by TJ Klune
I went back to my book. It was none of my business.
I’d only read another paragraph or so when I heard huffing on the stairs, and a voice said, “C’mon, old girl. You’re not that old yet. Get your ass up these stairs.”
And she did. I first saw her gray-white hair. Then her elderly face, scrunched up in concentration. A box in her arms. A large purse over her small shoulder. She reached the landing and teetered for a moment, and I was sure she was about to tumble head over heels down the stairs. I put the book down and rushed toward her. I took the box from her arms and almost dropped it myself. It was heavy. I was only five, after all. Just a little guy, really.
“Why, thank you, young man!” she said as if volume wasn’t a concern. “For a moment there, I was pretty sure I was about to follow my Joseph, God love him. Life is supposed to flash before your eyes, I’ve heard, but all I could think about was how the firefighters would have come out here to move my body and seen I was wearing the ugliest pair of underwear I own. Unbefitting a lady, they are. Can you just imagine the embarrassment that would have caused me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said because I was unsure of what else to say.
“Ma’am,” she snorted. “Ma’am. How polite you are. That just won’t do. My name is Theresa Jean Paquinn, and you may call me Mrs. Paquinn.”
“Yes, Mrs. Paquinn.”
“Now, boy, the next step would be for you to tell me your name.”
I thought for a fleeting moment about how I wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers, but surely they didn’t mean her? She was an old lady! What harm could she do?
“Tyson,” I told her. “Tyson McKenna. But everyone calls me Kid.”
“What a handsome name! Tyson. I do like that. Why aren’t you in school?”
I was starting to sweat because the box was heavy, but she was nice, so I thought I should answer her question. “I only go in the mornings. Next year, I’ll go all day. Like my brother. He’s about to graduate.” And take me with him.
She smiled at me. “You’re well-spoken for being so young.”
“I like to read,” I said by way of explanation.
“Do you? I do too. There’s nothing more wonderful, I should think, aside from meeting new people.”
“Heavy,” I gasped.
She laughed. For the first time, I heard her laugh, and I thought it possibly the most wonderful sound I’d ever heard. “Forgive me,” she said. “Here I am blathering away like we’ve got all the time in the world.” She set her purse on the floor and took the box from me. “Be a dear, would you? The keys are in my purse, and one of them unlocks the door to my new abode that undoubtedly will put all my past dwellings to shame.”
“My brother says this place is a hole,” I told her as I looked for her keys. I found them, buried under packages of tissues and hard candies and what I was pretty sure was a switchblade.
“And it probably is,” she said. “Your brother sounds very smart.”
“Sometimes.” I pulled the keys out. “Where to?”
“That one,” she said, pointing the box toward a door.
That delighted me. “You’re going to live there? I live next door.”
“Do you? With your brother?”
“Yeah. And my mom. She’s… sleeping now.”
I unlocked the door for her and pushed it open. The air inside smelled of carpet cleaner and dust. She set the box on the carpet inside the doorway. She looked around the small apartment, and for a moment, a fleeting look of sadness crossed her face and she sighed.
“It will be okay,” I told her with the logic only five-year-olds have. “It’s not so bad. I can help you do stuff. If you need it.”
“And that is the best thing I’ve heard all day,” she said. “You truly are a gentleman, Tyson.”
“Do you need some help? With the rest of your stuff?”
“I don’t have much.”
“Neither do we.”
“I have some boxes in the car. The bigger stuff will come tonight, I think. I would appreciate the help. We should probably speak to your mother first, though. I wouldn’t want you getting into trouble.”
“I won’t. She won’t care.”
She watched me closely. “She won’t, huh?”
“No. Honest. She’s sleeping, anyway, and doesn’t like to get woken up.”
“Well. Let’s go get the rest of the boxes, then, shall we? When we’re done, I think I have some lemonade mix we could stir up. Then we can sit and you can tell me about the book you’re reading.”
And we did just that. She was right when she’d said there wasn’t much. Only a few boxes in the back of her big car. Some were heavier than others, and she told me that her husband. Joseph, God love him, had given her most of what she still had. She’d had to sell a lot when she lost their house, but she’d kept the most important things. Her photos. The dishes he’d bought her. His work shirt. Her wedding dress. His pipe. All the things that made up who they were. She’d kept those things.
And we did just what she said. She found the lemonade, nothing more than a powdery mix to make with water. But somehow she made it sweet and tart at the same time, and it was the best thing I’d had in a long while. I sat in my ratty lawn chair and she sat on her own folding chair and she told me about the first time she’d gone to Narnia. And to Middle-earth. And to Mars. She liked to read, but now she mostly read romances with damsels in distress and swashbuckling heroes with swords and pirate ships. “I have to get my kicks somewhere,” she said without any hint of shame.
We were still sitting there when Bear came home that afternoon. “This is my big brother,” I said rather proudly. “He’s Derrick, but everyone calls him Bear.”
“Ah, I see,” she said as if she understood perfectly. I think she did. Somehow. “Then Bear it is.”
I could see the questions in his eyes about this strange old lady, but they could wait until later. I was just happy to have him home and to have a new friend. Nothing else really seemed to matter then.
