Marvels: Maggie, Part 3

by DarkMark

I remember waking up to somebody, probably Beth, rubbing me under the chin with an old Deputy Dawg stuffed toy. "Daddy, wake up. Wake up, Daddy."

My glasses were still on my face and remarkably unbent. What I could smell of myself assured me that the Right Guard had lost its valiant battle hours ago. "What the hell is this," I said, and then said, "Sorry, Daddy doesn't need to say those words around you, kids."

Beth and Jenny were both on me then, Daddy as trampoline, giggling and sitting on top of me and shaking me and rubbing their hair in my face, saying over and over again, "Daddy brought us Maggie and we love him. Daddy brought us Maggie and we love her."

"Okay, okay, so Daddy brought you Maggie, shut up already," I said, rousing myself off the couch. "Don't say I never brought you nothing."

"Daddy brought us Maggie and we--" started Beth. Jenny slapped a hand across her mouth to shut her up.

I got up and fumbled for my shoes. By the time I looked up from them, Doris was in the doorway. She was Mount St. Helens before we ever knew there was a whole bunch of lava inside it waiting to break out. Her even gaze let me know just who would be getting the benefit of the flow, when it came.

"Mr. Bushkin called and wants to know how it went," she said. "Needless to say--I do, too."

"Mommy, isn't it just great that we've got Maggie back with us?" gushed Beth, grabbing her wrists and jumping up and down. "Isn't it just fantastic that Daddy went and found her?"

"Yes, dear," she said, looking straight at me. "It's just fantastic."

"I'll go talk to Bushkin," I said, putting on my right shoe on the way to the phone.

-M-

Maggie was sitting at the kitchen table eating a cheese sandwich and drinking milk. The curtains were closed very thoroughly over the windows and Doris had placed some jelly jars at certain points to make sure they stayed that way. Maggie smiled at me.

I waved at her, rubbed her head for good luck, and made her giggle. That was nice to hear. Then I called up the Daily Globe, got Bushkin the Bombastic, told him I'd got the pix, and was praised to the skies, emptily. But it sounded a lot nicer than what I would've got from Jameson. Arrangements were made to come up later tomorrow and bring him the photos, after I developed them.

Then I hung up and hovered over the table for a long moment. "Just what you need, short stuff. You like horseradish on cheddar?"

"Love it, Mr. Sheldon," said Maggie. "'Sides, it was what you had inna refrigerator."

"Hey, you can eat White Castle burgers, you can eat anything. Now Uncle Phil's gotta go play in the darkroom and make some pictures to make some money. Remember: if you hear the doorbell, do not answer it. Go in the basement, and take your food with you."

"Mr. Sheldon?"

I looked at her. She was a bit serious. "If you want me to, I could leave again. Because--"

"I do not want you should leave again. Ever. Is that clear, Maggie?"

"Yes, but--"

"Yes, with no buts. Butt out those buts. I did not drive you all the way from the Lower East Side to here with no sleep in between so you could play knight of the road again. If you ever try to lam again, you are in big trouble. With me. Got that?"

"Got it, Mr. Sheldon." She smiled, shyly. Even with her little gargoyle face, it was touching to see how nice a little girl could smile. "But I've gotta tell you, it might make things hard. On you."

"On me, why?"

She leaned closer, glass still clutched firmly in her hand. She whispered, "Because I don't think Mrs. Sheldon wants me to stay here."

A few seconds after paralysis wore off, I said, "And what gives you that idea?"

"'Cause. She doesn't like being around me. I mean, I understand. Not too many people ever did wanna be around me. Like mommy and daddy." Some other little girl might have been crying tears at that, but I guess she'd used up her supply for the duration. "So if she doesn't want me around, I can leave. I can go. I mean, I'm used to looking after myself."

I knelt down so my face was on a level with Maggie's. "Look. Right here, in front of you, is the head of this household. The man who pays the bills. Mr. Breadwinner. The Reed Richards of this here Baxter Building. What I say here, goes, no matter who else says anything. And what I say is, Maggie doesn't go. Maggie stays here, lives here, is part of the family, no matter who says any different. Got it?"

"Thank you, Mr. Sheldon," she said, and hugged me.

I knew I shouldn't have bent down so low. It took her a while to get herself loose from me.

-M-

Later, in my darkroom, hovering over those firming-up shots of Inhuman interior decoration, I heard Doris on the intercom I'd rigged for there. "Phil, we've got to talk."

