Super?

The City's Got The Better Of Me

       I can't believe I'm actually here. Not with everything else that's going on. Even if it weren't for the fact that this woman is the biggest reason my life came crashing down, I'm also dealing with a bounty and a missing child and a superhero in danger and a new identity as a crime-fighter. But no, for some reason I feel obliged to go to her funeral. I even have the decency to wear a plain black shirt and black jeans.
        If Dave or Ollie knew that I was here, I would never hear the end of it. After our big argument about it the day they told me she died, they probably thought I burned the funeral pamphlet into ashes. But of course I kept it.
       And now I'm stuck in this creepy cemetery watching them lower the coffin into her grave. Of course the woman who birthed me couldn't choose to have something less disturbing like, say, cremation done to her body. I almost wish there wasn't a coffin so there'd be maggots to fester in her rotting flesh underground. It would be suiting.
       "Maya?" I hear a very surprised voice call out my name from behind me, and I turn slightly while bracing myself. He's tall and muscular, with long hair so light blonde it's almost white. He looks like a surfer. Michael. He's holding hands with a pretty tweenager girl, who has light blonde hair like her father. Miracle. Crap.
        "Hey, you guys," I reply casually as they approach. I act like my heart isn't trying to force its way out of my throat when I see Mira standing there and looking up at me with my sister's eyes. As cliche as it sounds, she's grown so much since the last time I saw her. She's gotten even more beautiful, and more like Chrissy. It hurts to look at her.
        "Aunty Maya?" Her angelic little face has a look of surprise and happiness and hurt. She remembers me. She isn't supposed to. We aren't supposed to meet again like this. I was supposed to be sober. A good person. Stable. Who I am obviously not. And might never be.
       "I can't believe you came," Michael says, sounding pleasantly surprised. My brother-in-law places a hearty hand on my shoulder and I wonder if he can see the look of a caged animal reflected in my eyes. I wonder if he can tell that I want to run away and never return. I didn't know that seeing Mira would pain me so much. Can he tell that his daughter is the epitome of everything I tried so hard to forget?
       And by the look in her too-young eyes, she knows it too. Why would you leave me? Her face begs for an answer. But I don't have one to give her.
       "I can't believe I came here either. I-I should probably go. It was wrong of me to come," I stammer, unable to look at both of them. My eyes sting as I stare down at my dull black flats that are pinching my toes. I want to kick them off and run away from these gravestones and this child who looks too much like my sister and this man who is legally my only sibling left.
       "It would have been wrong of you not to come. I'm glad you did. She's your mother, Maya," Michael says softly, looking puzzled and concerned. Does he know how screwed up I've become since we last talked? Obviously not, by the way he's confused about my behavior.
       "She's not my mother," I spit, with a venom in my voice that shocks all of us. Mira looks almost afraid of this crazed, tearful woman who she used to know as the soft-spoken Aunty Maya, who read her stories and played tea party with her when she was no higher than my waist.
        "Mira, do you mind if I speak to your Aunt Maya alone for a few moments? Go play with Tommy, ok, sweetie?" A strained smile overtakes Michael's face as he gestures to a little freckle-faced boy wearing a mini tux and looking bored standing next to his silver-haired grandma. Mira gives me a skeptical glance but silently strides away to join her cousin or whoever he is. I don't keep up with this family. I barely know any of these faces, if I didn't feel estranged enough here already.
       "What's up, Maya? You can't just act like this in front of Mira. I know that you're in a lot of pain coming back here, but all Miracle knows about her grandma is that she has great cookie recipes, and I'd like to keep it that way ok? She's already lost her mother. I don't need to alienate her from all of her remaining relatives, including yourself," he murmurs, his face too up in mine and his gaze too cold and his voice too disapproving. Like I'm still his crazy drunk sister-in-law who avoids all of her problems by taking them out on other people. (Which is only partly true.)
       "You think you know anything about pain? How do you think it feels seeing her again?" I ask, my voice breaking as I gesture toward my mother's coffin.
       "Then why did you come here, Maya?" he sighs. I don't answer because it's not like I have one anyway. That's just it. I don't know why I came.
        "Closure," I tell him sarcastically, gaze unflinching. "Wait--- No--- to relive the glory days. That's it," I add. He shakes his head slowly.
