Bear #4
They went back and forth, with Bear putting forward ideas and Richard saying no, causing Bear to formalize them first in writing, and later, a PowerPoint presentation.
Until one day Richard had sat down on the edge of Bear’s desk and said, “Houston, we have a compromise. I’ve moved hell and high water to get it, so this really is my final offer.
How about you run a weekly session for home-schoolers?
It can be more”—Richard rolled his hand as if to suggest something wafting and indefinable—“informal. You can base the content on your own whims and whichever children turn up. It can exist completely outside our schools program. A drop-in, if you will.”
At the end of Bear’s most recent class, a quiet child with curly hair—a regular now—had waited around, his mother watching on anxiously from the back of the room.
When Bear had finished answering questions and waving people off, the boy had approached.
“Thanks, Bear,” he’d said, and then, breaking into a grin, he’d added, “I really dig your lessons.” Bear could tell the boy had been saving up the joke all week.
They’d high-fived and Bear had suggested they officially end the next session with a few minutes for archaeology jokes. He was already planning to wear an old T-shirt Cora had bought him that said “MY LIFE IS IN RUINS” on the front.
Lily and Charlotte are making lunch, waiting for Bear, Maia, and Cora to return.
“It’s a funny sort of day, isn’t it?” Charlotte is saying.
“Most of the time, I feel like it’s just all of us in it together, but then each year the anniversary comes along, and I’m reminded that they’re bonded by this awful thing.
And it’s something they’ll always carry with them. ”
Lily pats lettuce leaves dry between layers of kitchen roll.
She is thinking about Bear. About what he’d said to her on the eve of his birthday a few weeks earlier.
“You know, Charlotte, Bear said something the other day. And I’m not sure it’s something I could ask Cora and Bees…
but I thought maybe you might—” Charlotte stops picking at sweetcorn from the colander in the sink and turns to listen, the frame of her black hair resettling at her chin.
“Bear thinks—he wonders if there’s some kind of link between him being called Bear and Vihaan’s death.
He just—he can’t quite imagine his father having agreed to a name like his.
He noticed a few years ago that the date his birth certificate was issued is the same as the anniversary. ”
Charlotte is fingering the sweetcorn kernels like worry beads now, and when their eyes meet, Lily realizes that, with her silence, Charlotte is asking her if she really wants to know.
To consider what she would do with the information.
Lily thinks about Bear. Of what he’d gain if his hunch became fact.
If his own name—his essence—became inextricably linked with a man’s death.
And Lily thinks how it might feel if she decided not to share whatever she found out with Bear and was left holding the knowledge by herself.
“Sorry, forget I ever said anything,” she says.
“Maybe it’s best not to know either way. ”
“Mm, I would think so.”
“Thank you,” Lily says, hearing the implication in Charlotte’s response but grateful to still be able to claim ignorance.
In the evening, once the children have returned to their own lives, Cora sits with Mehri in her back garden, the two of them wrapped in a wool blanket against the autumn chill.
“This day always seems to make such a fool out of me,” Cora says. “Another year for Vihaan unlived because of the choices I made.”
“Well, yes,” Mehri says. “Would you like me to pass you that broom? I’m sure it will help with your self-flagellation.
” She takes a sip of wine. “Seriously, though, how long till we get to the year when you accept this isn’t your fault?
It’s his fault—that monster who tricked you into marrying him.
Admitting that doesn’t mean you’re any less sad that Vihaan died. ”
Cora feels the truth in her words, but it’s not so easy to move on from.
She’s not sure she even wants to. Being in Vihaan’s debt forces her to try to live a better life.
“Fern rang last night,” Cora says, ready to change the subject, at least. “Mainly to say she’d be thinking of me, but we ended up chatting for a while. ”
“Anything to report?”
“Nothing she hasn’t probably told you herself already.”
“Ha, as if I’d know what’s going on in her life—I’m only her mother.” Mehri laughs, more proud than resentful. “That girl flits around like a dragonfly. She’s more committed to her work than any man.”
“She did say that she’s stopped seeing the microbiologist,” Cora says. They never meet Fern’s partners and are more likely to know them by their job titles or hobbies than their names.
“What is it this time—more organisms than orgasms?”
Even though Fern isn’t there to hear, Cora feels guilty—she’s not sure they should even be thinking about Fern’s sex life, let alone discussing it, although she knows Mehri would say this in front of Fern, and that she’d reply openly.
Mehri has always treated parenting like she’s cooking a big warming pan of something: a pinch of that, a pinch of this, she’s sure it will turn out fine in the end.
Cora’s own approach has always felt more like baking a cake: carefully measuring out ingredients and trying not to ruin everything. She admires Mehri’s way.
