The Bear: A Novel Page 9

  “Help,” he says.

  I give him one more. “That’s all.”

  “Please?”

  “No. All done.”

  “Okey,” he says and he sounds sad in his throat.

  I feel sadder because I am so hungry but looking at him feels like there is a beanbag in my chest. Like we have to run around in the school at gym time and pick up for a relay and it flops over and is dirty on the other side from so many grubby hands. Huff.

  I tell him to sit and I take a leaf and fold it around another leaf and that is his bowl. I tell him to sit and stay and put Gwen down to sit in his lap because she needs someone to hold her and I need both my hands so at least Stick is a good Gwen holder because he gives her back. I find the next plant and I scrape the berries into my hand and I pour half but maybe just less but I am bigger into Stick’s bowl and I shove the others into my mouth. I move over to pick more.

  “Gums,” he says.

  I pour more into his bowl. Minty gum that he sneaks from Momma’s purse and is not allowed and he swallows it and it’s the sort of thing that might make Daddy go away. Stick pushes the berries into his mouth and is breathing through his nose because his mouth is closed and busy chewing and he makes whuffle noises and that means it is really good and I am doing a good job. I go to the plant place again and get more and dump them in mouth and bowl and he keeps chewing and I give him more. He is chewing and then he takes one berry and I am about to tell him not to throw them because none should go on the ground they should go into my mouth. He doesn’t throw it but he pinches his between his thumb and fat finger and then holds it to Gwen’s mouth. She doesn’t eat it because she only has black string and no mouth but he doesn’t know because he makes a smacking sound for her to eat and asks her if it is yummy. Gwen looks happy and I can see her heart is chewing even if her mouth stays still.

  I keep getting berries until I have to walk farther away and then I go back and forth and then a plant is closer to the wet grass and then there are no more plants with the dangle berries and they are gone. I walk back across the line that I plucked and I find a couple and I come back and sit down beside Stick and Gwen and I eat three and I give Stick three and we chew and they are gone. We are both not talking and picking in our mouths for anything left.

  “Thank you, Nana.”

  “Yeah.”

  And I am not just watching I am like a babysitter and I’m too young and I didn’t listen to Momma. We sit beside each other and stare at the trees and I think of hot dogs and wonder if I can smell bacon except I can’t because we are alone.

  15.

  The trees that we are in make it dark but also the sky turns night. The sun is peeking through the trees at the side and it looks at us and we sit and we don’t know what to do and the sun just stays but then it starts to go away more. I watch it and I can see the bottom part is behind some trees. Stick plays with a rock like it is a ball and I can’t see the sun move but more of it goes until it is only half a sun. We sat on the dock at my cottage and watched it across the lake one day and it was after a storm. We had no lights and my momma had candles out and ready and she gave Stick and me flashlights so we don’t need to be scared and we took blankets to sit on the dock and watch the sun go to bed. When it was tucked in we went back up and the cottage was gray until it turned black. My momma said don’t be scared because it is the same earth just not as light.

  I said I wanted to kiss Daddy good night and Momma said he isn’t at the cottage and that he is not coming up. I knew he would come on the weekend and Momma said no and Daddy is not in our family he is in Toronto. She put her hand on her mouth and said “Oh, sweetie.” I saw a little piece of sad drip from her heart up into her eyes but she didn’t show me her cry and I didn’t see it because she swallowed it back into her heart. Our house is in Toronto and we are four. At the cottage we were three.

  We made a fort with all the pillows in the middle of the floor by the couch and Momma put two chairs on the other side and blankets were over the top for the roof. We all cuddled inside. Momma said it needed a name and I said it was Fort Anna and Momma said it had to be a better name for all of us. Momma said we should call it Fort Whyte because it had nearly our whole family. It got dark and Momma sings and Stick is asleep and snores in like three seconds because he always falls asleep really fast. I listened to Momma’s song and I was awake and she stopped singing and I wasn’t scared. I woke up in the morning and gave Gwen a sniff and it was my bed around me. I could see the swirly part of the knots of the wood that is on the wall in my cottage. The light beside my bed was on. Stick was breathing in the bed beside mine that is his bed and he was on his tummy with his bum up in the air.

