Haffling (The Haffling series)

by Caleb James

  “I’m so sad… all the time.” She was sobbing. “Don’t make me leave. Bring him back.”

  I pictured her dance partner. Moments ago she’d been beautiful and… in love? In thrall? But now…. “Come on. Please, Mom. This is serious. It was your DSS hearing today, and you weren’t there.” As I spoke, I searched for landmarks. Where was the weeping mulberry? This wasn’t where things had started.

  Whatever nightmare… or hallucination this had been was receding. My rational mind wanted to argue. Alex, it said to me, if that was a hallucination, how come your mom had the same one? And how come you’re missing a chunk of your scalp?

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said and wiped her nose on the back of her arm.

  I felt rage and fear. I wanted to scream at her, What do you mean it doesn’t matter? I bit it back and, patting my pocket, was relieved to find my cell. I powered it up. The GPS screen flashed, and I could see we’d moved a couple hundred yards from her phone. I thought of going back to hunt for it, but no. Too risky. The pain in my head pulsed, and if I focused on it I could hear a voice—May’s voice. “No,” I said aloud, and visualized a pallet of bricks being mortared into walls. I pressed My Location on the iPhone and stared at the map on the screen. “It does matter,” I said. Trying to keep my tone calm, knowing how easy Mom spooked, not wanting my fear to infect her.

  “Bring him back,” she pleaded.

  “Maybe later.” The minutes those words left my lips, I regretted them. What I’d meant was hell no. Never. Are you out of your mind? Gripping her hand, I dragged her down a narrow dirt path. I felt a wave of relief as we came to a paved walkway. This is real. A bicyclist zipped past, and the pounding in my skull started to ease. I wouldn’t let myself think about what we’d just gone through. We just needed to get away.

  Like throwing an on/off switch, Mom’s expression changed. Her voice was dull and flat. “Was Lorraine mad?”

  “Yeah, and worried.” I glimpsed The Cloisters on our right. The pounding in my head was gone.

  “She worries,” Mom said. “You worry, Alice worries, everyone worries. It makes you old and gray, all that worry. Worry lines, worry warts. I’m not a frog, you know. I don’t need warts.” She held her free hand in front of her and turned it from side to side. “Nope, no warts on me.” She tugged back on my hand. “Stop. I need to look.”

  I desperately wanted to get away from there. Just get to the subway and get home. I pictured my brick walls. The pounding was gone and no trace of May’s voice. “Fine.” I stopped and let Mom examine my blood-smeared hand. I knew that if I didn’t, she wouldn’t let up. She held it in front of her and spread my fingers.

  “And the other one,” she said. I did as she asked and watched with relief as a pair of young women jogged past. I followed their retreat, making certain they had no pointy ears, wings, or other inhuman anomalies. “No warts. Good to go.… So Lorraine was mad and worried.”

  I grasped at the moment of near normalcy. Sometimes, if you snagged her into a real conversation she’d stick with you. At the very least, it was a distraction, and we had a long trip ahead of us. “You can’t go running off like this, Mom. I need to know where you are.”

  “You found me. You are a clever boy, Alex. And the truth—we know the difference between truth and lies. You tell a lot of lies—you don’t need me.”

  I bit back my fury. Clearly my crazy mom had been keeping a thing or two from me. But I knew from painful experience getting mad with her would either shut her down, bring on a crying jag, or trigger something so bizarre we’d spend the rest of the day in Bellevue’s psychiatric emergency room.

  Down the sloped path, I saw the park’s entrance. “Thank God.”

  I pushed past my annoyance with her. The distant voices of well-intended therapists and social workers reminded me—schizophrenia is an illness, she doesn’t mean to say or do these things to upset you. Or Sifu’s wisdom, when I’d be at my wit’s end, “Embrace your reality, but only the moment. Let go of what’s been, and don’t grasp for what’s to come. Find the moment; it’s here and it’s everything.”

  “Truth isn’t that simple, Mom.” I gripped her hand, suspecting that if I let go, she’d run.

