What am I doing here

I stared at the clock again......Time seemed to slip away day after day. And I felt my heart sink with each hour that bled past.

My son had taken to asking me "Mama, what are you doing here?"

At first I had tried for fun or funny then sarcastic and I finally started telling him that I didn’t know.

And I really didn’t.

I was a terrible homemaker- of course I had never wanted to be one so this did not surprise me. My domestic talents were not a selling point. I never cared about cooking and cleaning until Bear was born 5 years ago and even then constant repetitious chores left me cold- I was a good mother though not particularly playful.

Sure I kept Bear safe and fed, but I hated playing with toys even as a child and I was sick so often that having the energy to play with him just wasn’t there, and I never slept well due to his night terrors and his health issues.

I got so exhausted before Bear turned 2 that I couldn’t even get up off of the floor with him, Doctor told me it was adrenal fatigue and put me on supplements, thank goodness they helped.

I finally had to quit coffee because it didn’t help and actually started making me sick.

And Bears behavior problems didn’t help when we were out and about.

So we stayed at home and putted around.

I was unable to run my business personally after Bear turned 2 due to his health problems and had to rely on friends and my husband to help out. I was lucky to have good people in my life, my husband resented me for everything it seemed but there wasn’t much to be done.

We made decent money from the business but there was a lot of work and effort that went into it, such is the way of business, which never set well with my husband Mitch.

He couldn’t watch Bear, so off to work he went.

I managed from behind the scenes a bit, but it was not the same and a lot fell through the cracks. The business was starting to show it too.

Mitch wanted to close it so badly, any time we spoke about the finances (which I had to manage as Mitch couldn’t handle money) he would always bring up that we should just close. My god I was so tired of my life.

I felt like I was failing at everything- my son, my marriage, my business, my life- and I didn’t see any way out of it.

I had often contemplated suicide and I persistently wondered if there was someone better suited to be Bear's mother out there.

Someone who knew what to do for him and had the energy to be a more active mother to him.

I also knew that if I was gone that my husband wouldn’t be able to deal with Bear and he would end up in foster care.....and that would be disastrous for him.

Many times over the years that was all that kept me giving in to the persistent desire to end my existence.

I had eventually told my husband and he responded in typical resentful fashion.

That was all that there was between us now, bitterness and resentment, and it showed every day.

If it hadnt been for Bear I would have divorced him 3 years into the marriage.

But I love Bear with all of my heart and I would do anything for him.

So I got up out of the recliner, Id had to sit down because my back was hurting but I also didn’t want to hear the verbal tirade of misery that came from asking my husband to help me, and went to put the groceries away.

Sometimes Bear could focus enough to help, this was not one of those times.

As I sorted which bags had holes in them and which ones were good for trash I heard a slap thunk at the front door.

"BEAR!" I hoped he hadn’t tried to run out into the street again, damn it I thought I had locked the door!

From the sink he looked over at me and said "Mama?” he was playing in the kitchen sink- he wasn’t supposed to but at least I knew where he was- and splashing with wide eyes.

I breathed a sigh of relief "ok, phew! No splash Bear! “I said it in my silly tone and he giggled "splash splash splash!"

I left him to splash while going check the front door.

Upon opening the door I found a plain paper wrapped package, picked it up and found it heavy...it had been delivered by a little black drone which was sitting on my porch, I pressed the red light and the light turned green. The small black drone whirred, hovered up, and flitted away -its mission accomplished.

I inspected the package, the address was correct but it was addressed to me care of Bear.

Very odd. I hefted the package inside and set it on the kitchen counter with a thunk, which of course caught Bears attention , he came blazing around the kitchen island to the package sing "letter, letter, letter".

He was so excited that I hated having to shoo him away from it, although it did nothing to dampen his enthusiasm...if anything it then became a game of keep away.

Bear was perpetually playful and enthusiastic about everything, no matter how dour Mama was at times, it was one of the many things that I loved about my little bear. It could also get a bit frustrating in the times when we needed to be more serious...like now.