  Fort Whyte stayed up. My momma came out of her room and soon Daddy’s room and she rubbed her eyes and her hair is mussy in the back with a black bendy that bunches up from her pillow. She had Daddy’s boxer underpants on because there is a place for a penis even though Daddy doesn’t use it. Momma only wears man’s underpants when she misses Daddy and maybe his T-shirt too. She looked at me and smiled and told me to come here with only her hand. We crawled into Fort Whyte and we got under the sleeping bag because it was still cold. She put her arms around me and it was the warmest place to be. I said I love the fort and she said that she knows and that it can stay.

  Stick and I sit. The sun has just a little tip that I can still see and I know that soon it will go gray and it is black after that. I stand up and look around and Stick looks at me.

  “Don’t leave, Nana.”

  “I’m not. I’m looking.”

  Stick stands up and stands right behind me. I feel hot on my face because there is no fort and no sleeping bag and not even a tent and I don’t want to be in trees. My bones are made of rock on the inside and I need to make a lot of muscle just to pick up one foot. I take a few steps and am looking around and Stick’s nose is breathing right behind me and it’s a little bit chilly. I turn and look at him and even no pants. But he is fat and his bones don’t rattle like mine because he is more fatter. The only thing I see that is like our fort is a tree that tipped over. The bottom sticks up like a hand spread out and the tree lies on the ground except for a little fort that is not a castle but it would be if it had a tall tower and gold and is right where the tree stuck into the ground before it tipped. I tell Stick to come and we walk over and I can see that there is a little part that has a roof that could be over us a little bit.

  “There, Stick.” I point. “That’s bed.”

  “Bed?”

  “Like a fort.”

  “Fort?” He sounds excited and looks around for our couch and there is no couch.

  “Not Momma’s fort. Our fort.”

  Stick looks at the dark spot under the tree. “Momma’s fort.”

  “Not a castle because no tower.”

  “Momma?”

  “Momma’s not here.”

  His lip sticks out and I can tell he feels scared and I don’t really like the fort so much because it will never be as good as Momma’s.

  I get on my hands and knees and crawl under the tree. There are pine needles all on the ground and those are the bottom of the bed and that is dry. The tree is higher up at the start and then gets lower down when the tree goes to the ground so I can put my head and shoulders at the higher part and it slips down to just past my feet if I curl my knees a little bit. I turn on my back and look up and the tree looks like flaky skin but a spicier smell that I like not gum. I turn over to look the other way and it is open and I can see trees and they are darker gray now.

  I wish our fort was more like a castle and maybe sides like the blanket made so you could see out between the chairs and that was the door. I leave Gwen inside because she is very tired and wants to sleep and I crawl back out and see Stick’s dingle is peeing on the ground and I walk around the end of the tree. There are branches on the ground from the tree and two have broken off but they still have the needles on. I pull these up and balance them on the tree and
it is hard and I can only get one because it hogs the space and I can’t get the other one up without knocking everyone off so I just do one. I go back around and look in and it is see-through in the back like the air is sticking through the needles but the blanket had little holes too and it is okay. Stick squats down with his hands on his knees and his dingle pointing out and it is darker gray now and he looks in but he maybe can’t see me. Everything around us is more grayer and grayer and soon we won’t see so much and I feel shaky like cold and nervous in my belly.

  Stick is waiting. “Bedtime?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He moves his head to the side like he doesn’t understand because he doesn’t and I don’t too.

  “Come inside, Stick,” I say.

  “Nana?”

  “Yes.” I pick Gwen up to snuggle.

  Stick just does a few loud nose breaths and doesn’t say.

  “Go to sleep, Sticky.”

  “Bedtime?”

  My knee goes in Stick’s pee and I think huff and I lie on my side and it feels better with something at the back of the fort. I close my eyes and put my hands out and make a wish for a blanket and a flashlight and maybe I am asking so I will also need Momma and a cookie that I eat not decorate and Daddy too. I open my eyes and no. Just Stick. We are two.

  16.

