First Fall

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

I thought no more about the encounter when I returned to my tiny studio apartment a dozen hours later, tired, hungry and ready for a beer that I knew my fridge didn’t contain.

I passed the bathroom mirror and stared at the stranger looking back—a gaunt 24-year-old with limp, dingy hair, eyes that were too big and clothes that had seen a better decade. I sighed. Perhaps only having one mirror had its benefits.

When I was young and had people to call family, some of them used to say I favored my mother. I’ll admit, she’d been an attractive woman—at least what I still remembered of her—and had it not been for her increasingly peculiar behavior, I would have considered it a compliment. But the more time that had passed, the worse she had gotten and any beauty she might have had slipped into the darkness, much like the delusions that clouded her mind.

My earliest memories were of her dragging me all over the city until she convinced herself she’d found the right seer—as she’d preferred to call them—who she could ply with just the right incentive to tell her exactly what she wanted to hear.

It wasn’t enough that my father loved her, had a good job that afforded her a modest lifestyle and indulged her, no matter her current whim. She wanted—needed—someone to tell her that her present state of happiness would last, that the well would never run dry and her world would always be filled with daisies and sunshine and fluffy things.

But as tolerant and patient of a man as he had been, he was only human and her neurosis eventually drove him away. Or at least that was what he penned in his Dear Joanne letter the day he walked out of our lives.

It was not ironic, as my mother’s name was Joanne, though she saw it as a sign of things to come and an excuse to continue to seek solace from her myriad of psychics, all too happy to take her money and offer prophecies about her future. Even that was short-lived, as the money started running out and she drifted farther and farther from reality.

One morning, our routine started the same as it always had, with my mother popping a fistful of what she insisted were herbs and laughingly referred to as her “little helpers.” Of course, after I’d caught her chasing them with vodka months earlier, I quickly realized they were anything but, and more likely uppers and downers her boyfriend du jour had supplied.

On that particular day, however, she surprised me as we walked to the subway on a brisk New York morning. Before sending me off to school, she pressed a small trinket in the shape of a carousel horse into my hand, gave me an awkward peck on the cheek, followed by a quick wink and a playful laugh.

The last time I saw my mother, she was heading in the opposite direction to do whatever it was she did during the hours we were apart.

I’d forgotten about the rare gift until my aunt was waiting for me as I left school that day. Known more for her brevity than her tact, she informed me that shortly after we had parted ways that morning my mother had stepped off the subway platform as the southbound train descended upon her.

Rather than allowing the things she feared the most to control her any longer, she beat the future to the punchline by giving it the finger.

A lot of people—my aunt included—said it was a selfish gesture and all my mother had succeeded in doing when she’d escaped her fears was transfer her burdens onto me.

But that was my mother for you. And no pity party was ever going to change that—regardless of how many people were eager to host it.

What seemed like a lifetime now separated my mother’s destiny from my own. I sighed, tucking a stray crop of hair behind my ear as I frowned at my reflection. I contemplated removing the mirror altogether so that I wouldn’t have to face the inevitable but was distracted by the buzzing of my cell phone.

I cursed, hoping my boss wasn’t expecting me to take another shift. It would be my third today on a week where I’d already tripled up more times than I cared to remember. Still, I needed the money, so I answered hesitantly, not bothering to check the screen.

After all, who else would be calling?

No one.

The voice on the other end of the connection was definitely not my boss’, a gruff transplant from the south who had a smoker’s voice that would make the Marlboro man wince. Instead, it was feminine and vaguely familiar.

“Six seasons…” she whispered.

“Listen, I don’t know who this is, or how you got this number but you’d better spit it out—“

“You’ve got six seasons and counting, Harper Storm. Six seasons…to live.”