So after multiple attempts to dodge my curious child, I stashed the package on top of the fridge- there were a lot of things up there at this point and I was beginning to worry about the stacked items stability- hoping that the sink would distract my curious bear, and went back to putting away the groceries.

Once everything was put away and the water was cleaned up from Bear's splash fest I made bear some chicken nuggets and went to sit down when o remembered the package. Well if I was going to sit down I might as well be productive and get it opened up.

I swiped it from the top of the fridge while Bear was distracted at the dining table and brought it to the computer desk that sat at the far end of the dining room.

I tore the paper shipping packaging and pulled out a heavy cardboard box which was plastic shrink wrapped. Slicing open the plastic, I opened the box to find more packaging.

After digging through a mountain of tissue paper and plastic wrapping- whoever sent this was being more then thorough, just how valuable was this?- my fingers found deep purple silk clothe bound tight around what looked like a large book.

I pulled at the teal & pink cording that the held the silk in place and it slid off of a large hard bound book, it was bound in deep brown leather that when I turned it this way and that seemed to have a metallic sheen- gold or coppery, it was hard to tell- and had a pebbled texture, its cover was plain save for the title scrawled across the Silver plate that was affixed to it.

"What are you doing here?"

Wow, the irony was strong. I was guessing that the universe had gotten tired of my incessant moping and had decided to send me a sign. I hoped it was a good one.

I opened the heavy tome and carefully turned the yellowed pages; they were meant to look old but were new and crisp.

It was printed to mimic handwriting, a nifty style too- very scrawling and spiky- incredibly elegant, I turned the pages until I found the table of contents and realized as I read that this was an anthology of short stories.

The titles were interesting,

A cup of tea with death

The Mirror

Music box

Etc

But it was the fourth story that caught my eye, it was titled Wizarding Me, it started on page 62 so I turned to page 61 and read the blurb under the title.

I had only intended to read a little and then I needed to get back to bear when I heard Mitch's keys in the door. I felt my chest get heavy and my stomach clench. I shut my eyes and took a deep breath and steeled myself for another night of Mitch yelling at Bear and Bear's behavior spiraling due to it.

I had long ago quit asking Mitch to help with Bear in any way due to how Mitch acted. He was terrible to Bear and he would pout and throw a fit with me.

I refused to put Bear through that, and I damn sure didn’t want to deal with it.

Bear was polishing off the last of his nuggets, good thing or Mitch would have some sort of criticism about it- he didn’t want to help but would criticize me about anything and everything related to Bear or the business ( I had been in business for myself since I was 16)- and neither Bear nor I wanted to hear it.

As he heard Mitch get closer, Bear pulled his tablet across the table and pulled up a video to immerse him, I heard a second voice.

It was a deep and gentle male voice and it made me smile, Mitch would be distracted by his guest so I turned back to the book and started in on the story.

Bear had moved his chair closer to me and was almost at my elbow at this point, I gave him a tight hug and he went back to his video still staying near me.

As I skimmed the words in the story, the Author was really good at making you feel like you were actually IN the story, a line stuck out-

"As I read the words over and over again, I wondered what I was doing here. I was failing at everything and I was a failure at sorcery too. I couldn’t even help my parents with their business because I was so bad at buying and selling"-

And I thought to myself , boy do I know how that feels...it’s too bad I can’t give this guy some advice I’m great at buying and selling and Id really love to help somebody!

No sooner had I thought that then golden & coppery sparkles began to trail around me, whirling faster and faster in a twister fashion, I gaped as my hands holding the book began to disappear. I turned to Bear who was completely ensconced in his video and felt horror strike me. I was going away, who would take care of him, and my heart lurched in my chest.

As despair took hold of me I yelled to Bear that I loved him and saw a giant of a man walk around the corner of the kitchen. He was so familiar. His eyes lit up when they met mine and he grinned at me.

And then everything went black.

"Where's Mama?" Mitch was getting louder each time he asked his son that question and the boy had begun to cry, the child was clearly upset and afraid.