When we said good-bye that first time, she hugged me. It was unexpected but not unwelcome. “I’ll see you soon,” she said. “I promise.”
And as jaded as I already was, as much anger and hurt I’d already seen, somehow, some way, I believed her.
And she kept that promise until the day she died. Weird, wonderful Mrs. Paquinn.
AND THOUGH I run now, running from the thundering in my ears, the beat of my heart, the sound of his voice in my head telling me that this bullshit was over and that he’d find me, all I can think about is her. How I left her behind, too, and not just him.
And even though he told me not to run, I do. I run toward her, because that seems to be the only place left I have to go. The Green Monstrosity is tense and awkward because of me. Dominic showed me too much today for me to stay there. I wouldn’t be able to breathe there anymore. Even out here in the open, it’s still difficult.
I stop only when I feel sand sneakers. The crash of the waves ahead. The call of the birds above. Somewhere a cell phone rings again and again, and I think it might be my own, but I can’t find it.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, there on our little beach. “I’m sorry I’ve been away for so long. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t forget about you. Never. Not once. Not even for a minute.”
The smell of salt and grass. Wind blows through my hair. I wonder just how far her ashes have spread. She’s probably global by now. Just like she’d always wanted to be.
I sit down on the beach next to the little cross Anna made so long ago. Take off my shoes. Dig my toes into the sand.
The last time it’d been just me and her was the day Otter planned to propose to Bear. I remembered the poem we’d written together, him and me, telling him to not be scared, that even though it wasn’t technically legal, it was still better than eating a beagle.
Before her speech turned slurred and the side of her face drooped, before she collapsed to the floor, her head bouncing off the carpet with a n
oise I can still remember, before everything changed, she’d looked at me and said, “I have a feeling today is going to be the start of something wonderful for you and your brother, Ty. And you both deserve it so much. I don’t think I know two people who deserve it more.” She smiled sweetly at me. “Remember, okay? Remember that. You’ve been through the wringer, and times might get tough again, but everything good that happens to you is because you deserve it. You have your brother. And Otter. And Dominic. And Anna and Creed, and all the rest. That is what this whole thing is about. Family. That is all you need. It doesn’t matter where life takes you, as long as you remember them and this moment. That will make you who you are.”
I kissed the back of her hand. She laughed. It was the last time I heard that sound.
“I fucked up,” I tell her now. “I’ve gotten away from what I was supposed to be. And I don’t know if I know the way back. I’m lost, Mrs. P. I need help because I’m lost.”
“Nah,” someone says from behind me. “You’re just… off track, I think.”
Bear.
I don’t turn. “Dom called you?”
He sighs as he sits down in front of me. I look down when our knees bump together. “Yeah,” he says. “He was worried about you. I thought it was best for everybody if I came here instead him.”
“Oh.”
“Ty.”
“What?”
“You’re not lost. I would never let you get lost.”
“Feels like it. Like I’m… floating. Off course. I don’t know. You were right not to tell me, I think. About Dom. Apparently I don’t handle things very well.”
“No,” he says. “I wasn’t. I didn’t handle that very well at all. Otter…. Otter thought we should tell you. I didn’t. I should have listened to him.”
“You didn’t think I was strong enough.” I don’t say it with any recrimination. Just stating the fact.
“No.” He grabs my hand and holds it tight. “No. Not that. Never that. You are the bravest person I know. That will never change.”
“Then why?”
He chuckles darkly. “I think it was selfish, mostly. You’d been hurt before. Let down. So many times by people in your life. I didn’t think you deserved it again. But that’s all I was thinking, I guess. I. I. I. I didn’t want to see you hurt. I didn’t want to give you the news to cause you pain. I didn’t think you deserved it. You were strong enough, Ty. It was me who wasn’t.”
It’s either now or never. And if I can’t tell my brother, then I might as well not tell anyone at all. “I loved him,” I confess. “That’s why everything happened the way it did. I thought we’d be….” I can’t finish.
“I know,” Bear says. “I’ve known for a long time.”
“You did?” I look up at him in surprise.
Bear watches me sadly. “Ever since the party before we left Seafare. You were in the bathtub. I didn’t know what set it off, but I knew it had something to do with Dominic. I left you with him and you came out, ready to leave.”
“Found Dom and Stacey. In the hall. He was… smiling at her.” The way he used to smile just for me. It all sounds so ridiculous now.
“Ah,” Bear says. “I can see how that could hurt.”
“That’s not the only reason I wanted to leave.”
“No?”
“No. It was for me too. I think I needed to leave. To see what else was out there.”
“It worked out okay, then.”
I snort. That’s a euphemism if I’ve ever heard one. “I don’t know if that’s quite right. I’m pretty sure I’m about to get kicked out of Dartmouth. If the literature is to be believed, I’ll always be an addict now. I hear voices in my head, and I still need the bathtub because it gets hard to stand. What about any of this worked out okay?”
“You’re alive.”
I gape at him, only because I can’t think of a single thing to say in response.
