Who We Are

by T. J. Klune

  No. What he’s saying can’t be true. I’m not the strong one. I’m not the pin. I’m Bear. I hold things in and overreact to other things and make decisions that I think will keep us alive at least another day. I’m weak. And frightened. And selfish and wrong and desperate. I’m a self-serving martyr who doesn’t give a rat’s ass except for those that are closest to me, those that I think I can trust but know that I’m really just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  And it has, it points out. It has dropped, and the world is crashing down around you, and the man you love is lying by himself, because you can’t even think of anything besides how it makes you feel, how insanely fearful you are. And what of Mrs. Paquinn? Are you yelling at your God for her?

  Do you think of her when you scream at him to give them back? You say

  “they,” but we know what you mean. If there’s a choice to be made, if you had to choose, we know what you would do. That little dark voice doesn’t just sound like you. No. Much like myself, it is you. It’s time for you to stand up, Bear. It’s time for you to stop getting knocked down and cowering down in the sand. It’s time to get the fuck up.

  “Is he still alive?” I ask him quietly, the wet tux hanging heavily on my frame. “Are they both?”

  Isaiah watches me for a moment, as if judging the sanity in my eyes. He must like what he sees, or at the very least understands it’s all he’s going to get when he says, “Anna indicated so when she called. Bear. I’m sorry. I’m sorry about all of this. But you’ve got to be strong now. You’re family needs you. Otter and Mrs. Paquinn need you.”

  He’s right. I hate him, but he’s right. I might not believe the voice in my head completely, I might not believe God doesn’t have it out for me, but the little box now covered in my blood and Otter’s blood is real. It’s there. It’s in my hand and that is enough for now. It has to be.

  I walk toward the cars, and Isaiah trails after me. I tell him we’ll stop by the Green Monstrosity to change our clothes. He nods and agrees to follow me there. I turn on the car and crank the heater. And, without allowing myself to think too much about what it could mean, I open the box in my hand, find the little ring, and slip it on my finger.

  It fits perfectly.

  THAT first day was the hardest. That first day was the day that there were so many questions, so few answers, and when we all had to dig in for a wait that we didn’t know how long would last. When I got back to the hospital, Otter was still in surgery and Mrs. Paquinn was undergoing countless tests that I didn’t quite understand. The Kid saw me first, walking down the hallway, and ran toward me, leaping into my arms. His face was dry and his eyes were cautious, and he told me that he’d heard about Otter, that he knew he needed to help me be strong and that he’d make sure we got through it.

  Because, he said, didn’t I know that Otter was a big guy? Didn’t I know that Otter wouldn’t dare leave us because of how mad it would make the both of us? I nodded at him. Sure, Kid, I told him. It’d piss us both off. He wouldn’t dare.

  Everyone saw the ring on my finger. No one said a thing about it.

  We were told that Mrs. Paquinn had had a CVA, or a cerebrovascular event, which led to an ischemic stroke caused by a clot. The doctor indicated that per the CT scan and MRI done, they believed her stroke had been of a rare variety: a cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, which is essentially a clot in the dural venous sinuses which drain blood from the brain. Mrs. Paquinn had mentioned a light headache earlier in the day, the Kid had said, but that she said she was fine. His eyes went wide at this, as if he thought there was some way he could have stopped this from occurring, and it took all of us, including the doctor, to convince him otherwise. Even then, I don’t think he believed us. The doctor said that treatment was usually with anticoagulants to suppress the blood clotting, but that there was indication of raised intracranial pressure, and that they might need to operate to put a shunt in to help relieve that pressure.

  No one else seemed to dare ask the one question we all wanted to know, the one question that danced across all of our minds. Whether they didn’t want to know the answer or they didn’t think it was their place to ask, I don’t know. But I’ve never been one to have a filter, and I asked what everyone was too scared to.

  “Will she live?”

