Bear, Otter, & the Kid 03 - The Art of Breathing (60 page)

And (go me!), I didn’t even have any of my normal freak-outs when he announced they were coming back cross-country, off the beaten track. Well, not a
complete
freak-out, anyway. I didn’t let it get as far as them getting raped by hillbillies in West Virginia and then strung up on trees and sacrificed to some mountain wood god. I do have
some
restraint these days. I guess that’s what happens when you get older. You tend to focus less on the unnecessary and more on the practical. I mean, it’s more likely they would get RV-jacked and left on the side of the road and
then
get raped by hillbillies.

Yeah, I know, I know. My students think that Mr. Thompson is a spaz. A good spaz, but a spaz, nonetheless. Some things never change.

But other things do. In the strangest possible ways.

I’m standing in the doorway of Ty’s old room. And what’ll be his room again, when he comes home to the Green Monstrosity. To be honest, I don’t know how much use this room is actually going to get, what with him and Dom. Ty says he doesn’t think they’re ready to move in together (“What if he finds out that I have the worst morning breath in the world? He’ll leave me for sure!”), but I don’t think he’s going to last as long as he thinks he will. Not if Dom has anything to say about it. Dom’s already confided in Otter and me that he plans on taking one thing out of Ty’s room a day until all of his things are in Dom’s house. Smooth, that guy. Of course, I had to threaten him that if he
ever
hurt my little brother in
any
way, there wouldn’t be enough of him left for his family to identify. Otter then pointed out that
we’re
his family, and then Dom pointed out that it’s hard to take a threat seriously when the person threatening is on the verge of tears. I called them both bastards, threw a couch pillow at Otter’s head, and fled the room before my emotions could get the better of me.

And I should leave Ty’s room right now if I don’t want the same thing to happen again. I can’t seem to find the strength to do so, however. There’s so much here. So much about this place, this room, that causes me to stop and think. There were some nights after Ty went back to Dartmouth on his own that I couldn’t sleep, and I’d find myself sitting in this room. His room. I’d touch the books that still lined the shelves, thinking I should probably get around to reading
Brave New World
, seeing as how most of my students have. I’d look at the photos that line his desk. The walls. They tell his story. And mine too.

There’s Ty (always the Kid) and me when he was seven years old. I’m looking at him, and he’s looking at the camera. Anna took the picture, I think. He’s smiling wide and there’s a tooth missing. I’ve never told anyone, not even Otter, that when he first started losing his teeth, I panicked, sure he was going to swallow one in the middle of the night and choke to death. There were a few sleepless nights whenever he had a loose tooth, as I’d camp outside his door, waiting to hear any choking sounds.

There’s the Kid and Otter on our beach.

The Kid and Mrs. Paquinn.

The Kid and Creed.

The Kid and Dom, arms around each other’s shoulders, mugging it up for the camera.

Ty graduating.

Ty his first day sober after the long dark, looking pale, but that undying spark still shining in his eyes.

Ty, the day before he set out on his own.

After he left, his room became a refuge for me. It was my place to hold on to something I knew I had to let go of. No matter how hard it was. No matter how much it hurt. No matter how much it terrified me.

It’s gotten better. Or rather, I have. I think. I still find myself in here sometimes, though not as much as I used to be.

But today is a different day. I’m allowing myself this moment, because of all the changes today is about to bring—and what the future holds for all of us.

I’ll admit that under the relief of hearing Tyson say he was coming back to Seafare, I felt a twinge of disappointment. Not because of his reasons behind coming home or what he planned to do with his life, but more because I wanted him to get out of Seafare, to leave behind this place and all the memories that came with it. But then it hit me that all the bad can never compare to everything good that has happened to us in this place. In this town. We were knocked down, but we picked ourselves up. Every time. And we’ll do it again. So while I might have been just a tad bit upset, that left when I realized it was his life, and this is his home too. And if that’s what he wants to do, then I’m behind him on it. He is my brother, after all. That’s what we do. It’s the only thing
to
do.

This room, though. These photos. All these things. There’s a lifetime of memories in here, even though we’ve barely begun.