  My head feels fuzzy like my tongue and I can’t think what I am doing lying under a tree and it is dark and we aren’t supposed to be in the forest with no Momma or Daddy and this far from the cottage except when we go in the canoe and then the tent is like the cottage and not too far from that but it is not here. Stick is like the fire. But just warm not so hot for cooking marshmallows so Gwen and I snuggle into him. He fits against my chest and his little bum is against my legs so I hope that he doesn’t pee. More important he is warm. I wish I was allowed a marshmallow. I put my arm around him so Gwen is near my shoulder and Sticky is like a big Gwen. His big clunky head is rattling around and he puts it on my arm to rest like a pillow. I wish I had one. He stops wiggling and it is a little bit warmer. Best would be a blanket and more food and really big marshmallows that were as big as Stick’s head so it would take all night to eat. I could eat the middle and then curl up inside it and be so so cozy. I think do princesses sleep in marshmallow and they probably do.

  I hear eeeeeee and I hate that sound. It is by my ear and I can’t see but I know because I’ve gotten lots of bites before that it is a mosquito. They like my blood a lot. I use my hand to thump and I try to smoosh it against my ear. The eeeeeee stops and I think ha-ha! I close my eyes again and then nothing and then eeeeeee. I want to call Momma in to turn on the light and smack it. She is the best smacker in our family and can do smacks even in the dark or in a tent and she puts her finger and just goes squish on the top. It is gentle and nice like they are lucky that they got smacked by the tip of her finger only. My daddy won’t use hands he uses a flyswatter because he says he doesn’t want their bodies on his hand. Sometimes if they had bitten there is blood too and that is gross. I think so too so it’s better when the swatter or Momma does it but now it’s my hand and no light to see it. I feel it touch my cheek like a little tickly feather and I smack my face but still eeeeeee. I don’t like it and I thought Momma said no more mosquitoes for the year. I remember the time my eye got a bite on the top and it got puffy so I looked like someone punched me in the face but they didn’t. A mosquito stuck a straw into my skin to drink from me like a juice box. And then spit in poison like putting your spit back into the juice box. That is gross if anyone else wants a sip. The spit made my eye puff and I could almost not see except I could see pink skin that was puffy and hanging down a bit into my eyeball. When I touched it I could see my fingertips there but the skin didn’t feel like mine.

  I make my hand go back and forth fast by my ear because sometimes you can fan a mosquito and they can’t stay on the air they mean to and go sideways instead of forward. Like if someone picked up the sidewalk I was walking on and wiggled it up and down so I fell off like by accident. I think it is going over near to Stick and it stops and everything is quiet again. I didn’t smoosh it and I don’t know if I fanned it away. I think it might be sticking a straw into Stick and that is better than me. He is so soft and cushy that he is probably the best juice box a mosquito can find and I bet that little fella mosquito is pretty happy and soon I hear eeeeeee. But it is slower and I picture him carrying a tiny juice box that is full of Stick’s blood and he is holding with his feet and having to flap his tiny wings really hard. They are so thin they look like paper except paper that you could see through like you use to wrap a present. Eeeeeee eeeeeee and then it gets quieter eeee and a little tiny piece of time and buzz and it goes away and I can’t hear it. Phew.

  I curl my legs up more around Stick and his skin is cold but the bones inside are warm so I stay really close. I think he is asleep but not yet which is good because I am lonely. When he falls asleep and we share a room and it’s always him falling asleep faster than me. Momma says I take longer to turn off my brain and it would be nice if I could have a switch like I use to turn off the light and just go click. That’s what Stick does because the switch is on his eyelids so he closes them and click. I lift my head a little to see if he has flicked his eyeballs shut. I bang my head on the tree. I have never had a tree sticking across my bed before so I forgot it was doing that. I lift my head more slowly until it just rests on the tree and I remember the spicy that I like. I can see Stick’s eyes are a little open and a little shut. He knows that I am moving and doesn’t want to get left behind. He is checking on me moving but can’t stay awake. I put my head back down and I won’t ever sleep a long time maybe forever.

  17.

