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Annie sat at the back, curled up in one of those uncomfortable rec center chairs, a notebook perched on her knees. Ostensibly she was drawing. Mostly she was just scribbling spiral upon spiral, wondering how much juice her ballpoint had left.

"My name is Alex and I'm an alcoholic…"

She tilted her head just slightly, eyes widening. She had come to four meetings before. This was the first time she heard her grandpa say something more than reassurances to others.

"I've had issues with alcohol for a long time. Probably the second, third time I got sober, in my twenties, I had been pretty far out of hand. The war in Vietnam was… I had lost some good friends, and one of them, he was nineteen when he died. I was seein' it every time I closed my eyes, so I got out of my head. My fifteen-year-old kid brother would show up at bars at two in the morning, clean the bottles out of my dresser… and I just thought, hey. He's such a nerd.

"Scott was in foster care. I had been in foster care, too, and back in the '50s, and my foster-parents were assholes."

There were a few chuckles and one admonishing, "Alex."

"Sorry, Paul. But they were pretty bad. There wasn't so much oversight back then—I hear they check in today. Scott's foster parents, they were different, they loved him. They put up with me—I was living with them. They put up with me because he loved me.

"It was hard to see all the time. You know, why did he get a real mom and dad? Why was he lovable? Why was he looking to Charles, to his dad, when I was there and I was his big brother? When I wasn't wasted."

Alex delivered the line in a way that earned more scattered laughter.

"Scott's talking to me for the first time in years. I don't blame him for that. I've hurt him. A lot, something I think you all understand. I'm not the same person now and I'm happy to have him back in my life. My wife is undergoing chemotherapy and we have good news for the first time in years."

That much Annie knew. Mom had cried. Grandma and Grandpa had cried. She had gone upstairs and smoked.

"So why do I want a drink?" Alex asked. "I don't know. I'm happy, but I'm struggling. And every day I need that reminder—usually several reminders. But I get through."

For the first time, Annie watched him carefully during the serenity prayer. Did her grandfather actually believe all of that? She knew Grandma believed in God, but her mom said Grandpa never went to church unless Grandma made him. Now he looked like the prayer actually meant something to him.

Who was granting him the serenity, then?

She helped put away the folding chairs after everyone left, tried a cookie and decided she could have just eaten the lint. It was a Wednesday, but may as well have been any other day. With Grandpa retired and Annie out of school for the summer, days had less meaning.

No one needed to tell her to help clear up. She was used to it by now.

She didn't say anything until she was buckling her seatbelt. Grandpa liked seatbelts. They made him laugh—something about Hank, she wasn't sure.

"Is that all true, what you said in there?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Uncle Charles is Scott's dad?"

"Yes, he is."

"So… he's kind of like your dad."

"No. Well, kind of."

"Because he's your brother's dad, then…"

"I was a grown-up when I met Uncle Charles, but he's looked after me, yeah."

Annie thought about that. She had never been told these stories. As she learned it, her great-uncle died in the plane crash that killed his parents. Uncle Charles was someone her grandfather met during the war, something she was starting to question.

She chewed her lip for a while. She knew about them, certainly knew about Hank. She had never really wondered about it before, but Hank and Charles were in quite different spheres to her grandfather. They were academics, yes, but also…

"Hey Grandpa, are you a mutant?"

"Why do you ask?"

"'Cause we learned about Vietnam in school, and how students could get exemptions from being drafted, so Hank wouldn't have been, and someone like… you know, with a wheelchair… wouldn't have been drafted. Why are both your friends from that time mutants?"

"Well, first of all, Hank wasn't a student, he had already graduated, but he was working for some higher-ups at the CIA. And Charles wasn't in the wheelchair yet."

Annie scowled. That wasn't an answer. That was him not answering her question.

So she asked about something else on her mind: "How about Scott? Why doesn't he age?"

"Scott ages, he just ages very slowly. He's—this is going to sound implausible, Annie, but it's the truth. Your great-grandfather is alive."

"Okay…" Implausible, sure, but not impossible. She believed that. She guessed not aging could be a mutant power, too, which explained her grandfather's fifteen-year-old brother. Or maybe his original brother died and this was his still-alive father's recent son. That was weird but again, not impossible.

"He… this is difficult to explain."

"Look, I'm not a kid, just tell me."

"He's a space pirate."

Annie sighed in disgust. "Right. Your dad's Han Solo. I was asking you a serious question, why can't you for once tell me the truth instead of stupid bedtime stories?"

"I am telling you the truth."

They had reached home now, and Annie didn't bother to respond to that. She stormed out of the car and upstairs to her room. Some things she knew about her family, like that this used to be her uncle's bedroom when he was a kid. When they moved in, her mom couldn't bear the thought of sleeping in here, kind of like Annie couldn't bear the thought of sleeping in the same bedroom as her mom. Problem solved.

And she knew that. The rest…

Obviously, Grandpa wasn't telling her the truth, because there was no such thing as space pirates. She used to believe the stories her grandpa told her, but that was when she was a dumb kid, when her mom used to leave her here for a weekend sometimes. Then her grandpa's stories were cool.

He used to tell her that he had been a superhero. A warrior. That he and his friends with their magic powers saved the world. Obviously it was made-up. As a baby, she thought it was the truth. Then she realized "magic powers" and "superheroes", that was all a metaphor. He was a war hero. That's what he meant.

Except…

He put Uncle Charles in his stories. Later, Annie learned that yes, the guy was weird and kind of creepy and not a real uncle, but he read minds like Alex said. He was a mutant. And his friend Raven, she was real, too. She had been on tv, changing shape just like he claimed.

Annie hesitated. By the time she realized all this, she was sitting by the window, ready to light up. She realized, though, the one thing her grandpa didn't directly answer.

She left her lighter and unlit joint in a Dixie cup that served as an ashtray. She found her mom and grandmother in the kitchen and backed away before they spotted her, heading back to her grandparents' room—empty—and checking the living room—also empty—before finally finding who she wanted.

Alex was in the garage, the hood of his car propped open. She didn't know enough to guess what he was up to besides general tinkering.

She shut the door behind her.

"Are you a mutant, Grandpa?"

You didn't think of mutants that way. Mutants were on the news in weird costumes, with strange-colored hair or eyes or skin, mugshots on Fox. Mutants were not regular-looking old men with oil on their hands.

Sure, she knew at least one old man who was a mutant, but Charles wasn't normal anyway.

"Yes, I am."

"You can, like, read minds?"

"It's easier to show you."

He glanced around, then indicated an old paint can. A moment later he sent a small but very obvious bolt of red light smashing into it.

Annie raised her eyebrows. "Um."

"Holy shit?"

"Yeah… pretty much."

"Does Mom know?"

Alex nodded. "Your mom—she's known since she was a little girl."

Little girl.

So she had known before she was Annie's age.

"Why didn't you tell me?!"

"Annie, your mom—there were… circumstances. She needed to know."

Annie huffed. "It runs in families, doesn't it?" she asked.

"It… can."

"Mom?"

Alex shook his head. "Your mother is human, but she may be a carrier. If your father was a mutant, there's a chance you are, too. Or you might be a mutant in your own right. It's complicated, kiddo. I just don't know."

She thought about that. Annie did not know her father, and genetics was about the extent of her interest in him—like, was she going to lose her sight or hair or mind? Was she going to gain powers?

"But you are."

A nod.

"Not Grandma."

"No, not your grandmother."

Annie hesitated to ask the next question. She hesitated, but she had to ask. She had to know. And what were the chances of her grandpa talking about this again? "And Uncle Scott?"

He looked sadder than she knew how to understand, sad enough that she regretted asking, but he nodded.