Chapter 15
Three months before the fight.
Saturday afternoon
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-Part 1-
Ms. Cunningham had arrived from her apartment significantly later than originally intended to find Higher for Hire dark and quiet with no clue as to where her two kids had wandered off to save for a note on the table in Kit's crude handwriting; the boy may take in knowledge faster than a wildfire blazes across a dry prairie, but his handwriting was developing slower than a prisoner attempting to cut through steel bars with wool socks. On her way she had stopped at the post office and had dropped off the necessary letters, went out for lunch, and had finally arrived at Higher for Hire a little past two forty-five. Kit's note detailed him and Molly going out for breakfast and then venturing to the Hospital to visit Baloo. She had to admit that she was at least a little bit proud of Kit for stepping up and being responsible beyond his years to feed Molly and take her with him. Then again, he had been offering to do just that all week, but she hadn't listened. The hospital on the other hand was clear across town and was much farther than a simple eatery down the street, then again, she couldn't blame the boy for wanting to see Baloo, even she had to admit that a first visit after the initial one was long overdue. Walking around the business she noticed some clothes strewn about and upon further investigation had found that they all belonged to Kit, but why were they all over the place? He was normally very neat and organized. A white shirt downstairs, another shirt and a pair of underwear in the hallway upstairs; what happened here last night? "Kit and I are going to have a talk about a few things…"
After picking up the clothes and checking over a few things at her desk and filing some papers, she noticed clothespins and soap next to the sink, "did he do laundry?" She decided to gather what she needed, head outside, and hail a cab, she had some questions for Kit.
-END Part 1-
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-Part 2-
At the hospital.
It was weird, like looking through a two-way mirror. He could see Baloo, but Baloo had no idea that he was even here. Kit stood at Baloo's bedside looking upon his face as if caught in a trance, his body facing the door to the room, his back to the window. Molly kneeled on the sofa looking out the window at whatever caught her attention. Kit considered how Baloo's hospital room in the ICU had basically become a prison. Sure, he could come and go as he pleased, but as long as Baloo was incapacitated here, so too was Kit's new life with his new father incarcerated here with him. He thought about what life looked like for him now. Baloo had been laying here for a week and since then Ms. Cunningham had basically moved him in with her and Molly without actually saying it and without even asking him how he felt about it.
"Kit, I'm going to the bathroom." Molly jumped off the sofa and made her way across the room. Kit only nodded in return, watching her turn on the light and shut the door behind her, thankful that the fan would cover up his private words to Baloo.
"Baloo" Kit paused before beginning again. "Papa Bear, I don't know if you can hear me. Please, wake up. I don't want to be alone again." Kit continued with his one-sided conversation, telling him everything that had happened over the past week, sparing no detail, not even last night's fight with Ms. Cunningham. "…and every time I am home, Ms. Cunningham and Molly are there too. I can't get away for a moment to myself! I get that she has to be there for work, but it's still our home and she won't let me be there without her!" Kit poured his heart out, he hoped his words were getting through, but he felt like he might as well have been talking to a wall. "I can't do anything right around her Baloo. I don't know why she doesn't like me." He paused becoming choked up, feeling no release, as if everything he was letting out was just being funneled right back into him. "Why doesn't she like me Papa Bear? One day we're all so happy having fun at Wonder World and the next….What did I do to make her hate me so much?!"
All in all, the conversation lasted only about four minutes. He put his hand on Baloo's arm, it was warm but limp as a dead man could be. Kit sniffed back what was in his nose as he felt the burn in his eyes upon closing them. His ears filled with the sound of hospital machines, Molly emerging from answering her daily call of nature, and the ticks of the clock counting down the seconds in its endless journey around and around again.
-END Part 2-
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-Part 3-
Half an hour later.