       "Well, I don't care why you're here. I don't care if you even want to forgive your mother, Just at least play nice with your niece, who is dying to see her Aunty Maya again," he pleads, his eyes soft and his lips tugged downward in a sad frown.
       "I think 'Aunty Maya' got smart and moved to Alaska. But I'll try my best," I reply with deadpan. He doesn't smile, just nods with that sanctimonious way of his and steps back. When Mira sees that we're all done having a "grownup chat" she bids an hasty farewell to Tommy and comes dashing back.
        "Hey, Mira," I mutter with a weak smile. She gives me a heart-stopping grin in turn. "How have you been doing?" 'Cause the last time I saw you, you were in a coma.
        "I'm better now that you're back!" She bounces on the balls of her feet and swings her arms at her sides. Way to sucker-punch me where it hurts the most, kiddo. "I haven't seen you since my mom died!" I blink rapidly at her very blunt words, but she doesn't seem alarmed at all in the least. She's perfectly at peace with saying those words, while I still can't admit it to myself how many problems of my own I have to deal with involving my sister and other deceased family members. You know your life is a pathetic one when a twelve year-old is more psychologically advanced than you are.
       "I was on a really really long vacation but I came back because I missed you so much, Mir!" I tell her, pulling her close and ignoring the way the lies tug at my chest. She squirms free, a suspicious glare on her face.
      "I'm not six anymore, Aunt Maya. I know that I probably remind you of your sister and that's why you didn't want to see me. But that's ok. I understand. I just wish you had come to see me after I came home from the hospital. Or to my mom's funeral. I've missed you. I thought maybe you had forgotten about me," Miracle says. Every single one of her words tears a bigger hole in my stomach. This kid knows how to tell it like it is. Just like her mother.
       "Of course not," I whisper softly, hating myself because I feel the sting of hurt that follows her words. "You're my little miracle. How could I have forgotten about you? I thought about you every day, Mira. I promise. And I'm so sorry. I should have been there for you, but I was selfish and I had to be there for myself first. Does that make sense?" No, Maya. Of course it doesn't. She's a freaking six year-old. And nobody understands you when you try to talk "feelings." But she nods wisely in a manner well beyond her years, whether she truly understands or not. Her thin hand finds mine and squeezes it gently, and she gazes up at me with a doughy-eyed look of adoration.
       "They're ready for the family to pay their respects now," Michael says, coming up behind us. He glances at our clasped hands, and a small smile graces his weary face. I look over my shoulder at where the coffin is now tucked neatly into the earthy plot, and a ring of black-clad mourners gather around. I barely know anybody here. Hopefully they won't recognize me. It was enough to bump into Michael.
        "I think I'll stay back here," I reply with a thin-lipped smile. Michael frowns but doesn't probe, just tugs Mira away towards the grave. My blonde-haired niece gives me a sheepish look over her shoulder, and I smile back before glancing down at the ground.     I don't know why I came here, but I'm starting to think maybe it wasn't such a bad thing that I did. I just wish the timing wasn't so awful. I can't make seeing my niece a regular thing, not now, even if it will break her little heart if I leave her again. There is too much evidence telling me that I'll just put her in danger. I have a bounty on my head. I'm a superhero now, for God's sake. Plus I'm trying to save a superhero and her son and I'm trying to stop a super-villain. I can multitask pretty well but this is just getting ridiculous. I've already dragged Dave and Ollie into this whole mess; I don't need another innocent to be responsible for. What if Reggie were to find out and kidnap her to use her as leverage? Call me paranoid, but I have good reason to worry. Karma and I aren't exactly friends.
       I look out desperately in the direction of the parking lot, where Dave's bike leans up against a old rusted bike rack. It would be so easy to leave right now, disappear without having to deal with the questions and the tearful farewells. But I can't do that to Mira, not after what she said about my track record as an aunt. What would that say about me if I called her "my little miracle" and then left without another glance back? Michael would have my head if I broke her little heart. He's a good father. A better parent than I ever would have made. I can see what Chrissy saw in him, despite the fact that he really needs a haircut. That's why I trust that he'll help Mira understand why I have to leave her again.
       I'm left standing there for a few quiet moments where the only living things accompanying me are the blackbirds that linger from tree branch to tree branch, and the crickets leaping at my feet in the too-long grass. The leaves in the trees are turning color, and the air smells like that unmistakably smoky smell of autumn.