He shrugs. “We made it this far and we’re alive, aren’t we? There were times I didn’t think we’d be able to say that. To be where we are and say that. So while things can be shit, you just remember that you’re alive, and if you’re alive, that means you can take another step. And if you can take another step, then you are nowhere near close to being done.”
I’m unable to stop the smile that forms. “Listen to you, Papa Bear. Dispensing advice that’s not only logical, but coherent.”
He rolls his eyes. “It’s been known to happen once or twice.”
“What about that time you told me it was okay to pour a glass of ice water on Otter to wake him up?”
He laughs. “God, I wish you were little again. You were such a gullible little shit.”
“I still don’t think he’s forgiven me.”
“Hey.”
I look up at him.
“He wanted to come too. I told him it might be better if it was just me. For now.”
“I know.”
“He worries. Maybe too much. I know he’s worried about you.”
“I didn’t mean to give him reason to be.”
“He knows that, Kid. But it doesn’t matter. That’s just who he is. In his mind, we belong to him, and that means he worries. It’s not a bad thing. It just is. You should have seen his reaction when he came home the day the wedding invite came from Dominic.”
“Mad, huh?”
Bear laughs. “Furious. I had to stop him from buying a plane ticket to fly back to Seafare and kicking Dominic’s ass.”
“Really?” I don’t know why this surprises me. It sounds like something Otter would do for someone he loves.
“Really. Dominic’s family, Ty. But you… you’re different. I think part of Otter sees you as his son. And he’s a bit overprotective of us, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“Yeah.”
“We’ll figure this out, Kid. I promise.”
And I believe him, for the most part. How can I not? Bear has never lied to me before, not when it counted. There’s still way too much to work through, but this could be a start.
He still holds my hand. I’m almost twenty years old, but I don’t give a flying fuck. He’s Bear, and this is what we do. “Pretty stupid, huh?” I say. “Falling for your best friend.”
He laughs. “Not so stupid, though it can feel like it. Trust me, I would know.”
“I’m not you,” I say, though I don’t know if that’s exactly true anymore.
“No?”
“Not… not like I should be. I need to fix this, Bear. In my head. I’ve got to fix this.” It seems like we’ve been here before. Round and round we go.
“You want to talk to someone again?” he asks.
“Like Eddie?”
“Uh. Sure. Or maybe someone a little more… qualified.”
“You were going to say ‘sane,’ weren’t you.”
“No. Well, yeah.”
“I know Eddie.”
Bear sighs. “That you do.”
“He showed me how to breathe.”
“That he did.”
“He also asked me if I’d ever had any inappropriate thoughts about Otter.”
Bear groans. “That man, I swear to God.”
“I’ll talk,” I say. “And then we’ll figure out what to do. Where to go from here.”
“And if you need to go,” Bear says, “somewhere far away from here, and you need me there, too, you know I’ll follow you. Right? It doesn’t matter when or where. I’ll follow you, Ty.”
My voice is a little rough when I say, “Yeah, Papa Bear. I know.”
“Otter will too. It’s not about just us. It’s about you, too. We’ve stuck together this long. What’s the rest of our lives?”
“You’re going to make a good dad, you know? I’m sorry if I didn’t say that. You know. Before.” That was eloquent.
He grins, obviously pleased. “Yeah? You think so?”
“Yeah.”
“Me and babies, huh?”
I grimace at the thought. “Brave new world.
You’re going to be covered in so many different bodily fluids.”
“That’s… disgusting.”
“It’s being a father.”
“Maybe Otter can do the… sticky things. I can… make lunches or something. Apple slices and juice boxes. Maybe laundry.”
“You’re going to make a great soccer mom,” I tell him.
“Out your ass, Kid,” he says.
We laugh and listen to the wind. The birds. The waves and the grass. At least for a little while, it’s just me and him, me and my big brother. It’s like I’m a little guy again, sitting at his side, his hand in mine while I play with his fingers. It’s how it started, this life. Our life. For the longest time, it was only Bear and me. Against all odds. Against the world. He stopped the earthquakes because that’s what brothers do. He was my home. He will always be my home.
Of course, she was too.
“I miss her,” I say.
He knows who I mean. “I do too. Every day. She’d be proud of you, I think.”
“Maybe. I think she’d tell me it’s time to move my ass, though.”
“Yeah. That sounds like her.”
And it does. Our Mrs. Paquinn. How much like her it sounds. Sometimes I like to pretend I can hear her voice. To hear what she’d say to me. To hear her laugh again, not just for the first time or the last time, but for all time. I like that. Even if it’s just pretend.
“Otter’s probably pacing at the front door, huh?” I ask finally.
Bear chuckles. “Wearing a groove as we speak.”
“He’s pretty great, huh?”
“Yeah. I guess he’s all right.” But that smile on my brother’s face says it all.
“Where do we go from here?” I ask him.
And somehow I know what he’s going to say, because it’s just like that time in this very place so long ago that I found him here when he thought all was lost. He’d said the same thing to me.
“We go home, Kid,” he says. “They’re waiting for us.”
“All of them?”
“No,” he says. “Not all of them, but enough. For now.”
And it is. I say good-bye to Mrs. P, telling her I’ll be back soon, before I follow Bear up the sand dune to the car.