Disclaimer: Carmen et al are the property of not moi. But little Maggie is all mine.
Summary: Being the world's greatest thief was often at odds with being the world's greatest mother. Snippets from the life of Carmen's daughter, from her POV.
Author's Note: Dear readers, sorry it took me an impossible amount of time to update. But I recently felt inspired (yay!) and hope there will be future segments.
Learning the truth about my mother was a shock to be sure. But actually, the main sensation I felt was relief. Suddenly our lives, with all their strange wanderings, made some kind of sense. I no longer worried that my mother possessed a bizarre form of obsessive compulsive disorder that required her to cross international borders every six months. And with this knowledge, there was one less secret in the house, getting between my mother in me, sitting down to dinner with us like an unwelcome ghost.
One less secret. But there were still plenty of others.
My mother, for her part, seemed to act as if what I had learned about her was no more interesting a piece of trivia as her favorite color or her shoe size. One night however, she came to tuck me into bed- something she rarely did anymore as I was a big girl and didn't like to be babied. My mother kissed me on the forehead and said haltingly, "I know…who I am…must come as a shock to you. But please know, Maggie, I love you very much and I will never leave you."
"I know." I wanted to sound confident, but I bit my lip, a nervous gesture that betrayed me.
"You're frightened," my mother observed. "Of me?"
It was true. I nodded.
"Why?" she asked, curious even when she was heartbroken.
"I've done some research on you, on the computer," she raised her dark eyebrows and I'd like to think she was a little impressed. "I don't understand…even when you were a thief, you never carried a weapon, never hurt anyone." I took a deep breath and balled the comforter in my small fists, "Why do you keep a gun under your pillow?"
For a brief moment, my normally composed mother looked surprised; whatever question she was expecting from me, it wasn't that one. A strange glint came into her blue eyes and she spoke to me very seriously, "Motherhood…changes you."
Hilarious in hindsight to hear such a commonplace sentiment come from such an uncommon woman.
"Before you were born, life was a game to be played. Not carrying a weapon only raised the stakes. But now," she paused and her voice grew dark, "to protect you, to keep myself alive and out of prison and you out of the foster care system, I would not hesitate to use deadly force."
Her answer chilled me as much as it reassured me. Perhaps my mother was not so different from ordinary people after all. A lot of parents said they would kill to protect their children. The difference being, I knew my mother would not miss.
Sometimes pieces of my mother's former life found me without me ever consciously trying to look for them. One afternoon, as I was flipping channels after school instead of doing homework, I came across a program on "History's Lost Women." They were speculating about the final resting place of Amelia Earhart's plane, which drew me in because the daring aviatrix was one of my heroes. But then a voice-over announced, "For our next segment, we ask- Carmen Sandiego, where on Earth is she now?"
I know I probably should have changed the channel and watched some cartoons or something, but I was totally entranced. There was my mother, dressed in a long red coat and that large hat, ruby lips smiling with a secret only she knew. She jumped off buildings, flew through the air, escaped from the clutches of the police with only heartbeats to spare, a glamorous lady Houdini. She was beautiful and fascinating and mysterious and cunning. I felt I had no right to see her like this and yet I couldn't look away.
They cut between old footage of my mother swiping Rembrandts and world landmarks with interviews with two of her greatest adversaries, a brother-sister team of ACME detectives. The woman, Ivy, had shoulder length red hair and a tough, unsmiling expression. Her brother, Zack, was casual in the extreme; his rumpled hair and wrinkled shirt made him look like he had just rolled out of bed.
"What was Carmen like?" Detective Ivy's expression wavered between thoughtful and annoyed. "She was brilliant, no doubt, frustrating as hell to know. Yet, she lived by her own rules, had her own morality in a way. But with a mind like hers, she could have done anything with her life, made such a difference to the world. Instead she squandered her talents to chase one selfish thrill after another," the young woman concluded with a scowl.
Detective Zack took a more positive view. "She was one of a kind, Carmen. I can't pretend to say I'll ever really understand her motivations, but I learned a lot from her. She'd have these moments of totally unexpected kindness….saved my life and my sister's more than once." He leaned into the camera and said conspiratorially, "I know I'm not supposed to say it, but yeah, the things she did were so incredible, sometimes it was a kick just to watch her run." He grinned.
As I watched the footage, I felt pulled by the girl detective's anger and pushed by her brother's admiration. Seeing your mother backflip off the Eiffel Tower can be very disconcerting. Considering her cavalier approach toward her own life, it was a miracle I was ever born at all.
They had come to the part of the show where they speculated as to where my mother could have disappeared to. One expert suspected she had gone into the criminal underground and was running operations for the Russian mafia. Another theorized that the whole decade long crime spree had been an elaborate cover and that Carmen had been secretly working for ACME all along. Some kook said she had been abducted by aliens and was hanging out with Amelia Earhart on Alpha Centauri.
Finally they turned to the detectives who had known her best. Detective Zack said, "I've seen that woman cheat death a hundred times over. Carmen's reasons for becoming a criminal were always mysterious, I suppose her reasons for going straight would be the same. So maybe it's wishful thinking, but I think she's out there somewhere."
His sister's commentary was an unusual blend of anger and sadness. "Is she alive? Could she have given up her life of crime? It's possible, but unlikely. The Carmen Sandiego I knew was addicted to the games she played. I don't think anything could have made her stop running- except perhaps her own death," Ivy told the cameras harshly.
I never heard the rest of what the detective had to say. The television clicked off. My mother had snuck up behind me, stealthy and silent, the remote dangling from her hand. "I see you've found something more interesting than homework," she observed, a playful edge in her voice more suited to the dashing thief on the television screen than the caring mother I had always known.
I thought about the detectives' comments, especially Ivy's last words, and wondered how much my mother had heard. The program had unsettled me. And the obvious intimacy the two detectives had once shared with my mother caused a wave of jealousy to wash over me. "Detective Ivy doesn't know you as well as she thinks," I said haughtily, crossing my arms.
My mother rested her hands protectively on my shoulders and I could hear the smile in her voice, "She didn't count on you, querida." I beamed with pride. "But there was once a time when her words were all too accurate."
I turned to search my mother's face. Her fine features seemed to me mask-like, her expression as impenetrable as a Swiss bank vault. She was right there living and breathing in front of me but the look in her eyes told me she was miles and years away, running over museum rooftops, her favorite adversaries in hot pursuit. She had given up that life to be my mother and it made me feel oddly guilty. "Do you miss it?" I forced myself to ask.
"Being a thief? Some days a great deal."
Her words settled around me like a weight, heavy and sad. "Oh. But do you regret it then, having me?"
"No," she told me, an unfathomable depth of emotion in her simple response. Seeing my confused expression she explained, "Mija, it has been my experience that nothing truly valuable can be gained without sacrifice. I still think I got the better end of the deal," she smiled with a hint of wickedness she would never lose no matter what she did.