Esprit, The Dawn of a New Superhero

Chapter One I think I invented a superpower when I was in grad school. Invention is the wrong word. It just sort of happened. But I gave it a name. * * * After Dad died, I started feeling things. I started feeling other people’s emotions. Sometimes it was so strong, I couldn’t tell my own emotions from theirs. But I was consumed by my own grief all the time. Momma and I cried together a lot at first. She seemed to get over him faster than I did. I was still consumed by grief, but one day I felt happiness out of nowhere. I looked at Momma. It was her happiness. She was looking at a picture of Dad. I wished I could’ve been happy with just the memories, but I wanted him with me. I wanted him to see me get my black belt, graduate from high school and college, walk me down the aisle on my wedding day, hold my babies’ hands. Momma and Daddy had had a lifetime together before I came along. I was considered a geriatric pregnancy. I’d only had 11 years with him. It took years of self medication with drugs and alcohol, but I finally hid my grief. I learned to be happy again. I went to high school. I got kicked out for a few weeks, but I came back and finished only a semester late. Maybe not with the best grades, but I finished. I finished college, although not as well or as quickly as I could have without the interference of drugs and alcohol. I felt other people’s emotions often. Guilt that didn’t belong to me, happiness I didn’t deserve, anger that wasn’t mine. It took many years to learn which were my emotions and which were someone else’s. Usually I had to be physically close to them, sometimes emotionally close. Sometimes they could be on the other side of the room and so consumed with whatever they were feeling that I, a complete stranger, could feel it. I learned that’s called an empath. They’re not that rare. My empathy might be stronger than others’, I don’t know. I’ve learned to control it. I’ve learned to separate it. I’ve learned to not tell people what I know about them because it freaks them out. I’m a good listener. I literally feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach when someone tells me about their heartbreak. I can have a horrible day myself and be genuinely happy for someone else. All in all, this empathy has come in handy in making and keeping friends, friends who helped me get through my worst days when I missed my dad, my best days that became my worst because I still wanted him there. Momma and I remained close, and she never remarried. She kept working and joined sewing circles and dated here and there. She dated more than I did, actually. I just wasn’t interested. My empathy helped me understand why she was able to move on, too. Because she was still living. * * * I’m 25 now, and whatever’s going on with this empathy thing has gotten stronger and weirder. It started last week. I don’t know how the really strong power came on, and I don’t know the name for it. If I had to name it, I would call it a superpower, and I would call it absorption. * * * My college roommate was named Ashley. She was a total b***h. I hated sharing a dorm with her. She had it in her head that her boyfriend was in love with me. I have no idea where she got this delusion. He was hot though, but I figured he was out of my league and dated only skinny bitches like Ashley. He and I would talk about superheroes and comic books when he came over and we’d run into each other at comic con before he started dating her. But if he’d wanted me, he would’ve asked me out before I introduced him to her. He and I weren’t terribly close before they dated, but we were friends. He was one of the few men I knew who could be just friends with a woman. After they broke up because she was controlling, we remained friends, and became better friends, even though I’d introduced him to the spawn of Satan. I was pleasantly surprised he was so chill, being hot and dating bitches like Ashley. But he was surprisingly down to earth. I admit, I had a huge crush on him. But I remained, as the funny fat friends usually are, one of the guys. Better than being a DUFF, though- dumb, ugly, fat friend. So I accepted my role as just friends and got over him and came to sincerely enjoy his company without having to dangle or hope for s*x to keep him around, like I had to do with many men. Like many women have to do. It’s no wonder people have fewer friends as they get older. His name is Charlie. He’s one of my best friends. My other best friend is named Sam. He’s another man who can be just friends with a woman. It also helps that he’s gay. I met Charlie in college and Sam in high school. The three of us remained friends all through grad school, even though we were in different programs. Sam and I moved back to our hometown to go there, and