  The doctor sighed as he watched me, obviously having been expecting that question. I wondered how practiced his answer would be. What I didn’t expect was his bluntness. “Chances are not good,” he said quietly, and the Kid started to shake. “The CVST occurs mostly in women, and while the mortality rate is moderately low, given Mrs. Paquinn’s age, it is definitely going to be an uphill battle. Should she survive, the chances of there being significant aftereffects from the stroke are high. Most likely she would need round-the-clock care for the rest of her life. Our biggest concern right now, though, is the probability of further strokes. They may not be as severe as the first, but they could do irreparable damage. Think of them like aftershocks to an earthquake. While they may not match the original in intensity, the foundations have already been shaken and don’t need much to fall down.”

  Aftershocks. Earthquakes. “Thank you, Doctor.”

  He nodded and said he would let us know when we could see her before he got up and walked away. Before I did anything else, I turned to the Kid and pulled him into my lap. “You did everything you could have,” I whispered to him as he shook in my arms. “There’s nothing more that you could have done. Even if she had a headache, you could not have stopped this. You hear me?”

  He nods but continues to shake.

  Aftershocks. I know a thing or two about aftershocks.

  Otter’s surgery went well, or as well as it could have gone. Dr. Moore and Dr. Woods joked around with us that now that he had a steel rod in his leg, he was going to set off metal detectors no matter where he went, just like he was a robot. We all tried to smile at this, but it was strained. He was moved to recovery, and we were told that we could go in and see him a couple at a time and only for a few minutes. I started to sit back down to allow Alice and Jerry to go in first, when they stopped me without so much as exchanging a word to each other.

  “You should go,” Alice said. “You go first.”

  I started to protest, but Jerry shook his head. “If it’s true,” he said roughly, “if he can hear us even though he can’t respond, then he’s going to want to hear your voice first. He’s going to want to know you’re there. He needs you now, Bear, and you need to be first. If anyone can bring our son back, it’s you.”

  I thought about arguing, to tell them that they were so wrong, but in the end I didn’t. Not necessarily because I believed everything that they said, but because I needed to see him. I needed to touch his hand, rub my fingers along his skin just to prove to myself that he was still alive, that the doctors weren’t liars and that he hadn’t died the moment he’d been struck. I needed to see him to prove to myself that he was still real.

  I was led down a hallway and through a pair of double doors with a red line across the floor, a warning not to cross. I hesitated, the nurse holding the door open for me, and then crossed anyways. We walked past rooms, some doors opened with machines beeping quietly, some doors closed to hide whatever grief lay inside. I didn’t know what time it was but was sure it was very early morning. Would they allow me to come back? Was there such a thing as visitor hours when it was the man you loved who lay there, his body only doing God knows what? I wanted to ask the nurse, but I couldn’t seem to find my voice. We passed another room, and a woman was crying in a corner, a man quietly consoling her as the person in the bed in front of them did nothing. He looked up as we walked past the door, and for a moment, our eyes caught and something passed between us. An understanding, a knowledge that I couldn’t shake.

  Room 403. The numbers added up to seven. That was my first thought. I don’t know why I had it. The nurse paused at the door and turned to me, and again warned me about what I would see, that he was not the Ott
er that I remembered. I nodded almost impatiently, and I think she saw this because she smiled quietly at me and opened the door.

  The first thing I noticed was the machines. Machines that whirred. And beeped. And pumped and hissed. There seemed to be so many of them, and I laughed wildly in my head and wondered if Otter was even in there anymore. I pushed this thought away. Of course he is, I thought. He’s in there. He’s in there. I could almost believe it. How could I not?

  The second thing I noticed was that he had a window in the room and that the blinds were shut. This bothered me for some reason. I don’t know why I wanted them open, but then realized it was dark and cold outside. I wanted to ask if he could be moved to a room without any windows. I couldn’t think of a way to say it without sounding crazy, so I said nothing.

  The third thing I noticed? I noticed Otter.

