Olivia prays. “Dear God, please don’t let my father have pain wherever he is. Any pain, in any part of him. From his toes to his head top to out to the tips of his fingers and penis and nose. Whatever part and wherever he is. Dear God, please just do that for me and I’ll do anything you say and want for the rest of my life forever, I promise. Please, please, thank you.” She turns over in bed and hugs Talking Bear. If she hears her mother walking or putting away dishes or turning a page, she’ll cry she wants her. Wants her for what? It has to be good or she’ll get mad. For water, to make peepee, or she’s still having trouble sleeping, thinks she’s getting a cold. She listens, hears nothing. She listens for Eva in the next room. If Eva cries or talks to herself or taps on her crib bars or wall or bangs her feet against them, she’ll call for her mother and say Eva’s keeping her up. She hears nothing. Why’d Eva get to get one more story read to her than she tonight? Tomorrow night it’s her turn to get more. She had so many other bears she loved more than Talking Bear but right after her father died he became her favorite. Why’s that? Talking Bear was brought back from some place her father had been, the only bear he gave her just by himself. She never thought of that but now she knows. When her mother said before “Just rest in bed and think, if you can’t fall asleep, but no getting out of it,” would that be something interesting she could tell her mother she thought? She thinks so, but it wouldn’t be a good enough reason to get her here to tell her. “The other bears tell me my father isn’t somewhere still alive,” she says to Talking Bear. “Is that true? Should I believe them or you?” “Believe me,” Talking Bear says. “It’s best for you. I am closest and mostest and I always tell the truth and all I do is think of you. That’s my job.” “But the other bears all together, when they’re together, say the same thing and know much more than you. They know more than anyone. They know almost everything there is to know when they’re all together.” “Then believe them. I won’t be hurt. I say ‘If it is good for you, it is good for me.’ I say this every night before I go to sleep. Right before the last wink awake, so I haven’t said it yet tonight to myself.” “What about if I don’t believe any of them when they’re all together, or you? If I just find out for myself?” “That could be the best way. If you can find out and if you know before you start looking that you might be able to find out.” “If I don’t know whatever it is you said, that last thing, and if I can’t find out, what should I do?” “I don’t know.” “The other bears all together would know, but I can’t get them all together now for them to tell me. I’d have to get out of bed. That wouldn’t be hard. I can inch out. I can move quietly. The door’s shut. There’s a rug on the floor. I could get some of my bears. But for the rest of them I’d have to leave the room. I might even have to go to Eva’s room if she took some when she wasn’t supposed to, but I don’t think I’d have to go downstairs or outside. What I’ll do, if I can’t find out about my father from here, is believe what makes the most sense.” “That’s a good way too. If you can’t find out for yourself or you’re not able to, believe what makes the most sense.” “Or the best sense.” “Or the best sense. But if I were you I’d believe me. I tell the truth and I also know. I am for you.” “But no matter what, the truth is if he is still somewhere alive but doesn’t or can’t let me see him anymore, I’ll be very sad.” “That’s why I’m here. To help you in things like that. You can ask me how if you want.” “How?” “You’ll have to give me time to think…. You can throw me up and down and try to catch me. You can kick me and I won’t say ouch. You can squeeze me while you sleep or are feeling sad. If you’re away in a car someplace and I’m not with you because you forgot me or you couldn’t find me, you can know I’m home waiting for you and wanting you to throw me or kick me or squeeze me while you sleep or anytime you’re sad. Lots of ways. We can think of many. It’s something we can also do.” “How should I start to find out if he’s alive or really dead or really alive or near here or what?” “You can look for him. I haven’t seen him for a long time, maybe as long as you, but I hear he’s around. You can ask me how I hear this.” “How?” “You’ll have to give me time to think…. I just hear it, there isn’t any reason how. It’s something I can do. Or we can look together for him if you want. In basements, outside behind bushes, in backs of bottom drawers. All the places you haven’t looked. If we don’t find him or we can’t, because he’s too big to be there, in a drawer, we might find a sign of him. Or you can speak to the bears. If they know everything, they might know where to look. I won’t be hurt.” “They said he isn’t alive. When I said you said he is and I think he is and I want to find him, they said the one thing they don’t know anything about is where to look. Missing bears they can help me find. People they can’t. It’s just something they can’t do and now they don’t even try.” “Then we are in what your father used to call a spot. But go to sleep. Maybe in the morning you’ll have your answer. Maybe I will. Maybe it will just appear. A paper we pick up that has a map showing where he is and how to get there. Something that was once a piece of scrap paper but now isn’t. Or something that is and always was a map. Or we might see something written on a wall in this room. A message written in light from the outside or being written while we watch it on the wall.” “I don’t know how to read.” “You don’t know now but maybe tomorrow you will. Or maybe you’ll be able to read just that. You know a few words. The message might just be in those words. ‘Red, blue, dog, gray, go, he, girl, green,’ and some others, and we’ll figure it out. Or maybe I’ll even know how to read by tomorrow. Listen to me though. What I say is true. Maybe in the morning everything you want to know or what you need to know it, like reading, will just happen or appear.” “That’s what bears always say. ‘In the morning. Tomorrow.’ They’re good up to a point. After that point, they’re not. It’s always that way. And always when they’re most sleepy.” “If it’s always that way, then it’s always that way. Ask anyone. Though that doesn’t mean it will always always be that way. And if it is always always that way, then it doesn’t mean it will always always always be that way. But go to sleep. It’s not because I’m sleepy. Just maybe you’ll know in the morning as I say. Or maybe I’ll know. Or maybe all the other bears and us together will know, something we never did once. But maybe it will probably not be so. If that’s so, what?” “I don’t know. What?” “Let me think…. I don’t either.”