Asimov's SF, September 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  When wolves quit the lair they stalk away leaving it untouched because they are done with it forever; they do not expect to come this way again. Is this what not-wolf mothers do?

  Not-wolf mothers leave the lost son's room exactly as it was in hopes he will come back, but there is no way Happy can know this. He has no idea who he is or why he feels both good and bad about being back here, although he is a little frightened. He doesn't know why all this makes him miss Sonia so terribly or why, on that night so long ago, his hateful big brother slammed the door to the family car and let them drive away without him.

  Brother. That's what Brent is.

  Oh.

  Happy would throw back his head and howl for Sonia but his hideout is constricted, the woods are lost to him and Sonia is dead now. He could howl for this other mother but before, when he was small and crying out lonely, she was a long time coming and when she did.... There are things you don't remember and things you don't want to know.

  Can you want to belong in two places at once and know you don't belong in either?

  At least Happy is safe. When he came to, instinct sent him off the bed where they'd dumped him and under here, where they won't see him before he sees them. Holed up, he counts the cobwebs hanging from rusting springs. He wants to weep for the blue dogs and pink teddies cavorting on the plastic mattress cover. He is under his old crib.

  When you can't go back to being what you used to be, you go back to what you were in the beginning. You were safe because she loved you, and Happy does not know whether he means the old mother, or Sonia.

  The sounds in the house are so different from the crackle and whisper of the woods that it takes time to name them. The hum of the refrigerator, the washing machine grinding because—Happy looks down—they have changed his hospital rags for grey stuff like the clothes—clothes!—he used to wear when he was a ... The bark of the furnace kicking in. A telephone ringing, ringing ringing and soft voices: women talking, a strange man's voice downstairs in the hall. Brent is arguing with the other.

  The smells in this house at this moment in his life are enough to break Happy's heart. He can smell mold in the foundations, laundry products; dust, in this room in particular; there is the residue of memory and oh, God ... —God?—there is the smell of something cooking. Whatever else is going on in this place he used to know so well and had forgotten completely, Mom is baking brownies. Everything waters. Happy's mouth, his nose, his eyes.

  * * * *

  It's getting dark, but nobody comes. Cramped as he is, stuck under the crib for too long when he is used to running free in the woods, Happy is restless and twitching. He thought by this time Brent would be in here raging; they could have fought. He could have killed the brother. Unless Brent jabbed another dart into Happy and dragged him out from under here. Instead the shouting stayed downstairs, sliding into the low, grating whine of a long argument. Then doors slammed and the cars roared away. Now there is no more talking. The machines have stopped. There is almost-silence in the house, except for the stir of a body he knows, approaching. What does he remember from the last time he heard her footsteps? Nothing he chooses to remember. Trembling, he pulls himself out from under the crib just long enough to run his hand along the bedroom door. He finds the lock. He loves the click.

  There is a long silence in the hall outside his room. Then there is the soft footfall as she goes away.

  * * * *

  Alone in the tight space he has created, Happy considers. Wolves are taught to lay back in this situation, and he is more wolf than anything else. He's been out cold for a long time, and there are problems. Wolves wake up ravenous. Happy hasn't fed since he came to in the crate and emptied his dish. Another thing: a wolf never fouls the den where he is sleeping. When the old house has been still for a long time he eases out from under the crib, unlocks the door and leaves the room.

  Where Happy loped along on all fours when he ran with the pack, race memory kicks in, now that he is here. This place he hoped to forget was not built for wolves. He stands and prowls the house on bare feet. She has left food: some kind of meat on the kitchen table, brownies. He empties the plate, pulling strings of plastic wrap out of the half-chewed chocolate squares before he swallows them. Now, the other thing? As Sonia's cub he never fouled the lair. There is a bathroom just off the kitchen. Happy cringes. What was he supposed to do back then, when he was small and trapped in here? Who used to hit him and hit him for forgetting?

