by James Maxey
“No,” I agreed.
“Then thirty years of being a good guy can’t erase the harm Golden Victory had done in his past life, can it?”
I frowned.
“It’s tough to know, isn’t it?” he asked.
“It feels too big for me to decide,” I said.
“And I had to decide,” he said. “I can’t sleep because of it. I never want to be in that situation again. Which is why I’m done playing superhero.”
“You’re just going to stand by and watch the world burn the next time some supervillain makes a play to end it all?”
“I guess,” he said. “But if I die, I’ll die where I should be. At home, next to my wife.”
“Who you impressed by being a superhero.”
“That was a long time ago,” he said. “Our relationship isn’t quite as shallow now.”
I nodded. “Why did you look for me?” I asked. “Why tell me this?”
“I didn’t know you long. Hell, just the one mission. But… I saw something in you. Something I recognized. You haven’t lost all perspective yet. You haven’t gotten lost in the glory of costumes and code names and action figures. You’re not a hero. You’re a human. And… I just thought you should know what this team puts you through. I thought you should have the choice to stay human.”
The waitress finally brought out the food Valentine and I had ordered. She didn’t seem to notice that my twin had been swapped out for a dude.
“Hope you like General Tso’s chicken,” I said.
“One of my favorites,” he said, grabbing chopsticks.
“I appreciate you taking me into your confidence,” I said.
“But you’re staying with the team,” he said. “I see it in your eyes.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But not because I’m a hero. Because I’m human. I feel like there needs to be at least one of us at the table.”
“That,” he said with a smile, “is a pretty great reason to stay.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Full of Ashes
Jenny’s Story
She went back to him, you know,” I said as we took the exit off the interstate. Harry was at the wheel of the van we’d rented at the airport.
“Nimble?” he said. “I heard.”
“She didn’t take the pill. She was the one who came to me bitching about wanting her memories and she chickened out the second she could have found out the truth. I wouldn’t have done any of this if she hadn’t come looking for me.”
“People be crazy,” said Harry, shrugging.
“Do you ever take anything seriously?” I asked.
“Honey, I live in a world where I had to beat up God. If I stop cracking jokes, it means I’m curled up into a tight little ball sucking my thumb in terror.”
“I’ve been there,” I admitted, looking out the window at the darkening sky. The faintest ghost of the moon could be seen low on the horizon.
“So, I’ve been meaning to ask you about your singing,” Harry said.
“What?”
“You didn’t curse at the Prime Mover, and he was about one minute away from destroying the world. It seemed like a good time to use some seriously bad words.”
“Oh. Nimble had told me that she couldn’t understand why I needed to use profanity to use my powers. I mean, they’re just loud sound. After I took Chem Queen’s pill, I figured out that Nimble was right. I didn’t need to curse to set something on fire.”
“So, you’d already tested it?”
“No, that was the first time I tried singing.”
“You waited until the fate of the world was in your hands before trying out a new way of using your powers?”
I smirked. “People be crazy.”
We drove another minute without talking, listening to the GPS telling us to turn right, turn left, turn right again, though I could have cut off the directions and known exactly where to turn.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” said Harry as we pulled into the driveway of a large white house with a well-manicured lawn.
“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks for coming, but you should stay in the van. I need to talk to her alone.”
I stepped from the van and walked toward the house. We were in an upscale suburb on the outskirts of Amarillo. The whole time driving here, I’d been aware of how much the city had changed in the years since I’d been gone, even though I’d remembered nothing about Amarillo only yesterday. Chem Queen’s drug had brought my real memories into focus, and I recognized the house, even though the landscaping had changed bit. There used to be a tree in the front yard. This was the house I’d grown up in. This was the house where my mother still lived.
I knocked on the door.
It opened almost instantly. She must have seen me coming up the sidewalk and been waiting for me.
“Jenny,” she said.
“Mother,” I said, swallowing hard.
She wasn’t as old as I imagined. I mean, now that I could remember it all clearly, I remembered that she’d only been sixteen and pregnant when she’d married my father, twenty-five at the time. She was still in her thirties, and dressed like she was pretending to be twenty again. She had tattoos all along her arms, mostly floral stuff, very symmetrical in their patterns. I thought about the ink pen tattoos I used to draw on my arms at the Butterfly House and gave a wistful smile.
“Come in,” she said, after an awkward moment passed between us.
I followed. “I have lemonade,” she said, walking toward the kitchen.
“I’m not thirsty.”
She nodded. She walked into the living room and sat on the couch. I remained standing. I looked around the room. It was furnished with beautiful furniture, but not many photos. The only picture frame I spotted was on the fireplace mantle. It was a picture of my father, looking younger than the way I remembered him. He’d been handsome in his youth, with dark hair and a charismatic smile. My blood turned cold looking at his image.
“I… I recognized you,” she said, when my silence grew too much for her. “When Valentine Summers got murdered. Your face was all over the television. It… it had been a long time. But I knew my little girl. I never believed you were a criminal. Even with… even with what you’d done… to… to your father.”
“Did you know I was part of the Lawful Legion?” I asked.
She shook her head. “After… after your father… passed away they took you from me. I was told you’d been killed in jail.”
“Was there a body?” I asked.
“An urn full of ashes,” she said. “I never asked questions. Perhaps I should have.”
“Perhaps,” I said. “And perhaps you should have believed me when I told you what father had done. What he was still doing.”
She said nothing.
“You acted like it was all in my head. You called me crazy.”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand.”
“Which is why I’m here,” I said. “I want to know if you can possibly explain yourself.”