Charlie came with us. Momma liked having all of us around. We’d trade off going to her house and Sam’s parents’ for Sunday dinners and laundry. They all pretended to hate doing our laundry, but I know they secretly liked it. Well, maybe not Sam’s parents so much. He’s the oldest of seven. He did his own often, and took care of his siblings often. His parents put us to work when we visited. * * * We were sitting in our coffee shop one day, the three of us, having come from separate study groups. I was getting my MBA, Sam was taking civil engineering, and Charlie was taking software engineering. We were eating, laughing, talking, the usual. Then it happened. I put my hand on Charlie’s arm, like I’d done a million times before, to emphasize a point. I was suddenly overcome with a montage of images. It was as if his life, up until that point, flashed before my eyes. I saw things he’d told me, memories we’d shared, and secrets he’d never whispered to anyone. “What? Did you? I have a headache.” I took my hand away and immediately the images stopped. But I couldn’t take away the image of his father doing a line of coke in a roach infested bathroom in a shitty motel that he must’ve seen. “Are you okay? What just happened?” Charlie asked. I stared at him, unable to express what just happened. There were no words. “Nothing. I don’t know. A flash headache thing.” I put my hand on my head. I dropped it down carelessly. It landed on my book. Again, a montage of images flashed through my mind, but this time text, theories, the knowledge held within my textbook. I saw scribbled notes from past students in the margins before I moved my hand again. What was going on? I stood up to leave and grabbed my books. It happened again. I was absorbing the knowledge in my textbooks through touch. If I could control this, it would be great. As it was, it was a barrage of imagery attacking my conscious. I started to faint. It was dizzying. Sam steadied me. Again, a slew of images that didn’t belong to me. Sam was seven and viciously attacked by a pit bull. He was ten and broke his leg skiing. “Don’t touch me!” I didn’t mean to yell. Heads turned in the coffee shop. There was no way to explain what had just happened. I hadn’t even told them about the empath thing because too many people didn’t believe it was real; they thought I was crazy. This, whatever this was, was crazy. Where did it come from? How was it happening? Could I stop it? I was afraid to touch anything. I’d always been a touchy feely person. Now I was terrified to touch anyone. * * * I somehow made it home that day. I went straight to bed. Clothing was fine. Furniture was fine. Just people and books, I guess. And walls, I discovered. I steadied myself against the wall, and got another flash, I guess you could call it. But this one wasn’t visual; it was auditory. If these walls had ears, indeed. I heard snatches of my own conversations played back to me, conversations of tenants past, amorous lovers. I quickly removed my hand. What was this? Who could I tell? Did I need a neurologist, a psychologist or an exorcist? It was 7 pm. I’d been sleeping fitfully for three hours. After sitting on my bed for what felt like another hour, I finally got up, showered, avoided touching the walls, got dressed, and drove to my mother’s house. I don’t know why I thought of her, but I did. “Alli? You look flushed. Are you hungry?” My mother came wheeling in from the other room. I had tried to enter the kitchen door quietly, but she heard me. She’d always heard me, even when I wasn’t betrayed by our German Shepherd, Zeke. “I’m okay, thanks, Momma.” I bent down to give her a hug then plopped myself in one of her dining room chairs, gingerly touching the table. My head was swimming from the images I’d seen of her in that brief hug. “You don’t look okay. What’s up? Finals got you down? Boy troubles?” I had no idea where to start. But I’d come here for a reason and I had to tell someone. “Did you used to hunt before you hated guns?” I just dove into one of the memories I’d seen. It was unmistakably my mother, with a rifle, and she was good. “How did you know that?” She gasped, clutching her wheelchair for support, as if I had physically pushed her. “I don’t know how to say this, or why it’s happening, or what’s happening, but you know how I’m an empath, right?” My mother narrowed her eyes in suspicion at me. “Yeah. Me too. But you couldn’t have known that. I wasn’t even thinking about it. Haven’t for years. Gave it up long before you were born.” “I know. It got stronger. Or weirder. Today. I was in the coffee shop with Sam and Charlie…” I told her what happened. I gave details of the mountain Sam broke his leg on, the roaches in the bathroom of Charlie’s father. I told her how they came in flashes of knowledge and left me