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Back The Art of Breathing Save as PDF
Contents ( 42)
  1. The Art of Breathing
  2. Part One: How We Became Who We Are
  3. Prologue: Or, Where the Kid Hears the Word of the Day
  4. 1. Where Tyson Learns to Breathe
  5. 2. Where Tyson Makes a Phone Call
  6. 3. Where Tyson Graduates and Bear Freaks Out
  7. 4. Where Tyson Says Good-Bye
  8. 5. Where Tyson Gets the Mail
  9. Part Two: Coming Home
  10. 6. Where Tyson Comes Home
  11. 7. Where Tyson Gives a History Lesson
  12. 8. Where Tyson Attends the Most Awkward Party Ever
  13. 9. Where Tyson Plans Attends a Protest
  14. 10. Where Tyson Gets Arrested
  15. 11. Where Tyson Gets His Ass Handed to Him
  16. 12. Where Tyson Writes Bad Poetry and Gawks at Frat Boys
  17. 13. Where Tyson Decides to Man the Fuck Up
  18. 14. Where Tyson Asks Some Questions
  19. 15. Where Tyson Remembers Theresa Jean Paquinn
  20. 16. Where Tyson Learns the Benefit of Therapy
  21. 17. Where Tyson Meets the Man Who Becomes Helena Handbasket
  22. 18. Where Tyson Gets Screwed at His Own Birthday Party (And Not in a Good Way)
  23. Part Three: Just Breathe
  24. 19. Where Tyson Goes to Helena Handbasket’s Sex Dungeon
  25. 20. Where Tyson Beholds the Awesome Wonder That Is Paul Auster
  26. 21. Where Tyson Receives Advice from the Six Sages
  27. 22. Where Tyson Makes a Phone Call
  28. 23. Where Tyson Hears the Inevitable
  29. 24. Where Tyson Meets His Match
  30. 25. Where Tyson Says Hello, Where Tyson Says Good-bye
  31. 26. Where Tyson Touches upon the Inevitable
  32. 27. Where Tyson Faces the Music
  33. 28. Where Tyson Breathes
  34. 29. Tyson And Dominic
  35. 30. The Art Of Breathing
  36. Epilogue: Or, Bear’s Perspective, As It Were (Yeah, He’s Gonna Freak)
  37. Author’s Note
  38. Excerpt
  39. Prologue: Or, Where Bear Answers the Door
  40. More from TJ Klune
  41. Readers love the Bear, Otter, and the Kid Chronicles by TJ Klune
  42. By TJ Klune

Once, she made cookies and let me lick the spatula.

Once, she held me in her arms after I’d fallen and scraped my leg.

Once, she sat with me when I was sick, singing a song in a low voice.

Once, she pushed me on a swing as it started to rain.

Julie McKenna is not a good person. She made choices so reprehensible that it negates anything that could be considered motherly about her. I hate her for what she did to me. I hate her for what she did to Bear. And I hate her for what she tried to do after our family had finally found some even footing, some solid ground to stand upon. I hate her for all that.

But there was one time when I was five, shortly before she left, when she looked at me and said, “You know I love you, right?”

I was only five, but I already knew she wasn’t much of a mother. She was drunk a lot of the time and would stay locked in her room when her own earthquakes rolled over her and buried her in a landslide of depression. She would stay out until early morning and come stumbling home, reeking of Jim Beam and Marlboro Reds, waking Bear and me up. He would get up, telling me to stay in bed, and he’d close the door behind him, and there’d be raised voices as he told her off, because how could she do this to us? To me? How could she take money from Bear, money he was saving for school? How could she leave us alone for days at a time, when she knew Bear had to go to school and there was no one else to watch me? What kind of mother was she?

I knew this. I knew all of this about her. I did.

But I was five years old, and she looked at me and said, “You know I love you, right?” Already she was planning to leave. Already she was saying good-bye, in her own way. Already she was looking at her five-year-old son, knowing she was going to leave him behind. She knew this. All of this.

But she said what she said, and I remember a feeling in my chest like a sun bursting, because could I remember a time before when she’d ever said that to me? Could I remember ever hearing those words from her?

I couldn’t.

I thought that it was meant to be the start of something wonderful. That she had climbed out of whatever hole she’d dug for herself and she was going to be my mom and Bear and I could be her sons and we would make her so proud. She’d be so damn proud of us, and I’d hear it from her all the time.

You know I love you, right?

I smiled at her.

I love you too, I said.

And she laughed. I laughed with her.