Page 3 of Bear
A little girl sat on the bed with two dolls, playing quietly. Her hair was dark and shiny and hung to her shoulders in two ponytails. I’d never seen a little kid be so quiet before. All the kids I knew were loud and annoying. Especially Wolf. This kid was the opposite.
“Are you Bear?” She asked, never looking up from her dolls.
“Yeah. Who are you and where’s Mrs. Luanne?”
“Mommy? She’s downstairs with your dad. She told me to sit here. My name is Cecily.” I’d never heard that name before. It sounded like music. She finally looked up and smiled at me. She had the deepest dimples on her brown cheeks. She had to be the prettiest girl I’d ever seen, which was weird because she was so tiny. She looked like a baby doll.
“How old are you?” I asked, moving further into the room.
“Six. Why? How old are you? You look like a teenager. Are you?” Her eyes were so dark I had to lean closer to see if they were black or brown.
They were definitely brown. Like the liquor Dad drank.
“Six years old? You look so tiny.”
“Well, everyone isn’t huge like you. How old are you, Bear the giant?”
“Twelve,” I scoffed. Shewasa typical annoying kid but I didn’t want to leave her alone.
“Oh. So you’re not a teenager then. Wanna play?” She looked into my eyes and I don’t know what I felt inside my chest but it told me she was probably the nicest person in the world. I didn’t meet nice people too often. Everyone I saw either had a motive or were killers. My own father was a killer with a motive.
I looked around to make sure nobody would see me playing with a six-year-old girl then I sat on the edge of the bed and picked up one of her dolls. It was dark brown like her with eyes that closed when you laid it down.
“You don’t talk a lot, Bear. Is it ‘cause you’re close to being thirteen? Teenagers are mean.” She looked up at me and tipped her head to the side waiting for my answer.
“I don’t know.” I shrugged my shoulders and made the doll walk over to her.
“Her name is Tia. She’s from New Orleans like me.” Cecily paused and looked at me again. I felt that same thing inside my chest. “Your eyes are really pretty. They look like fire glass.” I had my father’s eyes. My brothers had their mother’s eyes. “Your eyes are sad though. How come? You live in a huge house.”
“Sad?” I frowned. “My eyes aren’t sad.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
“Look, are we gonna play or not?” I huffed. Cecily was weird but I still liked her for some reason.
We played until I heard a burst of loud voices from downstairs. One voice belonged to Dad and the other to Hawk. I locked eyes with my new six-year-old friend and told her to stay right there. I rushed out of the room and ran into Mrs. Luanne and Wolf down the hallway.
“Go back to the room, Bear,” Mrs. Luanne said quietly. “Your father and Hawk are talking.”
“They’re fighting,” Wolf grinned. It wasn’t funny though. I knew what they were fighting about. I knew what the consequences of that fight were going to be. Downstairs, I heard Dad yelling about Joelle being a junkie like Hawk and Wolf’s mom. I looked at Mrs. Luanne and shook my head.
“I gotta go talk to Dad,” I said quietly.
“If he gets to go, I’m going too,” Wolf blurted. He was annoying. Why couldn’t he be more like the six-year-old? She was the same age as him but she wasn’t as annoying.
“Neither one of you is going anywhere but back to that room. I’m sure Cecily would like some new friends to play with.” Mrs. Luanne’s voice was soothing and begged me to listen but I couldn’t. I pretended to walk toward the guest room but when we got close enough, I turned back and dashed down the hall and toward the steps.
Mrs. Luanne called after me and I heard Wolf’s heavy footsteps starting after me. When I looked over my shoulder, I saw my little brother getting snatched back by his collar while Mrs. Luanne fussed at me to get back to the room. I didn’t listen. I couldn’t. I had to help Hawk. He couldn’t talk to Dad the way I could.
I reached the bottom of the steps and followed the sound of their voices into the study. I got there just in time. A shiny silver-barreled gun stared at Hawk from Dad’s hand. I shook my head at the scene unfolding and walked in front of my father putting myself between him and Hawk. I was tall but I only came up to my big brother’s shoulder. He still was a head taller than me. Still, I acted as a shield. I wasn’t scared of Dad right then because he wasn’t mad at me.
“Dad, can I talk to you for a minute?” I said, looking directly into his eyes. His jaw flexed a few times then he nodded. He still didn’t lower the gun though.
My father was taller than Hawk and me. He was dark as night with fiery eyes. He scared grown-ass men just by looking at them. I heard so many times that Dad had the devil in him. It was the eyes.
Always the eyes.
I had them too.