  He touches the nail where the belt used to hang and the ghost family rises up like the missing limb miraculously restored. Growling, he quits the house.

  Can you ever walk out of your old skin and back into the woods where you were so happy, running with the wolves? There are no woods outside this house, just streets and cement sidewalks and metal fences around house after house after identical house; there are few trees and no hillside which means no caves, no undergrowth and no place to dig, where he can pull in brush to cover himself; it is worrisome and sad. The urban sky is like a cup with Happy trapped under it. He relieves himself and goes back inside. The old room is safe, now that he knows he can lock it.

  * * * *

  His days don't change.

  At night he goes out to eat what she leaves and to relieve himself. One night it was a meat pie, another, a whole ham.

  People come. Sometimes they call outside his room, but Happy will not answer. The wolf doesn't howl unless there is another like him out there, howling or yipping the reply. Brent comes, but not Susan. In the long periods he spends curled under the crib, Happy thinks about this. Her body, expanding with every breath as they rode along in the car. The way it felt, and how he misses it.

  If he can't do what wolves do, he understands, he wants to do what he can do with Brent's woman. How the parts go together remains a mystery; he only knows what he needs. Brent comes with a doctor, a talking-doctor, he says through the locked door. The doctor talks for a long time, but wolves have no need for words. The doctor goes away. Brent comes with a man who promises money. When you have nothing, you need nothing. Brent comes with another man, who makes threats. Wolves will not be threatened. When you are threatened, you go to ground and stay there. They go away. Brent comes back. He shouts through the locked door. “Just tell us what you want and I'll bring it! Anything, I promise, if you'll just come out so we can get started."

  There is one thing, but Happy will not say it.

  The brother hits a whine that Happy remembers from the time he refuses to remember. Oh. That Brent. This one. Same as he ever was, just older.

  Brent snarls, “Dammit to hell, are you in there?"

  No words needed here, either. None spoken.

  Brent comes back with a woman. The scent brings Happy's head up. It is a woman. “He's in there? Why is he in there when he knows I'm out here?” She goes on in a loud, harsh voice. "Do you know who I am?"

  It's the wrong woman.

  “Listen, baby brother. This is your new agent standing out here in the cold. If you know what's good for you, come out and say hello to Marla Parterre. She can make or break you."

  Time passes.

  “She's from C.A.A.!"

  The agent goes away.

  The mother comes. Mhmhmmm.

  Brent shouts. “How can we sell this story if he won't come out? Dammit, Mom..."

  She says in the old tone that makes Happy tremble, “Don't you dare talk to your mother like that.” He knows her voice, but he always did. He just doesn't know what she used to say to him.

  “I'm calling Dad,” Brent says. “Dad will get him out."

  Then his mother says, “Your father is not coming back here, Brent."

  “But Mom, he got us front money in six figures, and we have to...” Figures. Happy is troubled by the figures. Skaters, he thinks, short skirts, girls gliding in circles, and wonders how he knows. Women, he thinks, trembling. With their pretty figures.

  “No.” Her voice is huge. “Not after what he did. No!"

&nbs
p; Brent brings a locksmith. There is talk of breaking in. She says, No, she says, over her dead body. Will Brent kill her? Happy shivers. They argue. She uses that huge voice on Brent and they go away. She bakes. Sometimes now, she leaves the food outside his door, hoping he'll come out to see. Happy lies low until she sighs and takes the untouched tray back to the kitchen.

  At night she lingers in the hallway outside the room. She does not speak. He won't, or can't. Sometimes he hears her crying.

  Happy waits. Sooner or later she always goes away. She leaves things on the kitchen table. Meat, which Happy devours. Fruit, which he ignores. Something she baked. She leaves the door to that old, bad bathroom open so he won't have to go outside to relieve himself. What's the matter with her, did she forget? The sight of the toilet, the naked hook where the belt hung, make Happy tremble.