  My eyes open and my hand is in the needles patting them. I am scared and I don’t know what is happening and then my hand touches Gwen’s fur and my breath gushes out of my body. I thought she is lost but she is not. I hug her tight and sniff and I am so glad and so happy that it was not true. When you have a dream and it feels real it means you might pee the bed. I need to pee. And I shout and shout and Daddy doesn’t come. He helps me pee at night if I am scared because sometimes there can be monsters in a closet or under a bed at night and you never know. It is only Stick lying here. He rolls over and boinks me with his head. His nose breath goes in and out. We are two. I don’t want Stick I want Daddy and I miss him so much it makes my tummy feel weird. Daddy is warm and he tastes like salt on his arm. He has big eyebrows that go up when he is laughing and big teeth too. He has a temper and that means that you tiptoe when his eyebrows are down.

  When Daddy’s eyebrows are down that is a very important thing and it doesn’t mean that Daddy is bad. It does mean that if I am naughty his hair will get more sticky up on his head and his big teeth show. He growls sometimes. That is not because he doesn’t love me but he is tired or hungry so it’s not just his belly that growls but his mouth too. We read a book that we both love that is about a boy named Charlie who loves chocolate like me. I like Veruca because she is a bit naughty. Daddy says it’s what you imagine sometimes comes true. I say what does that mean? He says what you have is always better than you imagine in your head so be careful what you wish. Because it could come true and that could be the worst.

  I am not in bed and there are sounds like animals outside and I feel so scared. Daddy is mad and isn’t here. His face was outside the car. I was in the backseat with Stick and Gwen and Momma had her hands on the steering wheel and turning it and her face white and stone. Daddy’s seat was empty because he was standing outside and I looked at him and I wanted him inside the car. His head came closer to my window and he put his hand on my glass and I saw it big and lines like roads and the one where it means you live a long life. “I love you, Anna” he said to me and the sound is foggy because of glass. I tried to hold his hand but I can only touch the window.

  I thought he was pulling his hand away and I wanted to roll down the window to touch it so I tell him to put his hand
back. But I saw the driveway turn. The car was going away. His hand was still in the same place and his face looked like when he ate a lemon with no cake around it. The car goes vroom. We were going to the cottage for a long time. I told Momma to stop because we were leaving Daddy. She didn’t talk and doesn’t look and we are going down the street. I turned and saw Daddy standing only by himself all alone. I yelled for Daddy and he got smaller and smaller until he was only like my thumb. And then he was gone away.

  “Momma,” I shout.

  I wait for a minute and I am outside. I only see Stick. No one is there only an animal and it is so close I feel like it will come and get me. I open my eye crack and look and it is so dark. I am not in bed and the needles are pricking a part where my pj’s are sagging down my bum like always. I pull them up. It is cold and no blanket to pull to my chin. The animal is making a deep growl and I wish I already went home. I open my eyes more and the animal keeps growling like he doesn’t even want my eyes to open but I am too scared not to see him so I keep looking. When I can’t see in the dark my momma says to keep looking and my eyes will know when they have enough time to see in the dark. And my eyes start to know and I can see the tree up close to my head. The animal must see that too and won’t drag because I am in a cave so it is waiting for me to come out. I look out and it is very dark. I see the shape of a tall tree standing in the forest and there is another one. After that comes the open part where the horse was chewing.

  I can’t see the animal but then maybe I can. A black shape is close to the tree and it has a low growl that goes grrrr gaaaa grrrr gaaaa to let me know that it is there. And it is going to eat me because I don’t have an army or sword except the one in my mind and I can’t find it. Gwen is by my face and very scared because she hears and the grrrr gaaaa and we both stare out to hope that our eyes will see the animal better so we can know where to run. It has a dark color and it looks round on top like a hump and it must be very big from the sounds. I can’t see the eyes and no teeth but I know from the sounds that it is showing teeth like Snoopy does at the mailman and Mrs. Buchanan grabs Snoopy under the jaw and they look at each other in the eyes and Mrs. Buchanan says “Oh, what did that poor man do to deserve such poor treatment from you?” And that’s when I know it is the black dog.