It’s easy to get lost in them.

Otter comes up behind me, wrapping his big arms around my waist, dropping his chin on my shoulder. He kisses my ear and I squirm, trying to complain but unable to keep the smile from my face. Even after all this time, I get butterflies in my stomach when he touches me.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey, yourself,” I say back.

He waits. He knows me well. He grazes his hand over mine and there’s that familiar clink as our wedding rings scrape together. It sounds like home.

It’s hard to believe we’ve come so far, isn’t it? When you and I first met, things were… well. Things weren’t the best. I was a scared little boy in charge of another scared little boy. But, hey. No need to rehash old details. Chances are if you’ve made it this far, you know all this. It’s just strange to think where we’re at now, especially when you consider how we started out.

Of course, it’s also strange to think how much things are about to change again. But this time, it’s by our own choice.

And that doesn’t make it any less terrifying.

“Did you finish?” I ask Otter. “Setting up the room?”

“For the most part,” he says. “Want to come see?”

I chuckle nervously. “I don’t know.”

He kisses my neck. “It’s not as scary as you think. I promise.”

“It’s
very
scary,” I remind him.

He laughs in my ear. It’s a husky sound, and I consider whether we have enough time to allow me to climb him like a tree. Probably not. Besides, my nerves probably would ruin any shenanigans we could get up to. I’m kind of dumb like that.

“You sure about this?” he asks me.

“It’s a little late for that.”

“Nah,” he says easily. “We can always just say no.”

I shake my head. “And then what?”

He shrugs. “And then we move on.”

“What if…?” I stop. I told myself I wasn’t going to do this anymore.

But I can’t hide it from him. “You’ll do good, Bear. We both will. Look at Ty.”

I sigh. “I know.” Well, I think I do, anyway. Sort of. “Okay. Show me.”

I take one last look into Ty’s room before I shut the door behind me. He’ll be home soon. I won’t have to worry much anymore. At least about that.

I follow Otter down the hall to the spare bedroom next to ours, though I don’t know if I can call it the spare room anymore.

Not when it’s going to belong to our son in another four months or so.

Shit.
That’s a thought I never believed I’d have.

Otter opens the door, and inside is the result of his loving, painstaking labor over the past couple of weeks. What had once been a cluttered office we rarely used is now a bright and airy room painted the palest of blues. Cartoon elephants and tigers are stenciled onto the walls, prancing in a field of green grass and pretty flowers. The ceiling above is painted with clouds, and in the corner is the sun. When you turn off the lights at night, little stars stuck to the ceiling shine down, put up by Otter and me as we followed along with the images of constellations off his laptop to mimic the night sky during summer.

There’s a white dresser in the corner. A changing table. A crib. There are still so many things left to get, but the foundation is here. I’m pretty sure the ladies at the baby store rub their hands together gleefully every time they see us approach. This kid isn’t even born yet, and we’re already treating him like he’s the greatest thing in the world.

Which, in a scary-real kind of way, he really is.

The surrogate was a pain in the ass to find. Jerking off into a cup wasn’t my idea of fun, even when Otter was there to… help me out. The waiting sucked. The false starts were awful. We had one surrogate back out on us at the last minute. But it finally happened, and one day right around after Christmas, the phone rang and Otter answered it, and his face went white and then he said, “We’re pregnant,” and I don’t really remember much after that.

You should have seen Otter’s face, though, when we found out it was a boy last week. It was a look of such wonder that it knocked the breath from my chest. That look has made it all worth it. That look is what I live to see.

Jesus Christ, do I love that man.

It’s been a bitch to keep secret, let me tell you. The pregnancy, that is. Our family knew we were trying. But they don’t know we’ve succeeded or how far along it is. This room is meant to be a surprise for them. For us. For Ty.

They’re all going to shit a brick.

Goddamn this baby room.

And all this baby stuff.

And having babies.

And being a parent.

Forever.

And, of course, I start to panic.

“Bear?” Otter asks. “You okay? You’re breathing funny.”

