. Even if you were right in front of him the whole time, he’s still very lucky.”

  I hear a door opening, and I look up and see Otter walking out of the therapist’s office, Eddie trailing behind him. Otter’s saying something to Eddie, and he’s got that crooked grin on full display, his eyes dancing, and I know he’s gotten a kick out of Eddie, just like I thought he would. He looks around and sees me down the hallway and arches an eyebrow and drops a wink in my direction as the Kid runs up to him and stands on his right foot, wrapping his arms around one of Otter’s big thighs. Otter reaches down, still talking to Eddie, and ruffles his hands through the Kid’s hair, an act so unconscious that it seems to be like breathing for him.

  “No,” I tell his mother. “I’m the lucky one.”

  IT’S nothing sordid, you know. The explanation behind Alice and Jerry’s reluctance. I know you’re probably thinking that there’s some big tragedy in the past that forever shaped this family, and that some dark secret is about to be revealed. While it was tragic, and while it did shape people, it’s not dark or morbid or life-altering, at least for us. It’s just sad. And even though I don’t rightly agree with their actions toward Otter and his coming out, I can still see their point.

  Sometimes things have simple explanations, even though the consequences are complex.

  Jerry had an older brother, a man named Alan. In 1982, right before Otter was born, Jerry was twenty-three, and his older brother was twenty-seven. Alan started coughing one day and couldn’t stop. Soon there was blood. Soon Alan was in the hospital. Soon Alan, an out-and-proud gay man, was diagnosed with what would be referred to later that year as AIDS.

  The world became a scary place then, as some of Alan’s friends became sick, as people turned their noses up, as Reagan acted like nothing was wrong, even after almost four hundred people had died by 1983. Alan was one of them. He died due to complications from pneumonia on January 19, 1982. Otter was b
orn three days later.

  Jerry had idolized his older brother. He had worshipped the ground he walked on. He’d held his hand when he took his last breath, even though he was told not to touch him, that doctors didn’t know how contagious he would be. But he’d seen the fear in Alan’s eyes, the despair, and he didn’t care what happened to him. He didn’t think about his new wife, his unborn son. He held his brother’s hand, and his brother had smiled around the tube down his throat, and right before his eyes closed, he winked at his brother, a look that Jerry had known his brother to give all his life.

  He buried his brother on a winter day so beautiful it felt like a slap in the face. It shouldn’t have been so bright out. The sky shouldn’t have been so blue. The day should not have looked like it was celebrating when it should be mourning.

  He’d been one of the pall bearers, carrying the casket on his shoulder, the weight there only a reminder of what he’d lost, of what he’d no longer have. Even when the coffin was lifted off him and lowered into the ground, he could still feel it on his shoulder, his back, digging into his skin as the sun shone down, as a gently fragrant breeze blew across his face.

  Fast forward to four years ago. Otter came out. Jerry and Alice were smart people, caring people. They were also people with long memories, with scars that had never fully healed. They were scared. They worried.

  They knew how the world worked, that much had happened since Alan’s death, that such a diagnosis didn’t mean death. But it was still Alan. It was still Jerry’s brother. It wasn’t a nameless face or a statistic. Jerry hurt for his son, hurt for his brother. He didn’t know how to act, didn’t know what to do.

  So he did nothing. It seemed safer. He didn’t know that sometimes nothing is worse than something.

  “I don’t know if I buy it,” Otter told me later that night, after we’d come home from their house. We lay in bed in the dark, Otter wrapped around my back. “Over twenty years later, and they freak out about that?”

  “People remember what hurts them the most,” I replied quietly. “It’s hard to forget when it feels like it still chafes.”

  He kissed my ear. “Do you remember? What hurts you the most?” His voice was low, but I heard the question behind the question.