"I'll be finishing up here in a few minutes, Doris," I said. "Until I do, this door stays locked. Sorry."

"All right. But I'll be waiting outside this door. And we will talk, Phil."

"Absolutely, Doris. Absolutely."

I can tell you I was in no hurry to dry off the last of those shots. But they all came out like they should, and they sold a bunch of extra copies of Bushkin's rag when they ran in it. Of course, the NYPD made us wait a couple of days till they could give the place a going over, and made me show them how to get inside it. I did. There wasn't anything there they shouldn't see, now.

But anyway, I came out of the darkroom drying my hands, and Doris was there, standing behind me, arms folded. "Phil, we cannot make this work out," she said.

"Don't talk very loud, I don't want she should hear."

"Like I shouldn't hear when you were making your big 'I am Reed Richards' speech in the kitchen? As if you didn't know who was Susan Storm."

"I can feel your invisible force field all the way over here. Don't worry, I'm not coming any closer."

"Phil, stop with the jokes! This is serious. Don't you know what we've got down there? Don't you know what she is?"

I set the towel aside and pointed at her. "Doris. Don't try and convince me you don't have a shred of human compassion. I know you better than that. I knew you better when you were a nurse, way back when. Even before."

"Phil, we are harboring a--a mutant."

"Uh huh. So? The X-Men are mutants. So what?"

"She is not an X-Man. Stop avoiding the issue, Phil."

"I am not avoiding the issue, Doris. I stopped avoiding the issue when I saw Maggie's face in that Inhumans immigration place. She is here, she is staying with us, end of story."

"No, Phil."

"What do you mean, no?"

"I mean, she is not one of the family. Not one of our family."

"That is quite true, in one sense. But we are family to her, and she has no other family than us right now."

"Phil, for crissake. You men always want to be the big idealists. You always want to be the heroes, the big benefactors, the ones who always, who always Do the Right Thing so they can, I don't know, so you can look in the mirror while you're shaving and smile and say, 'Gee, what a good person I am.' But who's the one who's got to do all the practical stuff to make all those Right Things of yours work?"

I waited. I knew when Doris wanted to answer her own questions.

"The women, that's who. We have to make sure the budget stretches for the groceries and gas, and forget about that new hat we wanted to buy, oh no, we'll do without this year, so Daddy can buy his expensive new camera and take us out to the Steel Pier or something, and run around all night chasing photos when he ought to be in bed and--"

"Doris, that's not fair--"

"--and he comes and picks up a stray mutant and says, 'Come home with me, my house is your house,' without even considering what we're going to have to do once he does it. Without even consulting any of the family, Phil. Without even thinking about me. Your wife. Remember? My name is Doris, Phil. We got married eighteen years ago. I can show you the pictures, if you want."

"Doris, I know. Please, honey, I know it's going to be hard on you."

"'Oh, please honey, I know it's going to be hard on you! But you'll find a way to make it work, old girl, 'cause that's what you women are good at! You're so much better at it than us men!' And you know why we are, Phil?"

"Tell me."

"We are because men keep dumping it all in our laps and saying, 'Do something about it,' and walking away. So if we want to keep the household functional, and by gosh we do, because we're the only ones who think about stuff like that, we've got to figure out a way to do something about it. Do you think we're wizards, Phil? Sorry, witches. Do you think every woman is like that twitchy-nosed shiksa broad on the television, Phil? We're not. We don't know anything more than you do, Phil. We just get in there and find a way to do it. We're the Seabees Corps of life, Phil."

"I never denied it, honey."

"You never denied it, but you never deigned to notice it, Mr. Reed Richards of the Baxter Building! 'Get me up at 5:00, that means you've gotta be up at 4:00, but you can do it, old girl. Make sure my suit is pressed and my shoes are shined and you put a funnel in my mouth and pour black coffee down it and then shove me out the door.' Sure, no problem. But when it comes down to something that impacts our lives, where are your minds, Phil? Tell me, because I've never figured it out in all my life."

"Doris, let me--"

"No, Phil. No. Let me, first. Let me point out a few things. You found a little girl mutant down there on the Lower East. She has no home. She was ours, once, and I tolerated her. But it was hard. I remember what you said, Phil. You said, 'She's just a little girl, Doris.' Oh? Is she? Like Beth and Jenny are little girls, Phil? Like that?"

"It does not matter what she looks like!"

"If it didn't, why would she have been abandoned, Phil? Why did she have to live out in the streets, hiding out from people, so that the only place you could find her was some hideout for a super-freak show out on the Lower East Side? Phil, Phil...she is not like us. She does not look like a human being. She is a...she is a mutant."