“I’m fine!” I say, my voice high-pitched. My eyes feel like they’re bugging out of my head.

“Oh no,” Otter groans. “Bear, you need to calm down.”

Too fucking late. “What? It’ll be fine! No worries! The kid will come out okay, and he’ll be fine. It’s not like he’s going to be born with a horn or a
tail
or anything, right? I mean, how often are kids born with tails? Not that often, right? Right? I need to google that so I can see how many children are born with tails. Oh my God. What if he can
wag
the tail? What if we can’t get it removed because it’s attached to his spine and brain stem somehow and by removing the tail, he’ll be paralyzed for the rest of his life? If we do remove it and he’s paralyzed, the other kids will be mean and say his name is Doorstop, and then I’ll be forced to dropkick some stupid little fucker for calling my son that, and we’ll end up in court because you can’t dropkick children! I’ll go to jail and spend the rest of my days making license plates and covering my asshole so I don’t get accidentally raped in the showers! Or what happens if we get the tail removed and it messes him of neurologically and he grows up to be some kind of sadistic serial killer? I don’t know if I could be the parent of a serial killer. Everyone will whisper behind our backs every time we go to the store, and I’ll turn and look at them and shout that all I wanted was some goddamn
eggs
and we were
good parents
! We didn’t make him a serial killer! He didn’t play violent video games or see scary movies and he ate his vegetables and did well in school and
never
tortured animals as a child! But no one will listen and then we’ll be forced to go to his execution and he’ll see us there and scream that we should have
never
removed his tail and that
we
did this to him! We made him this way! Did we even test for that? Was that one of the tests? To see if our sperm makes serial killers with tails?”

“No, Bear,” Otter sighs. “I don’t think there was a test for serial killers with tails.”

“Well, there should have been!” I shout at him.

Then two things happen at once.

A phone rings.

The doorbell rings.

“That’s my phone,” Otter says. “It’s downstairs. You need to take a deep breath and answer the door. Someone showed up a bit early.”

“No violent video games!” I tell him. “And he eats all his vegetables! I don’t care what he tries to say. Those goddamn Brussels sprouts are going down his throat or he can stay at the dinner table all night!”

“All night,” Otter says, putting his hands on my shoulders. “Bear. Focus.”

“I
am
focused!” On my son being a serial killer with a tail. As I should be. (Because what if being born with a tail
causes
you to be a serial killer?)

He turns me around and steers me toward the stairs. “You need to get the door. I need to see who called to make sure everything’s okay.”

The phone stops ringing. But then it starts again.

There’s a knock at the door.

We reach the bottom of the stairs. He kisses me hard, knowing full well my brain is still racing at a hundred miles an hour. I’m a little breathless by the time he’s finished, and a little turned on, and a little turned around. Gosh, and today started so well.

“Good?” he asks.

“Blargh,” I tell him.

“Good,” he says and pushes me toward the door, then turns to the living room, where his phone is going off again. Must be important.

The doorbell rings.

Right. Get the door. No more babies with tails. At least until later.

“Huh,” Otter says as he picks up his phone. “It’s Megan.”

Megan. The surrogate. She had an appointment today to get an ultrasound. She told us it was okay if we didn’t come to this one, because she knew we’d be getting the house ready for Ty to come home. We thought it’d be better to have everyone meet her later. She’s a sweet girl. A bit of a ditz, but sweet nonetheless.

And now she’s calling us repeatedly after a meeting with the ob-gyn.

Headlines flash across my mind:
THE SERIAL KILLER KNOWN AS THE TAILED DOORSTOP STRIKES AGAIN! STAY INSIDE! LOCK YOUR DOORS! YOU ARE NOT SAFE!

I hear him answer the phone.

Someone pounds on the door.

I open it.

“Is everything okay, Megan?” Otter says in the living room.

There’s a little girl standing on the porch of the Green Monstrosity. Dark hair, braided down the back of her head. Dark, tired eyes. A smudge of dirt on her nose. A backpack slung across one shoulder. Her eyes widen as she stares up at me. There’s something familiar about her that I can’t quite place.