  It seemed every inch of exposed skin was covered in bruises, a dark tapestry of blues and blacks, greens and purples. Some were mottled, some looked like they were spread up entire swatches of skin. His face looked swollen under the bandages wrapped around the top of his head. A clear gluelike substance covered the cut on his forehead, and I wondered where the stitches went. There was a cast on his left arm. On his left leg, elevated in a harness above the bed. I saw his toes sticking out, and it was only then that I could take a breath, and I had to reach out and steady myself against the wall. My vision grayed for a moment, but I forced myself back.

  Because I knew that even under the bruising and the machines and the casts, even under the bandages and the blinds that kept out the dark, this was still Otter. I could see that. Even with the colors that shouldn’t have been there on his skin, even though his face looked distended, I could still see him in there, buried but recognizable. It was that feeling, that darkly glorious feeling that broke the last hesitancy I might have had, and before I knew it, I was at his side. I raised my hands to touch him, but stopped myself. The doctor said she thought that he could hear us, that we should talk to him, to let him know that we were there. But if he had that cognizance, wouldn’t he still be able to feel pain? What if I hurt him? I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t hurt him. I loved him.

  The nurse seemed to sense my turmoil and led me to the other side of his bed, his good arm bruised, but better than the other. In fact, his entire right side looked better than the left. It was like he’d been divided in half with one side almost normal, the other dipped in watercolor. The nurse indicated I could take his hand, and so I did. It was cool to the touch, that big hand so familiar in my own. I wrapped my hand around his and squeezed, momentarily distressed when it didn’t squeeze back. I don’t know why I expected it to. The nurse seemed to understand my need for privacy and walked out of the room.

  I didn’t know what to say. I felt slightly foolish at the thought of speaking to him, that of course he wouldn’t be able to hear me. He was unconscious, for Christ’s sake. Maybe in a coma. I didn’t know. All I could remember was the words “brain damage” and wondered what that would mean for him, for us, if that was the case. Too many scenarios ran through my head. What if he woke up and was different? What if he was…

  damaged? What if, in a crazy soap opera twist, he didn’t remember me because he had amnesia, and I had to make him fall in love with me all over again? I would show him pictures, I knew, of us and his family to remind him of what he had. I would tell him constantly that I loved him and that he would come back to me and remember me and love me again. That darker part of my brain wondered what would happen if he did wake up but that the Otter I knew and loved was gone, that what if he would be a blank slate, unaware of his surroundings, disabled beyond any repair. I was astonished by my response to that dark voice, the same response I’d given to my other thoughts: I would show him pictures of us and his family to remind him of what he had. I would tell him constantly that I loved him. Every day he would know I loved him.

  I brought up my free hand to wipe at my face, and the ring on my finger glinted in the low light, a flash that was brilliant and heartbreaking. I dropped my left hand on top of his. “You’ll see,” I said. “You’ll see. You and me? We aren’t done yet. Not by a long shot. I promise you that. I don’t care what it takes. I don’t care how you come back to me. But you come back, you hear me? You come back and everything will be fine. I don’t care if you can’t walk right, or if you can’t think right, or if you can never remember my name. It won’t matter to me, just as long as you come back.

  You’ll see. You’ll see how great it can be.”

  Bear! Bear! Bear! I’ve something to say, don’t be scared!

  THE second day was the hardest. The second day was the hardest because nothing changed much for either of them. Otter still look beat to hell, and Mrs. Paquinn looked frail and old. It was somehow worse to sit beside Mrs.

  Paquinn, given how much she looked like she had shrunk in the last couple of days. Otter was still big and even though he was still silent and smattered with colors that seemed to grow darker, his size seem to negate the injuries.