  “True,” she answered. Her tears had dried. She smiled as we emerged from the shadows of the trees and the park and came out in the normalcy of Washington Heights. “There are many truths that run together. Like children.”

  “Yes,” I agreed, having years of practice in understanding her craziness. If schizophrenia could be considered a language, I was fluent. “So one of the truths, Mom, is that right now Alice and I need you. It’s no lie.”

  “I disagree. You’ve done everything without me.” A throb entered her voice. “In spite of me. Ergo, ipso, you don’t need me. Liar, liar pants on fire.”

  Her agitation was ramping up as I spotted the 190th Street subway entrance. I searched for words to calm her. “You’ve done okay. We’re safe now. We have an apartment and food and we’re together. Those are important things. If you hadn’t shown up when you needed to… when I needed you to, none of that would have happened.”

  She pondered my words and let me lead her down the subway stairs. “Good things come to those who wait,” she rambled. “And you waited, and worried… but no warts. That’s good too. So what did Lorraine say?”

  I fed our MetroCards through the machine—I always carried a second. And while our trip to fairy land was a first for me, tracking down my mom through the five boroughs—and beyond—is common. “The DSS hearing is important.” I wondered how much to share. I was torn between making her understand and not wanting to tip the apple cart that was Marilyn’s grip on reality. “Here’s the deal.” And I waited as our train roared to the platform. I found two seats, and I took the one closest to the door, just in case she tried to run. “Everything the three of us have—our apartment, your disability check, the fact that we’re not in some God-awful foster home, everything is tied together. You not being at the DSS hearing is bad. Because you’re our legal guardian.” I watched her face, checking for the impact of my words. “The people at DSS need to know that you still qualify for disability. But….” And this is where things got tricky.

  “There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m not crazy,” she said.

  I picked my words carefully. Mom truly believed there was nothing wrong with her. Whenever the disability paperwork came in the mail, I grabbed it. Too many times I’d found it shredded and in the garbage. “You qualify for disability, Mom. You deserve it. We need it to survive.”

  “I don’t have schizophrenia. That’s insane.” Her voice was loud and high. “I’m not insane. That’s why I didn’t go to the hearing. They tell lies about me. They call me names. It’s not nice. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names are for calling.”

  “If you’re not there, Mom,” I said in a soft voice, aware that other passengers were watching us, “we’re in a world of trouble. It’s not just the money. They need to see you. And….” This was the kicker. “They need to know you’re able to look after children.” The nut of the problem was this, the folks at DSS needed to know my mother was crazy, just not too crazy to be the legal guardian of two minors.

  “Children!” she snorted.

  A woman across from us cast a worried look at Mom. I glared back at her. “Yes, Mom. Alice is eleven, and I’m sixteen.”

  “You’re going to college in a year. You’re no child.”

  “By law I am. Come on, it’s 14th Street, we need to get the L.”

  “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”

  I gripped her hand, probably with more force than was needed. But I was tired and scared and pissed off. I needed to get her home, and I regretted the words the moment they left my mouth. “Yes, Mom, I do.” But she wanted the truth, and there it was.

  Eight

  SHE said nothing on the L train and continued with the silent treatment as we transferred to the downtown Express. She was revving, and it did no
t bode well. This was my fault. I needed to keep my emotions to myself. I thought of May’s weird game of questions and answers. Every question has a cost, and clearly my mom asking me if I thought she was crazy carried a hefty price tag.

  Nearing our station, she finally spoke, “I’m not crazy.”

  “Fine.”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Another lie, Alex. Of course it matters.”

  It was an argument I would never win. I checked the time on my cell—a little after two. It seemed later. Maybe I’d been drugged, maybe that’s what happened. I thought back through the morning when Alice and I handled Mom’s pill art. Maybe some of the drugs got absorbed through my skin, and I’d hallucinated the whole thing. I felt the raw nerves behind my ear—and that could be from falling. “I need to pick up Alice.”

  “She’s a big girl,” Mom replied. “She doesn’t need to be carried. I don’t need to be carried.”

  I glared at her. “Look, we’re picking up your daughter so no one messes with her on the way home. ’Cause you know what, Mom? We live in New York, and sad to say, Alice shouldn’t walk home alone.”

