By Domma Leigh
(Prelude)
“Jessy, I want you to tell me the earliest memory you have.” inquired the fairly good-looking doctor. Dr. Reichenbach’s hair was salt and peppered but his face was youthful. She had already researched enough to estimate him in his late 50’s. He wore a dark suit under his medical white coat. He sat erect in the overstuffed ebony leather chair, his hand posed with pen on the pad of paper on his lap.
Her blonde hair cascaded down her body, the light danced over the smooth silkiness that landed softly on the ebony leather couch, she sat on. For a woman of Thirty-two, she still looked as she did when she was 18. Her slightly slanted jade green eyes stared holes through him. He had hit a tender spot.
“Why?” she asked in a most childish defiance.
“You came to me, you wanted my help. You will have to trust me.”
“You won’t believe it,” she said as her eyes roamed the small cozy office. One wall was a bookcase filled with books, a half wall of windows with vertical fabric blinds slightly open to let the a little day light in, with the desk positioned to catch the light, the wall of documents of all his degrees and behind her a black framed pencil drawing of a waterfall with a small cottage by the edge of the lake it fed.
“Jessy, why did you pick me?”
“Because you have above white house clearance and have more doctorates than any one else I checked into.” She paused and lowered her head, looking at her feet “because my daddy doesn’t know you. That’s why I came to see you. I love my daddy totally but there are some things a girl doesn’t want her dad to know.”
The doctor scribbled a note on his pad, barely noticeable to most but Jessy watched his hand. She noted the ring on his perfect manicured finger and the scar above his end knuckle.
“So let’s began again, tell me the earliest memory you have.”
Jessy restrain her self as she asked, “Why is that so important? Can’t we start somewhere else?”
Putting down his pen, he stippled his fingers as he pushed the air as he spoke softly, “Alright, you can tell me when you are ready. So why do you, still call your father daddy?”
Her soft blush lips turn slightly up into a half smile, “Because he isn’t my father, but he is sort of cause of our genes but I wasn’t always who I am, but I was someone else before they picked me up but that person is not who I am.”
“Would you mind explaining that to me? That was a little confusing.”
“So is my life” she sighed. ”I guess you get your wish but you’re not going to believe it.”
“Try me.”
“I remember our blue eyes and our golden locks of curly blonde hair. It was like looking into a mirror. In fact my father used a mirror… I’m getting ahead of my self.”
(1)
The small two-bedroom apartment was filled with new furniture and baby accessories. Everything new and fresh, everything in its place, the apartment almost looked like it was a stage set. The tiny kitchen was to the right as you entered the door with a half divided wall. The kitchen table was pushed against the wall two chairs and two high chairs sat to either side of the adult chairs.
There was a living room to the left of the wall and there was a small hall at the far end. One blue couch, a marble end table and a blue recliner, a play pen, and a TV stand of course with a TV on it, a police scanner, a stereo and two guns high up on top. A desk with a computer with a landline phone, sitting on top of the glass top of the desk, sat next to the hall entry. The walls were white. The carpet was brown. Everything that they needed was there but nothing personal.
Down the hall there were three doors, bedroom to both side and a bathroom at the end. This was the home of The James but not for very long. Well that was their name this month, Jeff and Jen James and twin daughter Jasmine and Jessy.
Life filled the room when Jen walked in carrying the twin two year olds, Jasmine quietly cuddled in half sleep to her mother. Jessy squirming to get down till her mother yielded, releasing her to pitter-patter around the living room. Jeff followed arms loaded with grocery bags, kicking the door shut as he entered.
Jen bent down to Jessy, “Kiss you sister night night.”
“NO night night, No night night,” Jessy stomped her tiny foot.
Jen scowled at the refusal “Jeff, handle her, I need to lay the baby down.”
Jeff stopped putting the food away and went to the child picking her up and tossing her in the air. “You just think you such a big girl, but big girls have to listen to their mommy and daddy. Now if you go to bed, daddy will bring you home a present when I get back from work.” Jessy could see something wrong in her daddy’s face, he looked sad.
Jessy whined, “No go, daddy, no go please.”
Jen sighed as she entered the room hearing the two. “It’s your own fault, you spoiled her rotten. Now she won’t do a thing I say. Take her with you. It’s a quick job.”
Jeff looked at the pouting lip of his daughter, his heart melting. “Thought you said you didn’t want them involved in our line of work.”
Jen plopped down on the couch, “I told you I wanted us to quit. This is no life for raising a family and we have a ton of cash stocked.”
“You know as well as I do, there is only one way out for us and that’s in a pine box. Are you sure you want that?”
“Jeff,” she tilted her head to one side, “We are smarter than they are and we can hide. There are just to many mutants forming super teams for us to keep getting away with it. We have to quit, if for nothing else think of the children.”
Jeff nodded, knowing her words fell to deaf ears. “If that’s your choice I need to go.”
Jessy grabbed her father’s leg and hung on tight, “No go, No go.”
Jeff pried the girl from his leg lifting her to his arm. “If I let you come with me, you have to do everything I tell you, understand.”
Jessy curls bounced as she nodded her head.
“Jen, grab Jasmine and let’s go than.”
“I told you I wasn’t doing that any more and Jasmine is asleep. I don’t want to wake her.”
“If that is your final decision.” He felt a moment of remorse.
“I know you have to do this last task or we can never be free of them. Go blow up what ever and we will start our life fresh, no more blowing up things, no more killing. Just the four us, one happy family living a normal life.” Jen rose from the couch and moved up close to him, “I love you, I’ll be right here waiting for you and our new life together.” She softly kissed him on his cheek.
“Jen get the baby.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“Have it your way.” Jeff turned for the door with Jessy in his arm.
“Jeff, please don’t be like this, I just want us to be happy.”
Jeff said nothing as he exited the door and left the building. Carefully he strapped the toddler in one of the car seats. “Don’t worry Jessy, Daddy is here. Someday you will understand.”
Jeff started the car and pulled away from the building. He fumbled for a key bob as he drove. He paused at the corner in deep thought and pressed the key bob. A large boom filled the air as the sky filled up with colors of orange and red. Jessy looked into the mirror and watched the apartment house explode. Her father began to cry as he turned the corner and drove away. Her tiny mind not yet mature enough to understand, wondered why her daddy was crying.