  It wasn’t so with Mrs. Paquinn. The vibrant little lady who’d rescued me from myself time and time again seemed to be collapsing in on herself, the skin on her arms looking dusty and paper thin, the breathing tube down her throat looking obscenely large on such a small woman. When I wasn’t with Otter, I was with her. The staff had tried to limit my time with the both of them, but it only took one look from all the members of my family (by now, Anna’s parents had arrived, not yet knowing that there was a third part to play in all of this, that their daughter was fighting her own mind and body) to show the staff that we were not to be fucked with, that not only was our strength lying silent down the hall, our heart was wasting away in front of us. The protests became weaker and weaker until they became nothing at all.

  Creed arrived on the afternoon on the second day, as did Dominic.

  Creed came first, and I was standing near the coffee machine, debating on whether or not $1.25 was too much for the swill that came out (and this debate was the only thing that kept me from shattering, so it was one I had every hour on the hour). I heard him say my name and when I looked up, my eyes and mind played a trick on me, and for a moment, I was sure it was Otter. I was sure Otter was standing in front of me, saying my name, his arms wide open and waiting for me to run to him.

  “What?” I managed to croak out. “What?”

  And then he was on me, and it didn’t smell like Otter. It was Creed, and he was breathing heavily into me, trying to maintain control, trying to be the strong one. But I’d already assumed that role. I’d already decided that I would be the strong one now. So I told him it was okay, that he was here now, and I felt him quake in my arms, and for the first time in my life, I held my best friend while he broke down and cried. The noise that came from him threatened to sap my strength, but I knew it would be no good for either of us, so I waited until I was sure I could maintain control before I spoke again, telling him quietly in his ear how Otter was doing, how Mrs. Paquinn was doing, the few updates that we had looked positive for Otter, less positive for Mrs. Paquinn. He nodded through his tears and listened.

  I didn’t say anything to him about Anna. I didn’t even know if he knew.

  I didn’t think it was my place to bring it up, but it would be my place to stand beside the both of them when it came out. I was, after all, the strong one now.

  I let Creed go when Alice and Jerry came up and hugged Creed, and I left the Thompsons there, telling them I needed to get some air, that I’d be right back.

  I found a supply closet somewhere down the hall and went inside and broke. When I came back out, I was strong again.

  Dominic showed up hours later, and as soon as he walked into the waiting room, the Kid was up and off his seat, and his little arms wrapped around Dominic’s waist, and Dominic looked surprised, if only for a moment. Then his own arms came down and wrapped themselves around the Kid, and they went to the opposite side of the room and sat down in some empty cha
irs. I could see Dominic whispering something into the Kid’s ear as the Kid sobbed into his shoulder and eventually, the tears subsided and the Kid calmed, and at one point, I thought I heard a short bark of watery laughter come from my little brother, and I was grateful. I was grateful for that moment.

  Eventually, they walked back over to me, and I smiled up at Dominic, trying to show him that I was the strong one now, and he seemed to see right through it and grabbed me in a rough hug of my own. He whispered something to me, but I couldn’t make out what it was. I don’t know that it mattered. The intent was there, and I could understand that.

  I stayed the strong one.

  “Happy birthday,” I whispered to Otter later that night.

  Bacon is bad! Beef is wrong!

  THE third day was the hardest. The third day was the hardest because they had to do emergency surgery on Mrs. Paquinn to apply the shunt in her brain, as the anticoagulants didn’t seem to be working, and she continued to have the mini-strokes that you couldn’t even tell were happening by looking at her. Aftershocks can be like that, I’m told. She was down in radiology having tests done while I sat with Otter when I heard an emergency code over the intercom, and I closed my eyes because I knew what it meant, who it was for.

  The others were gone, per my insistence, letting them know I needed them to get out of the hospital for a while, that I needed them to take the Kid out to lunch or whatever, just to get his mind off what was going on. There was still an intense debate ongoing as to whether or not he’d return to school the next day (I was for it, he was against it, of course). I told him Otter and Mrs. Paquinn wouldn’t want him falling behind. He told me that it wasn’t fair in the slightest to say that because no one could know what they would say. I told him then that I was telling him he would go. He said we’d see.