“What is there to explain?” she asked. “Bart denied touching you. It was his word against yours.”
“Why would I have lied?” I asked, fighting the urge to raise my voice.
She shook her head. “Bart… your father… he had a good job. He was a deacon in the church. He had done the right thing by me, marrying me when I got pregnant. I… I didn’t want to think my little girl was a liar. But, even more, I also didn’t want to believe you were telling the truth.”
“So it was just a matter of convenience?” I said.
“If… it had been true… if it had been true and we’d told the police…” She looked down at her hands. “It would have cost us everything.”
I nodded. “And now what do you have?”
She stood, her eyes flashing to sudden, surprising anger. “What I have is a daughter who murdered the man I loved!”
I stepped back, stunned by her words. How could she…? What could blind her so…?
; “Oh,” I said. I swallowed hard. I tried to smile, but failed. “I… I didn’t know you loved him.”
“I married him!”
“A man almost ten years older who’d gotten you knocked up.”
“Our ages didn’t matter,” she said. “He was a charming, good looking man with godly values and a bright future. I was lucky to have found him.”
“But what about… what he did to me…?”
“I didn’t believe you,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “I don’t believe you now.”
“Why would I lie?”
“Spite,” she said. “You didn’t start telling lies about your father until after that one time he spanked you. You got the idea from some television show you watched. You were a wicked, spiteful child!”
She was trembling with rage. She looked as if she wanted to hit me. I almost wished she would have tried.
We just stared at each other as she got her breathing under control, though her fists never did unclench. I said, after a moment, “Coming here was a mistake.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” she said, letting her fists relax. “I could forgive you, if you asked. I want to forgive you.”
I shook my head. “I’ve gotten used to thinking I was an orphan. Guess I still am.” I headed toward the door. I turned back and said, “Thank you.”
“Thank you?” she asked, confused. “For what?”
“For answering my questions,” I said, heading out the door.
I climbed into the van beside Harry.
“That didn’t take long,” he said.
“Nope,” I agreed.
“Did you… uh…”
“Find any closure? Find any reason to forgive her? Somehow magically discover I had a mother again, a family, and something like a normal life? No, no, no.”
“You do have a family,” said Harry. “You have me.”
“Yeah,” I said, looking out my window as he put the van into reverse. “But you cheated on me.”
“I wondered when that was going to come out,” said Harry. “I’m really, really sorry.”
“So what’s your excuse? It was a onetime thing? It didn’t mean anything?”
“It happened twice,” he said. “And… it was primal. I’m not saying I couldn’t control myself but… it was purely animal. I wasn’t in love with her. Not even close.”
“No,” I said. “Because you’re in love with Valentine.”
“Valentine’s dead,” said Harry.
“Then Echo.”
He shook his head. “You’re the only woman I love.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I can legitimately tell you that I’ve talked this over with God,” he said. “You’re the only one. We should get married.”
I shook my head. “This is a really crappy time to ask me. Assuming that was even a question. It sounded more like a statement.”
“Okay,” he said. “Will you marry me?”
I looked at my old house as it grew smaller in the side mirror. The moon was visible above it, bright now that the sky was darker. “I just found out my mother loved my father.”
“The fact they were married kind of hinted at that, didn’t it?”
“I thought she’d been forced into marriage because she was pregnant. But… it all makes sense. I think she really was in love. I think she was happy. Proud of him, even. I threatened all that. I was in the wrong, in her eyes.”
“You didn’t threaten her life by telling the truth. Your father threatened it by doing those horrible things.”
I nodded. “She doesn’t see it that way. She can’t. She’s never even tried to believe me.”
“I believe you,” said Harry. “And I believe in you. I need you more than I can ever explain. My life is a mess without you.”
“It’s a bigger mess with me.”
“Yeah. But you’ve never been scared of my mess, and I’m not scared of yours, so it’s all good.”
“Yeah,” I said, smiling for the first time in ages. “It is pretty good. Which is why I’m going to marry you.”
“Really?” he asked, sounding shocked.
“You didn’t think I’d say yes?”
“Maybe? I mean, you’re right. This isn’t the most romantic time or place to ask.”
“At least we have moonlight,” I said as I leaned against his arm. “You big ape. I love you. I trust you. And I want to share my life with you. As long as you understand that I’m going to hold this Sasha thing over your head for the rest of your life.”
“Deal,” he said, grinning from ear to ear.
The adventure continues in SMASH!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JAMES MAXEY’S mother warned him if he read too many comic books, they would warp his mind. She was right. Now an adult who can’t stop daydreaming, James is unsuited for decent work and ekes out a pittance writing down demented fantasies about masked women, fiery dragons, and monkeys. Oh god, so many monkeys.
Readers interested in sampling Maxey’s odd ramblings might enjoy his science-fantasy Bitterwood series, the secondary world fantasy of his Dragon Apocalypse novels, his superhero novels Nobody Gets the Girl, Burn Baby Burn, and Covenant, or the steam-punk visions of Bad Wizard. His short fiction has appeared in IGMS, Asimov’s, and over a dozen anthologies, with the best of his work appearing in the collections There is No Wheel and The Jagged Gate. In 2015, James was selected as the Piedmont Laureate.
James lives in Hillsborough, North Carolina with his lovely and patient wife Cheryl and too many cats. To learn more about James and his writing, visit jamesmaxey.net, or sign up for his mailing list by emailing him at [email protected]. (You can also find a link to sign up on jamesmaxey.net.) Subscribers to his email get goodies such as free novellas, chances to win free Audible codes, and more.
Follow him on Twitter @JamesAllenMaxey.