For Molly it was as if what all that had happened the night previous between her and her mother, the fear and panic she had felt when Ms. Cunningham had grabbed her hand had been completely forgotten. "Mommy!" she had happily squealed as she skipped to her immediately upon her entrance into Baloo's room; Kit on the other hand was not nearly as thrilled. He greeted Ms. Cunningham with a standoffish attitude. It was clear that he had wanted to mend things, but he never got the chance. Molly was picked up and her innocent smiles and exchanges between herself and her mother carried on out of ear range of Kit who returned to the other side of the room, staring at Baloo as a lion in a zoo stares at a picture of the wild Serengeti with glazed over eyes, dreaming of what life could be like outside captivity. And suddenly, out of his peripheral vision Kit saw the look of death cast upon him and rolled his eyes in response, "Oh boy, what did I possibly do this time?"
With a fake smile and a fast walk, Ms. Cunningham put Molly down on the couch by the window, made her way around the room, firmly took hold of Kit's arm, pulled him out of his chair, and marched him into the hallway like he was half his age and slammed the door behind her, making no effort to conceal her ire. Kit knew he was in court, for what he was not sure yet, but he made no effort to resist as he was attempting to keep up with Ms. Cunningham who was pulling him around and out of the room faster than his legs could keep up; this was starting to get old.
Ms. Cunningham's eyes burned like fire as she spun him around and put his back against the wall in the hallway a few doors down from Baloo's room. Rather than fight with Kit in front of Molly yet again, she just left Molly alone with Baloo once more and made sure that, unlike the last time they were in the hospital, they were most assuredly out of Molly's earshot. "YOU TOLD MY DAUGHTER WHAT?!"
Kit wasn't afraid in the slightest, though he was confused. His mind was desperately flipping through the rolodex of last night's events for anything that would possibly qualify as something to go against any rule he had been given. "What are you talking about?!" He yelled back as he rubbed his upper right arm where Ms. Cunningham had manhandled him.
"DON'T PLAY DUMB WITH ME YOUNG MAN! YOU KNOW WHAT!" Ms. Cunningham was bearing down on him and put her right hand on his left shoulder and gripped him firmly to let him know that she was not playing around, but he honestly had no idea what was going on. And rather than try to keep any semblance of peace, he decided to take the bull head on.
"I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!" Kit brought his left hand up and knocked Ms. Cunningham's hand from his shoulder; he was not afraid of her and the only reason she was able to slap him and haul him around like she did was because he allowed it. "WHAT DID YOUR DAUGHTER TELL YOU?!"
"Kit, lately, it's always something with you, isn't it?!" Instead of playing Kit's game, she decided to answer him; she didn't have time or patience for his shenanigans today. "Molly is a six-year-old girl and the first thing she asked me today was 'what makes boys and girls different?' and then she asked another question and then another question and said that 'Kit said this, and Kit showed me that'." Ms. Cunningham clearly did not want to have this conversation with Molly yet much less today, but it seemed like she had no choice. Rebecca had forgotten all about her repentance and desire to forgive Kit for everything from last night as new waves of rage washed over her. "WHAT MADE HER ASK, KIT?!"
"Ohhhhhhhh, that's what this is all about." Kit stared at Ms. Cunningham in shock with a slightly open mouth. Court was now in session and Kit was aghast at his charges. He wanted to ask why Ms. Cunningham didn't honestly answer Molly's questions. He wanted to ask what she was waiting on. He wanted to tell her that he had learned all of this stuff around Molly's age and had even unwillingly experienced it not too long after. But, when in court, it was always best to remain silent until the opportune moment. And so, he answered her and zoned out. He was not sure how long she yelled at him, after the first sentence he stopped listening. He looked at her with a bored face and thought about living life on his own again.
"YOU TOOK A BATH WITH MOLLY?!" Rebecca was flabbergasted by Kit's "transgressions". Of all the irresponsible, inappropriate, insolent, negligent, things he had ever done….
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, let the record show that the alleged offending party is innocent by reason of circumstance. Growing up in an orphanage and on the streets has allowed and afforded the opportunity to the defendant to become educated on such anatomical differences and facts from an age earlier than the other younger party in question.
