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GULL
I'm just a realistic man, a bottle filled with shells and sand
Afraid to love beyond what I can lose when it comes to you
You may have settled for obscurity, but Muriel doesn’t seem to find your explanation satisfactory. In a quiet voice, she tells the boy that the earth was shaken apart, and the pair of you along with it. While you’re grateful that she doesn’t place the blame on you, there is a prickle of defensiveness. Will the boy take you for a liar now, for not telling the whole truth? Or are these merely your own shortcomings, the clumsy mistakes of a so-called father who is still very much a bachelor at heart?
Ears twitching back slightly, you stew over this while the pair whispers quietly together. Their easy intimacy is hard for you to watch, all at once familiar and painful. Light eyes flicker over the curve of Muriel’s neck as she lowers her head to murmur to Brigand, skimming down the lines of her face and over the top of his fluffy head. Your son reaches up to say something in her ear, and you watch him, wondering what he thinks of you. Does he find it all as weird as you do? You, for one, have never thought much of your own old man. Compared to the sharp image of your mother, your father is only a hazy figure, a distant memory of a scarred warrior that Ma would sometimes point out to you as he grazed with the others on the cliffs. He had never taken much interest in you, nor you in him. Sometimes you would watch him as he flew out with the others, but you never spoke, nor so much as caught his eye. And then one day he was gone, disappeared from their ranks—dead or as sick of it all as you eventually would be, you’ll never know. You didn’t care much. So why should it matter to you what this kid saw you as? Why should you care?
But somehow, you find that you do. Maybe you will never be the father that Muriel wants you to be, but as you watch your son standing there, you feel a slow swell of pride, of ownership. If you have nothing else to your name—no herd, no land, no magic even—you have him. Though you may disappoint Muriel, it can never change the fact that Brigand is irrevocably yours: your flesh, your blood, your boy. Perhaps it is not quite love yet, but it is enough to make you stay.
At that moment, Muriel lifts her head and looks over at you. “It will take time. But...but you are more than welcome to stay with us, or see us however often you want if you desire your distance to come to terms," she tells you, an unsure smile on her face. Just as uncertain, your ears loll to the side, but you nod silently. Before you can say anything, however, the kid is dancing around, practically squeaking in excitement. “Father, Da!” he mutters, and you feel your insides contract just a little to hear him say it. Da. One syllable, yet a word has never felt so heavy.
And then, just as suddenly as he’s started, the boy stops. He’s staring at you again, and you swear it takes everything you have in you to force yourself to meet his gaze. “Da, we’re like the same,” he says, and you tilt your head quizzically. Does he think so? Maybe you’ve confused him, for he exhales and shakes his head as if to clear it. “We are the same…?” he asks, less confident this time, and immediately you feel like the world’s biggest jerk for making the kid second-guess himself. And then Brigand gets deep, in that way he has that has already surprised you once today. “We are one,” he proclaims, spreading two pairs of tiny wings as wide as they will go. “All of us," he continues, gesturing to Muriel too, “We are one because of family. Family makes us one.” With that, off he goes again, swinging his head and shimmying between you and Muriel to the rhythm of some unknown song. You can’t help but smile at his antics, seeking his mother’s violet eyes over the top of his bobbing head. Was the kid always like this?
Still, his declaration that you’re family is a sobering thought. A family, huh? It’s something you’d thought you’d sworn off long ago, but what else was there to call this strange little trio? The boy’s easy acceptance of you made it even harder to justify abandoning Muriel, and though you know that you can never find a place in the bond between the two, perhaps there is room for you on the edge. Room for you to protect, to watch the boy grow, to be more than a distant figure on the horizon line as Muriel raises him—would that be so terrible? Focused on the choice before you, you don’t even notice the extra name as Brigand kicks up his heels, practically singing to himself, “We could all be a happy family, Da, Mum, Leliel, and Brigand!"
“Yeah we could, kid,” you murmur, more to yourself than to the dancing boy. “We can…I will.” And with your final statement, you seek Muriel’s eyes once more, accepting her invitation to stay a while longer. Had she not already proved to you the hope in second chances?
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