  Outside is worse than inside. Nights like these make Happy want to throw back his head and howl. Alone in these parts, he could howl to the skies and never hear their voices. The other wolves are deep in the old woods, and he is far, far away. He wants to cry out for Sonia, for the past, when everything was simple, but one sound will bring police down on him with their bats and rifles, visors on bug helmets covering their faces.

  Happy knows what wolves know. You never, ever break cover.

  Wolves know what Happy is only now learning. He can't go back! Happy's feet are soft and his muscles are slack from days under the crib. He'd never make it and if he did, Timbo would outrun him in seconds. Timbo would kill him in one lunge, and even if he could kill Timbo? His parts and the bitch wolves’ parts don't match. They have forgotten he was ever one of them.

  He sits on his haunches and tries to think. He is distracted by the buzz of blue lights on poles overhead, where he is used to looking up and seeing trees; by a sky so milky with reflected glare that stars don't show; by the play of strident human voices in the houses all around, the mechanical sounds of a hundred household objects and the rush of cars on the great road that brought them here. Looking up at the house, he groans.

  He doesn't belong in there.

  He doesn't belong out here, either.

  He gets up. Sighs. Stands back. Upstairs in the house, there is a single light. She is awake. Now he knows, and knowing hurts somehow. She doesn't go into her lair and sleep after she leaves Happy's door the way he thought she did. She sits up all night waiting. He steals back inside and goes upstairs to his room. Inside, he closes the door. Tonight, he will not turn the lock.

  * * * *

  After not very long—did she hear or does she just know?—the bedroom door opens. She says his name.

  “Happy?"

  He always knew Happy was his name. This is just the first time he's heard it spoken since he joined the wolves and made Sonia his mother. Does Brent not know? The name Brent calls him is different. Is this big, leaden woman who smells like despair the only one who knows who he really is? In the hospital where the police took him, Brent shouted at the doctor like a pet owner claiming a dog that had strayed. “Olmstead. It's right here on his tag! Olmstead. Frederick."

  Her voice is soft as the darkness. “Oh, Happy. I'm so glad you came back."

  There is another of those terrible long silences in which he hears her shifting from foot to foot in the dark, pretending she's not crying.

  She says, “You don't have to come out from under there if you don't want to."

  She says, “Are you okay?"

  It's been a long time since words came out of Happy; he only had a few when they lost him. He isn't ready. Will he ever be?

  She says, “Is it okay if I sit down on the bed? I mean, since you're not using it?"

  Words. He is thinking about words. He knows plenty now, all that talk going on outside his locked door. He has heard dozens. He could spit out a word for her if he wanted, but which one? He waits until she gets tired of him waiting.

  She says softly, “I'm sorry about everything."

  Then she says, all in a rush, “Oh Happy. Can you ever forgive me?"

  This is not a question Happy can answer.

  There is a lot of nothing in the silence that follows. She is breathing the way Sonia did before she died. It's a rasp of pain, but the mother smells all right to Happy. Wolves know nothing of the pain of waiting, nor do they know anything about the pain of guilt.

  Her voice shakes in a way he is not used to. “Son?"

  Son. It does not parse. Happy rummages through all his words, but there is no right one.

  The first morning light is showing in the window; Happy sees it touch the fake fur of the ruggy bear; he sees it outlining the hands she keeps folded on her plump knees and he watches as it picks out every vein in her sad, swelling ankles. She says, “It's all my fault, you know."

  What should he do now, bare all his teeth the way they do, to show her he's friendly? Beg her to go on? Howl until she stops? He doesn't know.

  She says, “I never should have had you.” Slumped on the edge of the bed she leans sideways and tilts her head, trying to see under the crib where Happy's green eyes glint. He makes no expression a human could recognize, although Sonia would know it without question. She says, “Poor little thing."

  A sound stirs the air, a kind of shudder. He wonders but does not ask, Mother, did you sob?

  Her head comes up. “Happy?"

  Startled, Happy looks inside himself.—Did I? There is nothing he has to say to her.