"….Huh?! ANSWER ME!" Ms. Cunningham had finally shut her flytrap. Had it been a minute, five, ten?! Why was she so mad? Kit had zoned back in and was deciding what to do, what to say. "If you are going to hit me again, just do it already!" No, he played that card last night and that lead to his current situation. "Just sign the paper and emancipate me already, I'll be out of your life before the sun goes down!" That wouldn't work. Well, it could, and would, but he wasn't ready to say his goodbyes to Molly or give up on Baloo just yet. "I did the best I could with what you gave me!" Uh-uh, she already thought he was a failure, he didn't want to prove her right by admitting incompetence. OH! Wait, he had it. Batter up! He was about to slam this one out of the park; if only he had his bat now, this was the swing that he had meant for her a few weeks ago.
"At least I'm not the shitty mother who up and left my kid with a twelve-year-old boy she had just beaten up in a place with no food or clean clothes!"
Silence. Once more the truth was his spear, and it penetrated the deepest. Kit could always tell he hit his mark when he was greeted with silence. Just like when a hunter scores the killing blow on his prey, only silence remained.
"Kit, call me a shitty mother if you must, but remember that I'm still your mother now; whether you like it or not." Kit started to get emotional but hid his emotions behind his mask, a mask that hid his face, a face that hid his heart, a heart nearly nobody knew. He hated fighting with Ms. Cunningham, so why, he wondered, did it keep happening?
"Oh, big fucking whoop!" Kit yelled back to Ms. Cunningham's face; he would not be bullied. "I called you 'mom' a few times. That doesn't make you my mom! For a few minutes in my life, I had a mom. She left me at that orphanage and now she is gone forever and I do not get another one any more than you do. But one thing I can say about her, whoever she was, that I can't say about you is that at least she never beat the crap out of me! And that is the truth whether YOU like it or not!"
Like an ultra-thin pin to her heart that pierces the skin but does not draw blood, Ms. Cunningham felt the hurt of those words; they were agonizing. For all the leaps and bounds she had traversed to help Baloo make a home for his boy, to be rejected by him was a pain she never knew she had hoped to never feel. But yet, since they were speaking the truth to each other, she felt the need to point on one last card on the table. With soft words she spoke, "You did get a new father though."
"Yeah" Kit snapped back as-a-matter-of-factly, rolling his eyes and gesturing to where they were, and why, his words heavy with the dreadful experiences of his life, "and we saw how long that lasted." The quiet between them was like a vast abyss that drew them even further apart, swallowing up any hope of reconciliation like a black hole in space swallows up any light that dares go near it.
In any fight, all participants get dirty. Ms. Cunningham couldn't look Kit in the eye, finally her guilt seemed to overshadow her grievances against him, and Kit, after a lifetime of hoping and praying for parents, after a brief time in which he thought he had actually gained a family, had simply grown tired of trying. He turned to go and started towards Baloo's room when he stopped, half turned and asked one final question to an introspective Ms. Cunningham. "Did Molly ask you why you don't like me?"
With the image of the Hoop-dee-Ha picture still fresh in her mind, the question caught Ms. Cunningham off guard. "Kit, do you honestly think that I don't…."
Kit mercilessly interrupted her softly spoken words, "Thought not. And yes, I do." Kit turned and started back to Baloo's room before turning to face Ms. Cunningham again and adding one final remark. "Ya know, maybe Peter Pan was smart for leaving his parents, I've certainly been dumb for trying to find some." He then turned away, the angry thoughts of a wounded heart still radiating off him like an aura as he made his way back to where Baloo lay. Ms. Cunningham slowly followed behind at a short distance, listening and allowing Kit to vent his frustrations all the way down the hallway; apathetic to whoever may hear. "It's cost me nothing but opportunities and caused me nothing but heartache. I don't even know why I wasted my time! Parents will just end up hating you anyways…or dying before they get the chance to. I should have kept that jewel and gone off on my own; I could have lived a carefree life on $100,000. Trevor, Rhett, and I could have been real life Lost Boys and…"
Kit shut the door to Baloo's hospital room behind him as he went in, leaving Ms. Cunningham in the hallway. Those words hurt. They hurt not because they were all necessarily true even though some of them were, but because Kit honestly believed that they were true and projected that out in his manners and his deeds, but even given everything, at least now she knew where Kit's mind was at. But where was hers? She had a lot to consider and reflect upon and even more changes to make because the firm hand she had developed and had used with parenting Molly over the years clearly was not working with Kit.
-END CHAPTER 15-
