LITMIR.BIZ

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something smart, but I couldn’t think of anything smart to say, so I just shook his hand and got out of there as fast as I could.

      I sat down on the edge of the bed and handed my old Star Blasters plastic armor and ray gun—both sets—to the squid. The ray gun fired an infrared beam that a sensor on the chest plate picked up and registered—if you did it right.

      He was thrilled—he’d always wanted the kit. “Jo-ee! Tinkoo!” He was way too young for them, but he’d grow into them.

      In a way, I told myself, I’d be helping make sure of that.

      I told Jenny she could have my CD and DVD collection, for what it was worth. She and I had pretty much the same tastes in movies—basically, anything that ends with the Death Star or a reasonable equivalent blowing up real good was okay by us. The music was problematical, but what she didn’t like she could either sell or grow into.

      She was pretty suspicious of this sudden generosity, of course. I told her I had to go visit some remoter branches of our family, and I wasn’t sure when I’d be back. I didn’t add “if ever.” Maybe I should have, but if you think it’s easy saying good-bye to your younger siblings, maybe forever—well, it’s not.

      Mom and Dad were harder still. I couldn’t just tell them I was leaving home, maybe forever—on the other hand, I wanted them to know somehow that I would be okay (even though I wasn’t 100 percent sure of that part myself).

      I made a pretty big mess of it, all told. I told them I was joining “something like” the army. Dad said I don’t think so, and that all he had to do was make a few phone calls to keep that from happening, young man. Mom mostly cried and asked where she had failed as a parent.

      I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me that I would screw it up—after all, I didn’t exactly have a stellar record to date in taking care of people close to me. It ended with me promising not to “do anything rash” tonight, and we would “discuss it further in the morning.”

      But I couldn’t wait until the morning. I had to do it quickly, while my gumption was up, as Granddad used to say. I stayed awake until two a.m., long after everyone else had gone to sleep—then I got dressed and headed downstairs.

      Mom was waiting for me.

      She was sitting in the armchair by the cold fireplace, wrapped in her bathrobe. At first I had the horrible feeling that I’d sleepWalked somehow and slipped into another parallel Earth, because Mom was smoking, and she’d quit that a good five years ago.

      I was frozen, caught there in the light of the living room lamp like a rabbit in a car’s headlights. She looked at me, and there was no anger in her eyes—just a kind of resignation. Which was, of course, ten times worse than anger would have been.

      At last she smiled, and it didn’t reach her eyes, and she said, “What kind of a mom would I be if I couldn’t read you after all this time? Did you think I wouldn’t know that you were leaving? Or that if I kept on sleeping I’d miss my chance to say good-bye?”

      A thousand replies went through my head, some truthful, some lies, mostly a combination of the two. At last I said, “Mom—it would take too long to explain, and you wouldn’t believe any of—”

      “Try me,” she said. “Just tell me. Tell me everything. But tell me the truth.”

      And I did. I told her everything that I could think of. I told her the whole thing, from the beginning to the end. And she sat there and smoked and coughed and looked faintly sick (and I didn’t know if that last was because she hadn’t smoked in so long or because of what I was telling her).

      Then I got to the end, and we sat silently in the room. “Coffee?” said my mother.

      “I can’t stand the stuff,” I told her. “You know that.” “You’ll grow into it,” she said. “I did.”

      She got up and walked over to the percolator, and poured herself a cup of coffee.

      “You know what makes it worse,” she said suddenly, urgently, as if we had been arguing about something and now she was coming back with the kicker, “what makes it worse isn’t worrying about whether or not you’ve gone crazy or you’re lying to me or any of that nonsense. Because you aren’t lying to me. I mean, I’ve known you for a very long time, Joey. I know what you do when you lie. You’re not lying.” She took a swig of her coffee. “And you aren’t crazy. I’ve known crazy people. And you aren’t one of them.”

      She pulled another cigarette out of the pack, but, instead of lighting it, she began to take it apart while she talked, peeling off the paper, pulling out the tobacco, inch by inch, stripping it down to paper and tobacco and filter, all in a neat pile in the ashtray.

      “So, my little boy is going to war. Obviously I’m not the first mother in history this has happened to. And from what you’re saying, I’m not even the first—the first me this has happened to. But what makes it worse is that from the moment that you walk through that door, you’re dead to me. Because you’re never coming back. Because if you … if you get killed, rescuing your friends or fighting the enemy or in your In-Between World … I’ll never know.

      “The Spartan mothers used to say, ‘Come back with your shield or on it.’ But you’re on your way, and I’ll never see you again, shield or no shield. No one’s ever going to send me a medal or a—what do they do, now that they don’t send telegrams?—or a message, saying ‘Dear Mrs. Harker, we regret to inform you that Joey died like a … died like a …’”

      I thought she was going to cry, but she took a deep breath and just sat there for a bit.

      “You’re letting me go?” I asked.

      She shrugged. “I spent my life hoping I would have kids who would be able to tell the difference between right and wrong. Who, when the decisions, the big decisions, need to be made, would do the right thing. I believe you, Joey. And you’re doing the right thing. How could I ever stop you now?

      “Wherever you go. Whatever happens to you. Know this, Joey. I love you, I’ll always love you, and I think … I know you’re doing the right thing. It just … hurts, that’s all.”

      Then she hugged me. My face was wet, and I don’t know if they were her tears or my own.

      “We’ll never see each other again, will we?” asked my mom.

      I shook my head.

      “Here,” she said. “I made it for you. It’s a good-bye thing. I’m not sure what else I can give you.” And she pulled a little stone on a chain from her pocket. It looked black and then, when it caught the light, it glinted blue and green like a starling’s wing. She fastened it about my neck.

      “Thanks,” I said. “It’s lovely.” And then I said, “I’ll miss you.”

      “I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “It gave me something to do.” And then she said, “I’ll miss you, too. Come back, if you can. When you’ve saved the universe.”

      I nodded. “Will you tell Dad?” I asked. “Tell him I love him. And that he’s been the best dad anyone could hope for.”

      She nodded. “I’ll tell him. I could wake him up, if you like … ?”

      I shook my head. “I have to go,” I told her.

      “I’ll wait here,” she said. “For a bit. In case you come back.”

      “I won’t,” I told her.

      “I know you won’t,” she said. “But I’ll wait.”

      I went out into the night.

      It was below freezing outside. I slipped into the mind-set that had supposedly been scoured from my head, and started casting about for a potential portal.

      I hoped there would be one nearby—I didn’t like the notion of having to walk (without a capital W) very far in this

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