Be My Hero

Prologue

Hello there world! This was something that I had been working on a while ago and just revisited it. I'll be doing more work on it, but if you want me to post more send some comments my way! (it's my first work on here) (:

                                                                        ***

 Prologue:

My father gave me the name Hero when I was born because he is convinced that I am the one that saved my mother. Of course, it wasn’t really me, but I guess I did help a little. She was depressed throughout my whole gestation. Ew; I hate that word…throughout the whole pregnancy. When she held me in her arms for the first time, it was like a black curtain had been taken away. Even though I was crying with a nearly purple face, she was pleased and laughed. But I couldn’t save her forever.

The depression revisited my mother when I was eight; right after my brother was born. I guess sometimes birth can be happy and sad. He was a beautiful baby boy, healthy and a whopping 10lbs, 22 inches. She cradled him and when he looked up at her with his dark, gray eyes, she wept. We got home later that week and the morning after we woke up to my father yelling. I crept downstairs and peeked around the corner into the kitchen. My dad was looking at a paper with tears rolled down his pain stricken face. I saw an arm outstretched from behind the island on the ground, hiding what I assumed to be my mother.

“Hero!” he shouted suddenly and rushed at me, gathering me into his arms. “Don’t go in there,” he said, carrying me up the stairs as I tried to get a better look from over his shoulder. He dropped me off in Grayson’s nursery and told me to stay in there until he got me. I read a couple of the baby books and played with his stuffed animals.

By eleven Grayson was bawling his eyes out, so I took a bottle of formula from the mini fridge in his room and gave it to him. The coldness shocked him and the drink kept him silent. I stood with my arms through the bars and twirled his tiny, black curls, rubbed his tummy gently like I had seen in so many movies. “It’ll be okay” I said to him, even though he had stopped crying.  He dozed off again and I went back to playing with the toys. I could hear people getting to the house downstairs and I wanted desperately to see who it was.

By one o’clock Grayson was hungry again and I had to find him more of the cold formula. By one o’clock, my mother was declared dead and they took her body away. My Aunt Claire knocked on the door softly and I let her in. She sat me down after telling me how good I was to take care of Grayson the way that I had.

“Hero, I want to tell you something about your mother.” I already knew what she was going to say, but I didn’t know it was something she wanted to tell me.

“I know she’s dead.” I say, looking over at Gray who had passed out with creamy formula dripping down his cheek. “I know she wanted to be dead too.” I add and I know that Aunt Claire is surprised. “Can I go use the bathroom?” I ask, turning back to her. She nods with her mouth slightly open in confusion. I stood and exited the smelly baby room and decided that I was going to use my parent’s bathroom. I locked the door behind me and stood in front of the mirror.

I could only see the reflection of my forehead, but I knew I had my mother’s brown eyes. Some people say that they have brown eyes when they really have hazel, or when their eyes are a mix between different browns. My mother and I have real, deep, earthy chocolate eyes. I climbed up on top of the sink, lifted my shirt and saw the belly button, known to most as ‘outies’ that I knew my mother adored. I knew without looking that my lips curved the same way when we laughed and I knew I would never see the one who matched me. She was gone. Forever.

I sat on the toilet with the seat down and cried. I brought my feet up and wrapped my arms around my knees. My shoulders heaved and I couldn’t bring myself to stop. Tears spilled out over my cheeks and I didn’t swipe at them to make them go away. Instead, I let them trickle into my mouth where I tasted the sadness. Sadness tastes like salt and anguish; it feels like the broken heart of an eight year old girl who wants her mother to take her to Girl Scouts and walk with her while she gabs about her friends, and hold her through her first break-up when she’s fifteen.

Eventually I picked myself up and washed my face, wiping away the grief on a towel. A towel that smelled like fresh, line-dried laundry; far too wonderful for what it was doing. I climbed back up onto the sink and looked in the mirror. I poked the puffiness under my eyes that came from crying. I tried on a smile but it didn’t fit. I picked up my mother’s soft bristled brush that she used on my hair when I was upset. I closed my eyes and pulled it through my hair, pretending that I was lying on my bed and my mom was there, brushing and humming. I loved when she hummed; I loved it even more when she sang, but she always said she hated the way she sounded when she sang. I settled for humming to myself as I combed.

I set the brush down and opened the medicine cabinet before me and pulled out the cover up that she used so often. I took a little on my finger and pressed it on under my eyes to hide the pinkness from crying. I smoothed it evenly as I had seen her do before, and then hopped down onto the floor mat. I unlocked the door and headed straight to my room. I sat on my floor and picked up my book of Keats’ poetry. It was short, like his life, and I vaguely understood the ideas he put forth, but I enjoyed leafing through the pages nonetheless. And that’s where my father found me an hour later.

“Have you been in here this whole time?” He asked, sitting beside me.

“Well, yeah.” I say quietly, closing the Keats book.

“How are you feeling?” He asked, his eyes softer then when he had first seen me peering into the kitchen that morning.

“I'm alright.” I say, pushing the poetry book into its place on the bookshelf. “I mean, I’ve been better. But I'm alright. How are you feeling?” I ask carefully. My father’s shoulders sagged and he crossed the room to sit beside me. He put his hands out and I crawled into his lap. “Everything will be okay Daddy.” I assure him, although I am hardly sure myself.

“You are so brave.” He whispered, his lips brushing my soft, dark hair. It was the same color as his, deep ebony with shades of light brown in the sunlight. “Your mother…” he started, but he couldn’t finish.

“She was sad.” I state for him. “She was sad beyond recognition.” I say, knowing that the word sounded funny coming from an eight year old. “I wish that I could have saved her this time Dad.” I said and his tears came raging down in torrents. My hair was wet and soon my face was too, with my own tears.

Aunt Claire found us like that and kneeled beside us. She put a hand on my Dad’s shoulder and he wiped his eyes with his shirt sleeve.

“Come one Alex, we’ve got some things to sort out. And I'm guessing that Hero’s hungry.” She said, sounding like she was trying hard not to cry herself.

“I'm not hungry. But I have a feeling that Grayson is again.” Sure enough, when we entered the hallway, Gray was crying from his nursery. I started towards the door where I planned on getting another cool bottle.

“I’ll get him this time Hero, go on downstairs.” I took my father’s shaking hand, steadying it in my own. We would get through this, and if I had to be his hero, to save him from falling too low. I’d do it.