Anna and I try to smother our laughter, but the Kid hears us and shoots us a dirty look. We immediately stop laughing. There’s nothing like being admonished by a nine-year-old ecoterrorist in training. After two excruciating hours, the movie ends, and I tell Ty it’s time for bed. I can tell he hears me, but instead of getting up and doing what I asked, he turns over on his back and stares up at the ceiling, his face scrunched in such a way that I know he’s got something serious on his mind. Anna sees it, too, and knows that we need to wait for the Kid to speak first. Forcing it out of him never works.
“Derrick?” he finally asks.
“What’s up, Kid?”
He sits up and stares up at us and cocks his head to the side. His demeanor suggests that he’s thought about this for a while and is finally ready to ask whatever it is he’s been dwelling on. I’m reminded of his question about love a couple of weeks ago, when we went to pick up Creed from the airport. Sometimes it’s refreshing not to know what someone is going to say.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Is Otter gay?”
Sometimes it’s refreshing; other times….
My breath hitches in my chest. What the fuck? I think. Where the hell did he hear that? And why am I stuck with the only nine-year-old in the world who would ask a question like that? Kids aren’t supposed to be asking shit that I don’t know how to answer!
Anna evidently knows I am having trouble responding to the inquiry and puzzles, “Why do you ask that, Ty?”
“It’s just something I’ve been thinking about,” he says honestly. “Is that bad?”
She shakes her head. “Of course it’s not bad to ask questions, Kid. You can ask anything you want. It’ll be up to Papa Bear, though, to decide if you’re ready to learn whatever it is you’re thinking about. Okay?”
He nods and looks back at me, and I curse Anna in my head. She has made it quite clear that she will not be the one to divulge this, that she will not be the one to affirm. She has left it on me, and I begin to question her motives. Anna sits up and folds her legs underneath her. She looks down at her hands as she waits for me to answer. Sighing, I sit up, too, and slide down from the couch to sit in front of Ty. “Where’d you hear this?” I ask him.
He shrugs. “Just one day when I was at Uncle Creed’s house.” His eyes go wide as if he’d suddenly just thought of something. “I wasn’t eavesdropping or anything,” the Kid says quickly.
“I didn’t think you were, Kid,” I say. “I just wanted to know if someone told you or if you accidentally overheard it.”
He grins appreciatively at me. “I accidentally overheard Uncle Creed ask Otter about his boyfriend. Otter got mad and told him to shut up.” He pauses for a moment, as if considering. “Why would Otter be mad about that? Did something bad happen?”
“Honestly, Kid? I don’t know,” I say slowly, as I know that Anna is listening to my each and every word too. When I’d come back into the house the night of the Kid’s party, Otter had already gone up to his room and shut the door. Anna and Creed had immediately interrogated me, wanting a play-by-play of When Bear Attacks. I wouldn’t answer any of their questions directly, much to their chagrin. I told myself that it wasn’t my place to say anything, not that I had been told much. I knew I was a liar.
“I thought if you had a boyfriend or a girlfriend,” Ty says wisely, “that you were supposed to be happy and want to talk about them. I don’t think Otter’s boyfriend must have been very nice if he got mad at Uncle Creed just for asking.”
Anna laughs lightly. “Just because you have someone, Ty, doesn’t mean you are going to be happy all the time. Sometimes you fight, or the person does something dumb and makes you mad.”
“Like Bear did when he said your nose looked flat?” Ty says, a thoughtful look on his face. I groan as Anna smacks me in the back of the head.
“Yes, Ty, just like that,” she says. “Sometimes, people can be a little bit inconsiderate.”
“Or,” I tell him, “sometimes people can be oversensitive and take things the wrong way even if you didn’t mean it like that. Usually it’s girls, and it’s usually because they’re being hormonal.”
“What’s hormonal?” Ty asks as Anna scowls at me.
I shake my head. “Let’s not talk about that right now.”
“So Otter’s gay?” the Kid says, redirecting the topic.
“Yes,” Anna says. “And that’s not a bad thing because it doesn’t change who he is.”
He looks surprised at her. “Who said it was a bad thing?” he asks, honestly baffled.
Anna ruffles his hair. “No one important. Just as long as you know it’s not a bad thing and that Otter loves you, then everything is alright.”
The Kid looks at me. “Do you think it’s a bad thing, Bear?”
“No,” I say. “Of course not. People can love who they want.”