Before I can even consider formulating a response to that, there’s a knock at the door. “Bear?” the Kid asks. “Why are you locked in the bathroom? Are you talking on the phone while you empty your bowels?
That’s so gross. You better not have ever done that while talking to me!”
“I’m not emptying my bowels!” I yell at him through door.
“Well, that’ s good,” Erica says. “I’m not, either. Has anyone ever told you that you overshare?”
“I gotta go,” I tell her.
“Call the therapist,” she says. “Today. And call me if you want me to be there when the social worker comes, although I think you three will be fine.”
“Oh, please. So you can bill us for the trip down here? You wish.”
“I can’t wait to hear the date and time of the therapy appointment!” she says cheerfully as she hangs up the phone.
I set the phone down near the sink.
Bear.
I know this is going to be heard for yu to read.
Do you ever miss her?
I need yu to do something for me.
I can’t—
Please don’t try looking for me.
I have to leave.
I won’t—
Do you miss her?
No. No. No, I don’t, not even if there was a moment that—
THERE was a moment when I was young—
six i was six six and a half maybe
—when I’d come into the old apartment we used to live in over on River Road. The apartment that had the swings that always squeaked and the old man who lived next door who spent every day sitting in a chair staring out the window, sipping something out of a chipped tea cup. The pathways between the buildings were chipped and cracked, and a woman who lived next door said one day someone was going to trip over the cracks and would be able to sue and be set for life because what was a little pain if you had a lot of money? Don’t step on the cracks or you’ll fall and break your back (and become rich)! Money made everything better. I would always jump over each crack as best I could because I didn’t want to get hurt. I didn’t want to have to sue anyone. I didn’t want their money.
i left a little bit of munny to help yu out for now I came home one day from school to that apartment on River Road and found my mom sitting in the living room on that old couch covered in cigarette burns and food stains. Her face was in her hands, and I could hear the subtle gasp of a choked sob, and this was my mom, and I was so little—
maybe seven i was such a little guy
—and I ran to her and jumped in her lap and told her—
don’t cry mom it’s going
—it was going to be fine, that somehow—
i promise it will get better and better and
—we would find a way to make whatever was making her sad go away, that I would do everything I could to make her happy, and did she want to see the gold star I got on the picture
I drew because the teacher said I did so well, that I was like an artist and so very, very talented? I wanted to tell her how that praise had made me feel, how starved I’d felt for any kind of attention, that I’d begun to think of my teacher Mrs. Terrance like she was my friend, like she was my mother, like she would take me home with her one day to her big house that would be warm and smell of fresh bread, and there would be gold stars all over the floors and ceilings, and she would look down at me as we walked through the door and tell me that this was my home too, that I would get to stay with her forever because she loved me too. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t say that to my mother. Even then, I knew the power words had. To heal. To hurt.