Page 40 of Befriending the Bear
He smiled ruefully. “Remember what I said about my brothers? About being the family disappointment? I’ve had my share of well-meaning relatives who couldn’t accept that I wasn’t who they wanted me to be.”
“What did you d-do?”
“Set boundaries. Stopped going home for holidays, where I’d have to pretend to be straight. Limited phone calls to once a month. It hurt—still hurts sometimes—but it was that or lose myself trying to be what they needed.”
I thought about this, about the possibility of boundaries with my mother. She’d call it cruelty, abandonment. But what was the alternative? Another forty years of Sunday morning phone calls that left me feeling small and stuttering worse than usual? “She’ll be a-alone. In F-Florida with my dad, who barely talks anyway. She’ll b-be alone, and it’ll be my f-fault.”
“That’s her choice. She could choose to accept you as you are. She could choose to see your stutter as part of you, not something to be fixed. But she doesn’t, and that’s not your responsibility to change.”
The truth of it sat heavy in my chest. I’d spent so many years trying to be what she wanted—the son who’d overcome his disability, who’d proven that all her efforts hadn’t been wasted. But I was tired. Tired of feeling like a project instead of a person.
“I n-need some air,” I said, standing abruptly. Fraser started to rise too, but I put a hand on his shoulder. “Give me a few m-minutes?”
He nodded, understanding in his eyes. “I’ll be here.”
I grabbed my jacket and stepped out into the garden. The garden was still a wet, wild mess, carrying the scent of dying, rotting leaves and soggy soil. The sage had somehow survived the storm, its silver-green leaves defiantly bright. I brushed my fingers over it, releasing its sharp, clean scent.
My mother would hate my garden. Too unstructured, too spontaneous. She’d want to impose order, create neat rows, and proper borders. Just like she’d always wanted to do with me.
The thing was, I understood why. I remembered the terror in her eyes when I finally woke up in the hospital. I remembered months of her sleeping in a chair by my bed because she’d been afraid I’d stop breathing in the night. I remembered how tirelessly she had fought to get me to heal.
The stutter had been proof that something had gone wrong, that her baby had been damaged, and she’d never stopped trying to undo that damage.
But understanding didn’t make it hurt less.
I heard the back door open and close softly. Fraser’s uneven gait on the path, the tap of his cane on the stones. He didn’t speak, just stood beside me.
“She used to r-read to me,” I said. “After the accident. Every n-night, for hours. Said it w-would help with the speech therapy, hearing pr-proper pronunciation.” I laughed, short and bitter. “I memorized whole b-books, could recite them in my head p-p-perfectly. But when I tried to sp-speak them…”
“The words got stuck.”
“Every time. She’d get this l-look, disappointment trying to hide b-behind encouragement. ‘Try again, s-sweetheart. You almost had it.’ But I never almost h-had it. I didn’t g-get better, not even a little bit.”
Fraser’s hand found mine, warm and solid. “You know what I hear when you talk?”
I shook my head.
“I hear someone who thinks before he speaks. Who chooses his words carefully because they cost more for you than most people. I hear rhythm and cadence that’s uniquely yours.” He squeezed my fingers. “I hear you, Calloway. Not the stutter. You.”
Something cracked open inside me, years of armor breaking apart. “I don’t know how to m-make her understand that this is enough. That I’m e-enough.”
“Maybe you can’t. Maybe that’s not your job. Your job is to live your life, find your happiness. Whether she understands or not.”
I turned to face him fully, this man who’d appeared in my life like a gift I hadn’t known to ask for. “I w-wasn’t lying when I told her I’m happy.”
“Are you?” There was vulnerability in the question, like my answer mattered more than he wanted to admit.
“Yes. T-terrified, confused, completely unprepared, b-but happy.”
His smile was like the sunrise after a long night. “Good. That’s… That’s really good.”
We stood there in my garden, hands linked, surrounded by the evidence of things that grew wild and thrived anyway. The phone had stopped ringing inside. My mother had probably moved on to talking to my father, complaining about my behavior, planning new strategies to save me from myself.
But out here, with Fraser’s steady presence beside me and the sage perfuming the air, I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long, long time: whole. Not fixed, not cured, but complete exactly as I was.
“Ready to go back in?”
“In a minute.” I looked up at him, gathering courage. “Fraser? Thank you. For staying. For… For seeing me.”