dizzy. Momma didn’t interrupt or question me. She did gasp at Charlie’s dad doing coke; he had been the mayor and was an upstanding man, as far as she knew. She’d never actually met him. But I had and was as surprised at the image as the fact that I saw it. I told Momma about the walls. Thankfully, she didn’t write me off for being crazy, although I felt like it. She didn’t question the validity of my words, maybe because I started off with her hunting. For whatever reason, my down to earth, realistic, skeptical mother who’d deliberately raised me without religion of any kind, didn’t question me, and I was grateful. “Allison, this is so much to take in. I don’t know if you need a neurologist, psychologist, or exorcist.” I smiled. I was my mother’s daughter. She went to pat me on the arm, to comfort me, and I was visually assaulted again. Dad proposing to her several times before she said yes, her own dad, clearly disapproving of her her entire life until I was born. I moved my arm from her quickly. I didn’t mean to cry, but I started to. “I had no idea Grandpa didn’t like you until you gave him a grandchild.” Momma clutched at her chest. “So it wasn’t a fluke then? I’m afraid to touch you. I don’t have any secrets anymore.” Momma had silent tears running down her cheeks now too. I knew we were both crying for each other. “I’m afraid too. I don’t even tell people I can feel their emotions because they think I’m crazy and I know too much about them without them saying it. Now I know way too much. I don’t want to know their secrets. The textbooks would be convenient, if I could control it. But I don’t need to know everything about people and whatever the walls heard. It’s exhausting, and it’s only been happening since today.” Momma reached out to touch me but we both recoiled at the same time and gave each other a watery smile. “Can you tell Sam and Charlie? You three have been through everything together- Sam’s cousin/ best friend dying, Charlie failing out of college and having to finish online. You getting sober, me getting diagnosed with multiple sclerosis- surely you can tell them?” I rolled my eyes at her. “I haven’t even told them about the empath thing. Sam would make it religious or spiritual, Charlie would scoff, and I can’t believe you even believe me about, whatever this is. I’ll call it absorption.” Momma smiled humorlessly. “Nothing has exactly been normal for me since I just stopped walking. I keep waiting to wake up, honestly. And when I do, I’ll be able to walk again and work again, even though I’m getting close to retirement age anyway. And of course Dad would still be alive. I haven’t woken up from that nightmare yet.” I looked at my mother in a new light. This was the first time she’d admitted anything like that. Sure, she said she missed him and wanted him back, but she’d never said she thought it wasn’t reality. I knew she knew it was, but grief isn’t a linear process, and she seemed to have honestly come to the acceptance part. I hadn’t. I’d get there for a year or so, then I’d have a life event he was supposed to be there for, and I’d be angry again. Or I’d pretend it wasn’t real and that I’d wake up. I stopped trying to tell Momma this years ago. “But you do believe me, right?” We looked into each other’s glistening eyes and held it for a moment. I know she wanted to pat my hand, but thankfully, she refrained. “I do. How else would you know about hunting and my father?” “Why did you give up hunting and go so anti-gun?” Momma smiled and wheeled over to the fridge and began preparing dinner. She was still quite capable. She only asked us to do the stuff that needed standing for more than a minute, like vacuuming or dusting up high. “I started hunting to get closer to my dad, make him like me.” “Grandpa hunted?” I interrupted, surprised. “Oh, yes. He was good too.” She started grilling cheese sandwiches. She always managed to turn them at the perfect time. “The only problem was, I was better.” Momma turned and smiled me. “So he gave it up. My mother told me not to worry about it, that was just his way. So when he started hating guns, I started hating guns. Turns out, all I needed to do to get him to like me was have a child.” Momma flipped over the sandwich and smiled at me again. “Correction. You needed me. What’s not to love about me?” I smiled and got up to get the chips, juice, and tomato soup. Zeke whined from outside. “How long has he been out there?” My mother looked at me guiltily. “A few hours. I meant to let him in, I just didn’t have the energy,” “I understand.” I didn’t. Momma never seemed to have any energy since she got sick. She was older when I was born, but she was fit. She would give me horsey rides and underdogs. Now she couldn’t get out of bed to let the dog in? I hesitated before scratching him behind