I sighed, before going to the Kent home for boys I had been on the other side of this type of situation often.

I had expressive responsive disorder as a young child and had mostly grown out of it. My father had never been understanding and had put all of the responsibility on me to communicate, even fighting my mother on teaching me sign language- which for the record helped me to begin speaking- which she persisted with anyway. She had always been so stubborn.

She was strong, feisty and a fighter.

Up until the night I had found her in our bathtub, all of her blood drained out of her, she had looked so peaceful like she was asleep.

I had tried to wake her up; I remember her being so cold, until Dad had come in.

His response was a look of pure disgust and hatred, when he looked at me his eyes were dead- Thankfully Grandma heard me yelling and came down to see what was wrong-, she and Dad had fought bitterly but she held me tight as the ambulance wheeled Moms body out the front door.

She lived in the house with us up on the upper level.

Mom had lost her battle and then Grandma had lost the battle with Dad to keep me with them.

As I grew up I saw a lot of the same thing happen around me. And I came to a conclusion.....Without a Mother who was tough as nails; a kid didn’t stand a chance.

Mom always said I was a problem solver.

"It's alright Mr. Donnelly; your wife hired me to help with Bear. Why don’t you let me take over and try to call some of her friends to see if they have seen her?"

"Thank god, He is so much to deal with! And she is almost a damned recluse...but your right, I will call around. I’m not going to have her dump her job on me; it’s bad enough that I have to run HER business. Who the hell does she think she is anyway? These are her responsibilities, not mine!" He said retreating from the kitchen to the living room to sit in a recliner with his feet up where he would proceed to play games on his phone until he would pass out.

I knew his routine well.

The little boy was crying and shaking- he kept saying Mama very softly- so I knelt down to him...I grew up to be 6 foot 4 and brawny so I needed to make myself as small as possible for the little guy.

"Hey Buddy, it’s going to be ok. Mamas not gone, she’s just in there for a little while" I pointed to the opened book on the computer desk.

The boys head whipped around, he was still young enough to see the sparkling overlay of the magic that I used to enchant the book, and he said "Pretty" and then he turned back to me and smiled.

"Why don’t we play for a little while until Mama comes back, sound good?" I smiled at him and picked up some of his cars that were scattered everywhere on the dining room floor and he grinned and began to race them with me.

Time worked differently in the world within that book. Mom could be in there for as long as she needed. She wouldn’t age a day and would come out of the book roughly 2 hours after she entered it.

After I became a Keeper I had been shown many things about how the universe worked.

Time was not linear but more of a big bubble. It was only our perceptions that showed us time in progressive steps.

Keepers are allowed one boon on our natal anniversary, a universes birthday gift to us for all of our hard work through the year, and once I had found that the events of the past could be altered I dedicated every boon to my goal. I wanted my mother back. Normally it would have created a time paradox, but there was a loophole- she had taken her own life and that was never supposed to have happened-, and so it took 300 years of boons but I had managed to craft a way for her to find her way back to the light. Of course there was still one thing that she would have to do once she was back, she would need to become a keeper. She had the gifts and the personality for it, but Mom wasn’t a big joiner.

When Mom had taken her own life she had hurt a lot of people. Her choice had taken my brother and sister out of this universe, closed her business that was a lifeline for more people and their children then she had any idea, had cut out the help that she constantly gave to families in need without which they began to break apart, and had taken away the strong maternal figure that many of the boys at Kent home desperately needed among other things.

Had she stayed the course, Mitch- my father- would have begun taking anti depressants and would have regretted his behavior bitterly making him a better father for his mistakes, she and I would have begun volunteering at the different foster homes thereby changing the lives of the kids and counselors there, Grandma wouldn’t have passed away from a heart attack at 63- she would have died peacefully in her sleep in her 90's, and countless other people’s lives would have been supported and strengthened.

Mom changed every life she touched, she was a light that spread through others in the dark and made them light up too.

I looked up at the kitchen click and smiled, she would be back in a few hours, and it would be good to see her again