“She didn’t mention that specifically,” Cora says, “just that she was getting a bad vibe. They went out for dinner a few nights ago and he tried to order for her.” A snort of laughter escapes Mehri on the bench beside her.
“I know, it doesn’t show a brilliant understanding of Fern, but he’s sounded pretty promising until now.
I did wonder if it was an overreaction. If she’s sensitive to these things because of what happened. ”
“Seriously, we’re back here already? Cora, you’re my dearest friend, so I mean this kindly, but you are not responsible for the goings-on of the entire world.
Yes, people’s lives bump and collide and we send one another spinning off in different directions.
But that’s life. It’s not unique to you. We each make our own choices.”
“You think I’m self-absorbed?”
“A little,” Mehri says, and Cora doesn’t need to look to know her eyes will be gleaming with laughter.
“But I’m bossy and eat and drink too much; you and Roland still love me.
We all have faults, azizam,” Mehri says, patting her hand.
Darling. Dear. Cora always feels so loved when Mehri bestows these terms on her.
Somewhere in the neighboring streets, a few early fireworks are being let off, and the two women raise their heads as the sky fills with trickles of color.
One weekend when Bear has returned to Cora’s to fix a dripping kitchen tap, his head in the cupboard beneath the sink, he says, “I’ve asked Cian if he can make something for me.
” Cora is surprised. She’s in touch with Cian from time to time, but it’s a few years since her mother died, and they’ve never been quite sure what role he played in Sílbhe’s life.
They’d always referred to Cian as “Grandma’s gentleman friend” between themselves, but Sílbhe had never elaborated, only mentioning his name frequently enough for her family to know they were something to one another.
Oh, Cian and I are going to the opera, or, No, Cian was able to drive me.
At her funeral, the man’s eyes were red from the start, and he’d sobbed into a pressed handkerchief as though she’d been everything to him.
Beforehand, the undertaker had shared his request that she might be buried with two pieces of jewelry.
When Cora had opened the first box, she had found her mother’s wedding ring.
She was unsure when she’d stopped wearing it, perhaps when her knuckles became gnarly with arthritis.
But a fine necklace chain had been added, which looked new.
The second held a bracelet so small it could only ever have been intended for her mother’s birdlike wrist. It was engraved with the inscription: You go with my heart. Love always, Cx
“Do we have your permission?” the undertaker had asked. And Cora had nodded, feeling the trespass of being consulted, the trespass of looking at these things Cian had carefully prepared.
“When did you last speak to him?” Cora asks, passing Bear the wrench he’s reaching for.
“We usually write. After Grandma died, I just carried on emailing from wherever I was. And I guess I’ve not stopped just because I’m back. I like him. And it’s been helpful, you know, after Paris and everything.”
“Does he write back?”
“Yeah. I’m not just sending missives into a void.” Bear laughs from inside the cupboard.
Cora feels that odd momentary wonder that occasionally hits her to find that Bees and Bear are grown-up, independent people maintaining family relationships with no encouragement from her.
She doesn’t know why, at thirty-eight and twenty-nine, this surprises her, but it does.
And she feels bad that she has not been more dutiful in maintaining a relationship with Cian herself.
“What are you going to ask him to make for you?”
“Oh, I don’t know, some kind of anklet. Maybe a medallion,” he says, laughing.
“Oh,” Cora says, suddenly clicking. “You mean a ring! For goodness’ sake, Bear, get out of that cupboard and tell me.”
He tightens the compression fitting and then shuffles out.
“You know, it wasn’t until I was packing up her apartment that I realized everything Lily owns has this perfect form.
You know, like she’s really thought about it.
” Cora smiles. “So I thought I’d want it to be something really ergonomically satisfying, you know?
” And then he catches himself and Cora can tell he’s actually nervous about this.
Uncharacteristically awkward in his desire to get it right.
“God, it sounds like I’m talking about getting her a new garlic press, doesn’t it? ”
“No, I know what you mean. The kind of thing she’d want to twizzle around on her finger just because it feels nice to touch.”
“Yeah,” he says. “That’s kind of what I told Cian on the phone last week. And I think he got it. I asked him to make it from gold and platinum.”
“Oh, that’s contemporary for sure, mixing metals. I like it,” Cian had said with a soft chuckle. “When will you be needing it?” Bear had told him there was no rush—it’s just something he wants to set in motion. “Well, my boy, it’ll be a real honor to do this.”
And even though it’s just a turn of phrase, for a moment he’d felt unexpectedly touched, winded almost, to be referred to that way. My boy. When he hears Cian speak, Bear feels an odd nostalgia for something he’s never had.