  Then she just begins. “You don't know what it's like living with a man who beats you. I was pregnant with Brent and our parents forced the marriage, crazy thing to happen in this day and time, like it ruined his life to marry me, we had too many babies, and who—who got me pregnant every time? Do you see what I mean?"

  Happy won't speak. The words come so fast that he chooses not to understand them. Ow, it hurts!

  Never mind, nothing he says or does not say will stop her. “Hal hated his life so he drank, and the more he drank the more he hated it so he drank some more and the more he drank, the madder he got and nothing I could do or say would make him happy. Every little thing I did used to make him mad at me. The madder he got the more he hit me, but he never hit me when I was pregnant. Oh, Happy, do you understand?"

  For another long time, they are both silent.

  A long sigh comes ripping out of her. “You do what you have to, just to keep it from happening again. When anger takes hold like that, it has to come out somewhere. Look.” She holds up a crooked wrist; even from here it looks wrong. She touches a spot on her temple; she doesn't have to tell Happy about the long white scar under the hair.

  He tried so hard not to remember, but he remembers. On his belly under the crib, Happy watches her over ridged knuckles.

  Again. She says it again. “He never hit me when I was pregnant.” Her breath shudders. “So I had you. I'm so sorry!"

  Happy strains to make out what she's trying to tell him but there is no way of translating it.

  “I tried. I even named you after him!"

  Frederick, he supposes. He supposes it was on the dogtag, but Brent says his name was on the dogtag, and Happy? Frederick is not his name.

  In the still air of the bedroom, her voice is sad and thin. “My four big boys fought back when he hit them, so I had you. Anything to stop him. But this time.” That sigh. “He didn't stop. Forgive me, Happy. I did what you do to make it through. I couldn't take it!"

  The story she is telling is sad, but it's only a story. Wolves know that fathers aren't the only ones that hurt you.

  “You cried. you cried so much. He got so mad. He came at me. He kept coming at me and oh God, oh, Happy. I put you in front of me."

  Happy flinches.

  “I couldn't watch. I left him to it.” Relieved, she says in a light voice, “And that was it.” As if it's all she needs to do.

  Fine. If she is done, then, she'll leave. As soon as she leaves he'll get up and lock the door.

  Then, just when he thinks it's over and he can forget th
is, she groans. “I'm so sorry, son."

  There is another of the long, painful pauses that wolves prefer to using words. Silence is clear, where words are ambiguous.

  She says, “I never knew what he was doing. I didn't want to know."

  She says, “I know, I know, I should have left him, but where can a woman go with four little boys and a baby? I should have kicked him out, but how would I feed my children then?"

  The silence.

  “So you do forgive me, right?"

  Forgive is not a word wolves know.

  “Right?"

  He won't move or speak. Why should he?

  “These things happen, son. Things happen when people are stretched too far and their love is stretched too thin. Oh, please try to understand."

  There is a long silence while she thinks and Happy thinks.

  Just when he's beginning to hope she's run out of words forever, she says in a voice so light that it floats far over his head, “Then you got lost. And everything changed. He got himself a nice new wife and moved to Hollywood. After everything I did to make him happy. The others grew up and moved away. Until you came, I didn't have anything."

  Happy doesn't expect to speak, but he does. The words that have been stacked in his head for years pop out like quarters out of a coin return.

  “You didn't look for me, did you.” It is not a question.

  She sobs. “You don't know what it's like."

  He does.

  After a while she goes away.

  Happy slinks to the door and locks it even before he hears her stumbling downstairs, sobbing.

  * * * *

  “Can I come in?” Her voice is sweet. Just the way he remembers her. Even through the door, Susan is soft and he will always remember that body. He almost forgets himself and answers. Happy is stopped by the fact that except for the slip with the mother, he hasn't spoken. There are too many words backed up in him. He can't get them in order, much less let them out. He just doesn't have the equipment.