Bear
Sitting in Mr. and Mrs. Harrison’s backyard in Franklin Park, it’s all I can do to keep my mouth shut and drink my beer while everyone else around me talks and laughs like everything is just peachy keen.
It’s a perfect fall day, the bright blue sky virtually cloudless and letting the sun warm us where we sit around the small bonfire Mac’s dad built.
It’s just cool enough to need the fire, and a light sweater, but not so cold that we need to bundle up or that we can’t be outside enjoying the evening.
I can’t help but compare it to the hot and humid October day I left behind in South Florida when I got on the plane that took me back home just a couple days go, and perhaps what guts me is I don’t know which one feels like home.
Honestly, neither really does anymore.
I’ve spent the weekend with my little brother, watching him dominate at his home football game Friday night, and then eating our way around Pittsburgh all day yesterday.
It was the closest I’ve felt to myself since the day Erin told me about our unborn child, but I woke this morning with the same numbness, the same dread swimming in my stomach.
Because we were going to see our mother for the first time in two years.
I’d reached out to her after Clayton told me she was online again, and she asked to see us both.
She wanted to explain, wanted to spend time with us, show us how much she’d changed.
And while everything inside me wanted to scream at her to go fuck herself all the way off, I knew what my little brother wanted more than anything in the world was a relationship with at least one of his parents.
And since our dad was a piece of shit who took off shortly after Clayton was born, this was the only option.
It’s a full house, with Mac and his sister, Kia, their parents, my little brother, me, and — the guest of the day — my mother.
Christine Pennington looks better than I’ve ever seen her look.
Her normally ashen skin is golden brown and healthy, her big brown eyes wide and full of life, her smile no longer the dead one that I’d become accustomed to growing up, but rather one that glows and fills her entire face.
She looks nothing like the profile picture on her new Facebook account — the one she’d contacted both me and Clayton on.
That woman was skinny and drugged out and sad.
The one sitting across the fire from me with a glass of water is healthy and sober and happy.
Still, I don’t trust her.
And I don’t like the way Clayton so easily does.
“I can’t believe you’ve been in Mexico this whole time,” Clayton says after our mother finishes off a story about her and my older brother, Carleton, in Tijuana drinking margaritas the size of their face. He had asked to come today, too, but I’d refused.
One fucked-up family member at a time.
“It was quite a ride,” Mom muses, thumbing the condensation off the side of her glass with a smile. “The beaches there, they’re just incredible.” Her eyes find mine then. “Of course, I’m sure it’s nothing compared to the beaches in Florida, right, baby?”
My nostrils flare at the pet name, because she hasn’t ever called me her baby.
Even before she bailed on her family, we had a strained relationship at best. Because unlike my younger brother who saw her as an angel, and my older brother who followed in her footsteps, I saw her for exactly who she was.
A monster.
And I wanted nothing but to get as far away from her as I could.
I take a sip of my beer in lieu of answering, and an awkward silence passes over everyone before Kia steers the conversation toward how Clayton and Mac are both doing so well in football.
My shoulders ease a little once it’s no longer my mother talking, until she somehow finds a way to bring it all back to her.
“I wish I could have seen you play your freshman year last year,” she says to Clayton, reaching over to thumb his cheek. I don’t miss the way his eyes light up at the affection. “I bet you were a stud.”
“He really was. Made me look bad,” Mac comments, nudging his best friend. “But now, we’re dominating. Going to take this team all the way to state.”
“Well, I can’t wait to watch it.”
I scoff, crushing the can of beer I just drained and tossing it in the bag for recycling before reaching into the cooler for another.
Everyone is quiet, and Mom looks hurt where she watches me across the fire.
“What?” I ask, cracking the top on my next can. “Disappointed that I’m not playing into your bullshit the way everyone else is?”
“Clinton,” Mrs. Harrison warns me, but her husband touches her arm gently, shaking his head to indicate it’s not her place. And while I respect the shit out of her for stepping up and caring for my brother like he was her own, right now, it really isn’t her place.