"She is a little girl, Doris. Nothing more, nothing less."

"She is another hungry mouth to feed, Phil. And you know how much it takes to feed just the four of us, every week."

"We can make it work, Doris."

"Doris can make it work! Because Phil's going to drop it in her lap and say, 'You can make it work, old girl.' Well, what if the old girl doesn't want to make it work anymore? What then, Phil?"

I was marshalling my arguments, but I let her go ahead. I knew her too well to step in just then.

"On top of that, Phil, how are we going to raise her if she does stay here? Can you take her out to Coney Island for a holiday? Can you even take her to school? For God's sake, Phil, can we even let anyone know she's here, that she exists? Do you know what people do to mutants, Phil? Do you know what they'd do to us, if they even suspected we were, were harboring a mutant?"

"I know," I said, quietly. "I've seen what they do."

"They'll think we're mutants, Phil. They'd kill us. Kill me and you and, and Beth and Jenny. And Maggie, too. Kill us and burn our house and, and that's everything we've worked for, lived for, all these years, Phil. It would've been better if she'd stayed...stayed..."

"Doris, I am going to talk."

"...but we..."

"Doris. I am GOING TO TALK."

Silence.

I leaned back against the wall. "I am quite well aware of what you feel towards Maggie. I am quite well aware that this is going to be a hardship and an extra burden on the family. I know all this, Doris, because, no big surprise, I've been part of this family, too. I don't spend all my time with a camera in my hand. But I know something about money, too, and how much it takes for the mortgage and the food and the bills and the gas for the car and the kids' teeth and clothes and all that. Because, don't forget: I have to make the money. That's not saying you couldn't, or that you can't, when you think the girls are grown enough. But, Doris, remember: I make the money. I know how much it takes. And I know how hard it is to come by. Believe it.

"Let me ask you something, Doris. Are you hostile towards Maggie because of--"

"I didn't say I was hostile to her."

"Okay, let me rephrase that. Are you cool towards her because she looks the way she does?"

She didn't answer.

"Is it because she looks that way, and if she stays in this house, she makes you think--maybe not consciously, but just under it--of a deformed child you might have borne?"

I don't think she had an ounce of blood left in her face a second after I said that. I don't see how she still stood up.

"Well, all right. Let's consider that idea. Because if you had borne a child who was this--deformed, to put it that way--or special, to put it another--but was normal in every other respect, just had this looks problem--would you treat it as a foreigner? As someone who was not your own?"

"I, you know she isn't my child, I don't feel that way, Phil--"

"Well, would you?"

She took a deep breath, then looked at a point somewhere a foot to the right of me. "I would make myself do whatever I had to, to convince myself to treat such a child as my very own, because she would be. But, Maggie, Phil...I didn't bear her."

"Uh huh. So that makes the difference."

"It shouldn't. But it does."

"Let's just stop at the 'It shouldn't.' All right? It shouldn't. You're right about that. Dorrie, let me tell you. I have some qualms looking at her face, too. But only for an instant. You know why? Because I'm only looking at the face that she's got on the surface for that long. And after that, I'm looking at the face she's got underneath it. And, Doris, that face that she's got underneath it is sheerest beauty. The Queen of Sheba should have had such a face. If she did, Solomon would never let her get away."

She made a noise that was like the least part of a laugh. I went ahead.

"But there's more to it than that, all right? Let me tell you about it. You were a little cool towards Maggie when she first came to live with us, too. I remember. But you didn't kick her out. You treated her as nicely as you could. You were just a little hesitant about touching her and such. And she didn't mind. She understood. She still does. But I don't think you understand, Dorrie. I really don't.

"Down there, hopefully sleeping peacefully for the first night since those Inhuman types left town, and God knows she deserves it, is Maggie. Tonight, she does not have to sleep cold. Tonight, she does not have to sleep with an empty belly, or one nearly empty, anyway. Tonight, she does not have to worry about somebody coming upon her and maybe trying to see what she's got to take, or taking a look at her and hollering 'Mutie!'. And you know why, Dorrie? Because we happened to her. Because you--and I--and the kids gave her a place to stay. Again. We had her, then we lost her, then we got her again. You really don't see anybody's hand in that? If not, I think I had a better rabbi than you."