  “See.” She sat back, not meeting my gaze. “You prove my point, over and over, pointy Alex. Alice has you. I’m not needed. I could have stayed at the dance.”

  “Who was that guy?” Thinking how that was another question… but man, how does someone make it through the day without questions?

  She giggled and blushed and let loose with a head-turning snort. “He was a she… that’s how they say it, only they spell it S-I-D-H-E. Which, speak of the devil so she may appear, what’d you do with yours?”

  Okay, maybe I wasn’t fully fluent in schizophrenic, but I had a feeling she’d just dropped a bomb or two. “What are you talking about?” The train pulled into the station.

  She giggled, wiggled her thick eyebrows, and said nothing.

  “Fine! Just forget it!” I was pissed off and just wanted to get Alice, get home, and yes, lock Mom in her room.

  “You lie a lot. There sidhe is,” Mom said.

  I felt a familiar flutter over my right shoulder. I glanced and caught Nimby’s red-eyed face. Admittedly, I wished the damn thing would vanish, that I didn’t have a black fairy hovering over my right shoulder. But in that moment… seeing her, it’s like a piece of me was back. I did something I rarely do. “Coward.” I spoke to her.

  “No,” her tinny voice spat back. “Smart. Smarter than you. Pay attention, Alex. The danger is real.”

  “She’s right,” Mom said. “It was a stupid thing. Which makes no sense… you’re smart… and you did something stupid. Does that make you smart or stupid?”

  A man in a suit glanced at us. I wondered which part of our conversation had prompted his perplexed expression. “You see her?” I asked Mom.

  “Of course. She’s as plain as the fairy on your shoulder.” She giggled.

  In the world of dream logic, this made sense. Sadly, this was not a dream, so how the hell could Mom see Nimby? She’d never mentioned it before.

  I shadowed close behind Mom as we headed up the stairs to Houston. From there it was a quick walk through the fishmongers and fruit carts of Mott Street to the iron gates of Alice’s school. I glanced up at the statue of Mary, her arms extended as though bestowing blessings on the children in the yard below.

  Mom followed my gaze. “That’s what May wants,” she commented.

  I spotted Alice’s blonde head in the sea of mostly Asian children. She was with her best friend Tia, who lived with her grandparents over their restaurant on Henry Street. She was laughing. Her head turned, as though sensing my presence. She waved and then saw Mom. Her expression darkened. She shrugged and put her hands together as though praying.

  I laughed. If she only knew.

  Mom stood transfixed by the statue staring down at us.

  “May wants to be the Virgin Mary?” I asked.

  “Like the virgin,” she said.

  “Huh… that kind of makes sense.” And of course I started the Madonna classic running through my head.

  “Alex!” A male voice caused my head to whip around to the left.

  “Ouch! Jerod.” My pulse quickened as I saw him not twenty feet away. My stomach lurched. This was too much. As he approached, I tried to enlist my rational mind to put the brakes on things. Okay, I had a crush. I was sixteen years old, and this was supposed to happen. Was it just that he’s so good-looking? Or what his voice did to me or how he moved or those eyes or the way dimples popped in his cheeks when he smiled or…. Alex, chill.

  “So….” He smirked. “You went home sick.”

  “Yeah… migraine.”

  Mom snorted, “Liar.”

  Jerod looked at her and then back at me. “What happened there?” he asked, pointing at my ear.

  “I fell.” Thankfully my hair was long enough in back that I could mostly hide May’s vicious grab. Even so, there was a visible patch of raw flesh behind my left ear.

  “Lie,” Mom said in a flat voice. I did not want to introduce her, and was given a reprieve by a younger version of Jerod running toward us, his book bag bouncing on his back.

  “Hey, Clay, how was your day?” Jerod asked his brother.

  “Homework,” the nine-year-old wailed.

  “Yeah, well, it only gets worse.” Jerod turned to me. His expression was hard to read, worried, concerned. “We have to finish the chapter, and Mr. Flaherty says we can either turn in the questions at the end or have a take-home test.”