“I’m not… I wasn’t trying to…” Mom stammers.
“You’re not what?” I ask, tilting my head. “Spewing off a bunch of lies like you always do? Showing up after ditching your family for two years for some vacation in Mexico and expecting it to all be okay?”
She swallows.
“I was just saying that I’m happy I’ll be able to see him play,” she whispers.
“Bullshit,” I whisper, sucking down half my beer.
“Come on, bro,” Clayton begs from across the fire just as Kia excuses herself to the restroom.
“No,” I yell, and I surprise myself at how much my voice booms. Everyone else seems shaken, too, their eyes locked on me as I point across the fire at my brother.
“Don’t let her fool you. Don’t let her get in your head with her lies.
I’ve lived through enough of them to tell you that they only get better with age. ”
“I’m not lying,” Mom says defensively, holding her chin high. “And I surely don’t appreciate the way you’re talking to me or about me right now, Clinton. I’m your mother.”
At that, I bark out a loud, barrel-chested laugh. “Oh, are you? Because I thought mothers were supposed to take care of their children, not ask them for money time and time again, and then disappear and not talk to them for two years.”
“Alright, Bear, I think that’s—” Mr. Harrison starts, but he doesn’t get to finish before I stand, towering over the fire and my mother on the other side of it.
“You’re a liar, and an addict, and a piece of shit excuse for a mother, and I won’t let you tear Clayton up the way you did me.
” I look at him then. “She won’t be at your football games.
She won’t be here for your prom or senior night or graduation, either.
Trust me when I tell you that she came back because she needs something.
” I turn on my mother again. “And as soon as she gets it, she’ll be gone again. ”
Mom’s bottom lip quivers, and I wish I felt a shred of remorse for what I said, but I feel nothing.
She stands, mumbling something about needing to get something out of her car before she excuses herself through the backyard gate. Mac’s mom looks at her husband with worried eyes before chasing after her, and then I’m being shoved back by two surprisingly strong hands.
“What the fuck, Bear?!”
“Language, Clayton,” Mr. Harrison warns, but he’s already ushering Mac inside.
“We’ll leave you two alone, but just for the record, I don’t appreciate any of that kind of disrespectful talk going down in my house.
You understand me?” He looks briefly at my little brother, but his glare nearly burns a hole in my skull.
“So, you two talk this out and cool down. Now.”
I don’t respond, but I do nod to let him know I’ve heard him, and a sliver of guilt seeps into my spoiled gut.
“Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you?” Clayton asks when we’re alone.
He’s almost as tall as me now, with the lean and built body of a wide receiver, instead of the lanky one he’d had as a kid.
I see the same shape of my eyes in his own, feel the same blood coursing through our veins, and though I know he’s not a child anymore, I can’t help but want to protect him like one.
“We finally have her back in our lives, and you’re doing everything you can to push her away. ”
“She left us,” I remind him. “Our brother left his children, too. Now, they’re back after two years of barely any word at all, and we’re just supposed to listen to their stories, celebrate them, welcome them home with open arms?”
“People make mistakes, Bear,” Clayton says. “Haven’t you?”
I grit my teeth, looking away from him and at the half-open gate across the yard from us. Through the slit, I can see Mrs. Harrison holding my mother while she cries.
And it pisses me off even more.
“Yes, people do make mistakes. But unlike our mother, most people regret them. Most people do whatever they can to make amends and become a better person. But our mother, Clayton?” I point at the gate.
“She is a fucking train wreck. She cares about no one but herself, and I know you want to believe her when she says she’ll stay, that she’ll be a better mother, but believe me when I say that she’s lying. ”
“You don’t know that.”
“But I do,” I urge, stepping into him and grabbing both his shoulders in my hands.
“Who has been there for you your entire life? Who used to feed you when that woman wouldn’t, change your diapers, play with you, care for you when you were sick?
Who made sure you got up in time for school and got on the bus?