        All of a sudden I'm fourteen again, standing outside in the backyard of my childhood home with leaves from the old oak tree twirling around me and my mother standing in front of me.
       "What do you want? I have homework," I snapped rudely. Mom always dragged me outside for her so-dubbed "mother-daughter talks." I had just gotten home from the third day of my freshman year, and already I hated it. School wasn't easy for me. Everyone knew me as the freaky daughter of that one super-religious woman from our local Catholic church.
       "Are you making friends?" Her arms were crossed primly over her chest, her eyes sharp like flint. She said the words like she actually cared. That made me mad.
       "No," I answered flatly. I hid many things from my mother, but sometimes what was necessary to get her to stop was the brutal truth.
       "You could invite some kids to our youth program here at St. Patrick's," she pressed. She was always trying to get me to recruit people, like she was the head of the freaking Gestapo trying to gather fellow Nazis with her false promises and whisperings of supremacy. Like I wasn't alienated enough.
       "Sure. That's a great idea," I say sarcastically. "I'll just go up to people and say, 'Hey, you look like you need Jesus.' That'll go over real well. I'll make lots of besties that way." I knew I was being rude, but I wasn't prepared for the impact of her fist on my face that followed my bitter words. She was wearing her wedding ring like she always was, and the metal cut into my cheek and left a painful welt on my face. My words dried up in my mouth and I remember just staring at my mother in shock. Her own face was impassive, her voice dangerously cool.
       "Don't take the Lord's name in vain," she whispered.
       A crackle of dry leaves alerts me to the presence of Michael and Miracle returning from my mother's now-covered grave. The metallic taste of fear springs up into my mouth without warning, and that's when I know how much I'm dreading seeing the look on Miracle's face when I have to tell her the goodbye that I never had the decency to give her six years ago.
       "I'm so sorry, Mir-" but she cuts me off before I can continue.
       "You're leaving again, aren't you?" Disappointment swoops across her face and her shoulders go limp, such a contrast from the undiluted joy she had expressed earlier. Her emotional spectrum has to be five times wider than mine. "I thought you said that you came back to see me," she murmurs, eyes the most crestfallen I've ever seen on a human being. "I thought you said that you missed me." A single tear runs down her face. I hate myself so much right now. Forget about not breaking her heart. You've already succeeded at that.
        "I missed you every damn day, Mir. And I did come back to see you, but I shouldn't have given your hopes up because I can't be a part of your life yet. There are things that I have to take care of, ok? And if I see you now, I'd just be hurting you. And I don't ever want to hurt you again. But I give you my word that I will find my way back to you, sweetheart, ok?" I bend down so I'm eye-to-eye with her. I can feel Michael watching me with his body tense like he's ready to get into a fist-fight with me if I make her cry. I can't blame him. I'm a pretty shitty aunt.
       "What kind of things do you have to do? I can help you! That way I can see you again," she presses. Her sweet face is so set and determined. She has the innocent look of someone who hasn't yet seen all of the horrible things that the world has in store, but I know that she's experienced more than most kids her age should have. She's one little tough cookie. She gets that from her aunt, I suppose. (Hah. Not really though.)
       "I would love it if you could help me, but I'm afraid that you have an even more important task you need to tend to," I tell her in a low whisper that suggests alluring secrets and danger. Her eyes brighten and she leans in closer, her lips pursed expectantly. "I need you to protect your Dad, ok? He's helping me with a few things, and I need you to watch his back for me. Can you do that?" Her eyes narrow.
       "You're just trying to trick me into not feeling bad about you leaving to do big 'grownup' things," she accuses, using air-quotes. But a sly grin spreads across her face. "But I'll play along." She is so my niece.
       "Your mother would be so proud if she could see you now," I tell her and lean over to quickly kiss the top of her head. "I know I am," I add.
       "Thanks, Aunt Maya." She smiles contently as I draw back, moving to stand beside her father. "You promise you'll come back? And not in six more years?"
       "Watch it, sassy," I warn her, but I'm grinning now too. "And I promise," I add, hating how empty those words sound but knowing I'll try my hardest to fulfill them. I can't let Miracle down again. "I love you."
       I wave to her and give Michael a nod of gratitude before I turn and start trekking back to the parking lot through the quiet cemetery.