  “I’ll do the problems,” I said, actually looking forward to the black-and-white logic of chemical reactions.

  Alice had worked her way through the crowded schoolyard. She looked at me and then Mom. “Things are good?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Hi,” she said to Jerod. “I’m Alex’s sister, Alice.”

  “Jerod,” he said. His smile was dazzling. “And this is my brother Clay. So where do you guys live?”

  “In the Village,” Alice said. She looked at Jerod and then at me. “East Village.”

  “You want to walk with us?” Jerod asked. “We’re on the way, right across from St. Pat’s.” He glanced at Marilyn, who was staring at the statue of Mary.

  “Mom,” Alice said. “We’re leaving.” And then she did her Alice thing. “I love that church, the windows… how at the bottom of each one it says who gave the money for them.”

  “I study in the churchyard,” he said. “It’s quiet.” He looked at his brother, who was hanging back with a couple of his classmates. “Clay, leaving! Now!”

  I tapped Mom’s arm. “We’ve got to go.”

  “Of course, dear.” She looked away from the statue. She saw Jerod. “What a beautiful boy.” She giggled, “But he’s not a sidhe.”

  This was bad.

  Alice interceded and took Mom by the arm. “So what did you do today?”

  I didn’t want to hear the response and said a silent prayer as Alice pulled Mom out of earshot.

  “That’s your mom?” Jerod asked. His long legs matched my stride.

  “Yeah.” I hoped this topic could end fast.

  “Never seen her here.”

  “I do the pickup and delivery. So your au pair’s still sick?”

  He paused. “Not really. I just felt like picking up Clay. Like to see who he’s hanging with. Make sure no one’s bothering him.”

  “Same,” I said. “Not the au pair part. Just me and Alice… and Mom.” I needed a quick deflection. “So what about your folks?”

  “We live with my mom,” he said, his expression serious. “My dad’s uptown.”

  I knew I was supposed to say something in return. This was what you were supposed to do in normal conversation. But I didn’t feel up to offering information on the crap fest that was my life. And not to be greedy or creepy, I wanted to know about him. Everything…. “How old were you when they split?”

  “Eleven. It sucked.
Still does. What about your dad?”

  Shit! I did not want to say I didn’t know who, or where, he was. And weirdly, I flashed on Mom’s drop-dead dance partner. “Not in the picture.”

  “So you know what I’m saying.”

  “Yeah.” But I didn’t. I remembered how he’d winked at me; maybe he wasn’t my father, but he could have been Alice’s… if he were even real. I thought about what she said: “He’s a she. S-I-D-H-E.” Which I knew from sophomore history was the Irish word for fairies.

  Jerod’s shoulder brushed against mine. “You don’t say much, do you?”

  “No.” The contact startled me.

  He snorted. “No kidding. What’s going on inside that head? You’re the smartest kid in class, and you hardly talk to anyone.”

  “It’s a mess in here,” I said, feeling strange and exposed… and almost happy.

  “Really? I wonder. So, like this weekend you maybe want to get together and do something?”

  I was on overload. Of course I would love to do something this weekend. I glanced ahead at Alice and Mom as they crossed Canal. “Sure,” I said, figuring I’d probably have to back out. But at least for the moment, I could pretend.

  “There’s a free concert in the park, some hippie music.” He looked back at his brother, who was entranced by a battery-operated Godzilla in one of the Chinatown stalls. “Clay, now!”

  “It’s only five bucks,” his brother whined. “I’ve got the money.”

  “Now,” Jerod said. And then to me, “I love the little brat, but sometimes….”

  “Yeah.” I watched him retrieve his brother over the objection of the store owner. I thought over the morsels of our conversation. His parents were divorced. He kept an eye on his brother. But the part that was screaming in my head: he wants to do something together. Like a date—no, you moron, not a date. Like two guys in class doing something together, in the park… like a date. He has a girlfriend… he’s taking her to the prom.

  When we made it across Canal, Alice shot me a warning glance as Mom headed toward us. My stomach lurched.

  “You never introduced me to your boyfriend, Alex,” she said.