Who made sure you took showers and brushed your teeth?
Who made sure you were okay when she bailed out of here?
” I shake my head, begging him to see it.
“I may not be perfect, Clayton, but I’m your family.
I’m the one you should trust in — not her. ”
Clayton’s eyes grow so tired in the span of my words, that I wonder if I’ve aged him, if it would be one of those moments like so many I had lived through myself that he’d look back on as a turning point.
“I do trust you,” he finally whispers. “And I love you, bro. I do. And maybe you’re right.
Maybe she’ll leave again or make promises she can’t keep, but…
I don’t know. I think she’s changed. I think something happened.
She seems different, and I know she doesn’t deserve it, but I want to give her a second chance.
Okay? And that’s my choice. Not yours. So if you want to write her off forever, if you want to be an asshole to her and never give her the opportunity to make things right, then that’s your decision.
I won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do.
But I’m asking the same courtesy from you. ”
His eyes are hard on mine, and he shrugs out of my grasp without letting me respond, jogging across the yard and through the gate to join our mother and Mrs. Harrison.
The next breath through my nose is icy cold, and I seethe with the overwhelming urge to run to him and hold him away from our mother and take him away from this place, even if he hates me for doing it.
But he’s right.
I can’t make choices for him, and he’s grown enough now to know the possible consequences of the decisions he’s making. And hadn’t I done the same, given our mother chance after chance until she’d burned me enough times that I learned not to get close to the fire ever again?
I scrub my hands over my face, trying to soothe my uneven breathing enough to get through the rest of the night. My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I yank it out, expecting to see Becca’s warm smile on my screen.
Instead, it’s a black screen with the name ERIN XANDER in white letters at the top.
My stomach drops, and I stare at the vibrating device for what feels like an eternity with my heart in my throat. When I don’t answer, she goes to voicemail, a missed call notification taking the place of her name on the screen. But before I can put the phone back in my pocket, it rings again.
Erin.
I answer quickly this time, snapping back to reality like waking from a dream. “Erin? Are you okay? What’s going on?”
“Hey,” she answers softly, tentatively. “Oh gosh, yes, I’m fine, I’m sorry if I worried you. I just wasn’t sure if my first call came through but… oh, you’re probably busy. I’m sorry. I’ll just—”
“Don’t hang up.”
A silent moment passes between us as my racing heart slows to its normal rate, and I run a hand through my short hair, turning away from where I can still see my mom and brother through the backyard gate.
“Did I catch you at a bad time?” Erin finally asks.
I want to laugh, because every time is a bad time for me — ever since the last night Erin and I talked.
“Why did you call me, Ex?”
I hear a shaky inhale on the other end, a shuffling of papers. “I’d like to talk to you.”
“So, talk.”
“Not on the phone,” she explains. “I was wondering if we could have dinner.”
My heart stops, skipping a few beats before it hammers back to life. “Dinner.”
“If that would be okay.”
I glance over my shoulder and see Mrs. Harrison and Clayton leading Mom back inside the house, and I nod to my little brother, signaling that I’ll be right in.
“I’m out of town.”
“Oh…” Erin pauses. “Okay. I’m sorry, I—”
“I’ll be back next week.”
I swallow, my stomach so fucked up from the emotions of the day, I’m not sure I’ll be able to hold down the beer churning inside it.
“Okay,” Erin whispers. “How about the Sunday after Halloween? Eros?”
Eros is a small Greek restaurant off campus, and one of my favorites.
“What time?”
“Seven okay?”
I nod, more to myself than to her, as if I need that assurance from myself that I can do this, that I can have dinner with Erin and somehow live through it. “See you then.”
I don’t wait for a response before I end the call, and I don’t allow myself to simmer on the sound of her voice, or the fact that I’ll be meeting up with her when I get back to Florida.
Instead, I shove the phone in my pocket and put out the bonfire on my way back inside to suffer through whatever time I have left with my mother.
One monster at a time.