"Phil, don't tell me--"

"I'm talking. Believe me, I'm talking. There's a lot more to it than that, Dorrie. She's more than just a little girl, that's true. She's apparently a mutant...a 'mutie'. I don't know if she's got any powers, just those big eyes and that kind of bony face. She obviously wasn't in the same line that the X-Men were standing in. But there's been other kinds of lines, Dorrie, and other kinds of people had to stand in 'em. And sometimes..."

"Phil..."

"...Sometimes, those people had to wear uniforms and numbers around their neck. And a little gold Star of David to make sure everybody knew what they were. You forgotten that, Dorrie? You forgotten? I don't think so. In the name of God, I don't think anybody will forget, not even a million years from now.

"And maybe it wasn't too different. They could've called those guys 'Mutie' instead of 'Juden'. What the hell difference would it have made? Just another name. Just another tag that says, 'We can beat up on you and nobody'll care, even kill you and nobody'll care, 'cause you're not one of us.' I've seen it, Dorrie. You've seen it, too."

I sighed. She was sitting on the floor, her hands in her lap. Her eyes didn't stray from my face. I had to go on.

"So. You know, all the goyim didn't act like that? Only a few, a very few, but God knows, every one of them, we remember. Like that, what was her name, Corrie something--"

"Ten Boom."

"Right, Corrie Ten Boom, the Dutch woman, the one who had the secret places built in her house, and she wasn't the only one, and she used 'em to hide Jews, and the Nazis found her out and sent her to prison. Not as bad as ours, but a hell of a prison. You know, Dorrie. Don't you?"

"I know, Phil. I know."

"And Raoul Wallenberg. And Schindler. And the ones who hid Anne Frank. And all those other names that won't come to me now, maybe some that I don't even know about. In fact, I'm sure of it. The people that made sure a few of us were safe, in the midst of all that. A safe house in the middle of Hell. The ones who knew they had a responsibility, Dorrie. The ones who went and did it."

I sighed. I had to sit down, cross-legged, on the floor, facing her. "I don't know how to make speeches like I ought to, Dorrie. But I've been taught enough in Temple, and on my own, to know that we're probably only in a lull. We have it easy. For now. In America. But we are...but we have...responsibilities. We have to...face up to them, somehow. Even when it's not convienient. Even when it puts somebody at our dinner table whose face you'd rather not look at. Because if we don't...well, if I don't, Maggie...then I am not a Jew. Because if we can have gone through all that, and have so little empathy...so little sympathy...then who deserves to call themselves a Jew?"

She was silent. But I thought I saw something reflecting back, and maybe shimmering, in the corner of her eye.

"Your own daughters, Dorrie. Your own daughters love Maggie, loved her before we did, because they could see what she was, not what she looked like. We could've gotten somebody a lot worse than Maggie, Dorrie. I think we really lucked out with her. I know I did. And I know something else."

I made her say it. "What?" she said, very quietly.

"I know that you're not going to turn her out. Because I know that's not the kind of woman you are."

She broke down, then, and I had to hold her, and I was very glad to. At the end of it, she finally managed to sniffle and chuckle and said, "Dear God, I must look like a mess. I'll bet my eye makeup looks like a Hershey bar you leave on the front seat."

"You look just fine, Dorrie. Just whamo. I'll show you. Ready for some sheet overtime?"

"Oh...almost." She wiped her eyes with one hand, then stood up, went to the door, and called. "Maggie? Are you there?"

No answer.

"Maggie? This is Doris. I want you to come up here, please."

A little rustling at the stairs. A little gargoyle face poking around the bannister. She looked up at us.

"I see you, Maggie," she said, playfully.

Maggie made her way up the stairs, not saying anything, but watching both of us, wondering what she was in for, hoping and not daring to hope.

She finally got to the top of the stairs and stood there, at their edge. "Come here, Maggie. Now," Dorrie said.

"Yes, Mrs. Sheldon," Maggie said, and was lifted up off her tiny feet a second later and crushed gently against Doris's neck.

She might have been a bit hesitant at first, but she made herself hug Maggie all the stronger, and then didn't have to make herself do a doggoned thing. "Welcome to the family," she said. "Welcome to your home."

Maggie didn't say a thing, but I think they broke a record for hugging that night. I just sat near the newel post and let them go at it, and took a look over the bannister, and saw Beth and Jenny whispering, pointing, all smiles, and then backing up quickly as they saw me looking.

It's still one helluva memory, all backed in gold foil with diamonds visible here and there around the edges.

It almost makes up for the one that followed.

Almost.

To be continued...