the ears. I was relieved to discover he was safe. There was a living being that was safe. The doorbell unexpectedly rang. Since I was already near the door, I answered. “Alli! Hi!” Before I could react, a well-kept woman grabbed me in a one armed hug, the other arm balancing a casserole. She’d just released a toddler from that arm. A swarm of images came flashing through my head. I didn’t want to be rude, so I hugged her back, drawing out the montage. A man chased her with a knife. She hid in a trailer, shaking, hiding this toddler. She gave birth early, a child was in the NICU. It lived. She wept tears of joy. I released her and reached for Zeke, shaking somewhat visibly. I had to figure out how to control this. “Hi, Claire. So good to see you again! Thank you so much for taking care of Momma.” I held on to Zeke as if he were a literal lifesaver, breathing somewhat harder than normal. “Are you okay? You seem shaken.” Claire looked sincerely worried about me. I was about to answer, try to brush it off, when her toddler hugged my legs. Another slew of images. I tried to sit on the floor, but I ended up falling. A sea of babies in the NICU. The man with the knife looking at her, crying, playing with her oxygen, leaving. Noises that scared her. A team of nurses rushed in, played with the tubes. Where’s Mommy? Mommy’s here, crying so hard she can’t breathe. Tubes on the girl’s face again. An image of Mommy with the knife, the man on the ground, covered in red stuff. I stood up so fast I knocked Zoe over. She began to cry. “I’m sorry. I started getting these flash headaches today that get worse with touch. I apologize. Normally I’d hug you and play with Zoe. But I think I need to go lie down. I’m sorry. Thank you.” I ran out the door before Claire could touch me again. * * * Claire, the sweet neighbor who’d brought my mother casseroles ever since she moved in next door? Who took care of me when I was little? I knew she’d struggled with infertility, but in an abusive relationship? I knew her husband had been murdered, and she’d been on the forefront of the team looking for the suspect. They hadn’t found the murder weapon yet. It had been nearly three years. I knew her baby was non verbal. But Claire, a killer? Tom, trying to kill Zoe? It didn’t add up. Claire and Tom had been married nearly 10 years. I was their flower girl. They’d practically raised me. They were like the cool aunt and uncle who could do things my old single mom couldn’t. Who I stayed with when Momma had to take care of Dad’s property that wasn’t also hers, or dissect his will with his extended family, or when she went out with her sisters or on the occasional date. I remember how happy Claire and Tom were when she got pregnant. How scared they were when Zoe had an irregular heartbeat. Maybe I saw it wrong. Maybe it wasn’t Tom. I closed my eyes and recalled the man with the knife. No. It was Tom. It was Tom in the NICU, fiddling with Zoe’s oxygen. It was Tom dead. I wonder if Claire knew he’d tried to kill Zoe? Did the NICU have cameras? What was I going to do with this information? How could I say it? To who? Who would believe me? Did I want them to? A million questions went through my head as I stared at my forgotten textbooks. School suddenly seemed so unimportant. Everything I cared about this morning seemed so trivial. My phone rang. My mother’s ringtone. “Hello?” I whispered, almost crying. “Claire finally left. Usually I enjoy her visits, but I was worried about you. So was she. You okay?” I could hear the fear in my mother’s voice. It was almost palpable. “What did you see?” “Nothing. Everything.” I thought quickly. “Her and Tom’s wedding. His funeral. Zoe’s NICU unit.” My mother gasped. “You saw Zoe’s memories too? Maybe you can help her talk!” She said excitedly. “Yeah, maybe.” I managed to croak out. I knew I couldn’t tell her. I was about to invent an excuse to get off the phone. “Do you think Zoe knows who killed Tom? She was with him when Claire found him. Oh, I don’t know how we’d tell Claire about your gift, but that poor woman deserves justice for her husband.” My head was swimming. I could never, ever tell her. I wished I hadn’t told her about it at all. I should’ve chanced Sam and Charlie with their scoffing and preaching. “Yeah,” I heard myself say. “She deserves justice.” I pushed the end button and shakily put the phone on the nightstand. Then I threw up, right over the edge of my bed. I sat there, panting and massaging my temples for what seemed like hours. When the smell got to me, I finally stood up, cleaned up the mess, took another shower, and climbed into bed. I realized I hadn’t actually eaten the cheese sandwiches or casserole for dinner, nor had I eaten lunch, and now I’d just vomited my breakfast. It’s okay. Food wasn’t important anymore either.