Memories

Beautiful Normality

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If you want to use Tora, or any of my other characters, PM me.

Marie woke in stages. First there was that slightly fuzzy warm feeling that came with a warm husband and having read bedtime stories the night before. Then there was that 'I really should get up and get the kids ready for school and then I have the bathroom to repaint but you know what, five more minutes won't hurt' feeling that she always felt guilty for but when James took it upon himself to grumble when she tried to get up and pull her back she decided to stay there until the alarm went off. Unfortunately, Curt seemed to think that he was her alarm. The boy ran into the room and leapt onto the bed.

"Wake up, wake up, wake up, Maman! You said we could have pancakes! Wake up!"

James swore slightly under his breath.

"Get that kid off me or I swear I'll strangle him."

"Curt…"

He stopped bouncing.

"You promised we could have pancakes and Jamie's being boring and Eva threw her Action Man at me when I opened the door."

"Curt, let Maman get ready. Go and read a book or something."

"Reading's boring and Jamie has all the books and he says if I go in his room again he'll take all my dinosaurs and paint them brown and green so they're camouflaged."

"Fine…" She groaned. "You can go and watch cartoons until I come down."

"YIPEE!"

There was a clatter as he shot out of the door and down the stairs and Marie groaned then started to get up.

"James! Let go. I need to get ready."

"Stay in bed a while."

"I can't. Come on. Anyway, you have work. Up."

She was already heading for the shower when she realised he hadn't moved but was staring at her.

"Ok, what are you thinking?"

"Just wondering how a woman with three kids can still have the figure she had when we first met."

She laughed.

"Behave. Oh, and I've invited a few people over for dinner. So best behaviour."

"Who?"

"The Hudsons."

"Great."

"And Walter…"

"Isn't he that doctor with the unpronounceable last name?"

"Yes, and the Beaubiers."

"WHAT!?"

"James, Jean-Paul and Jeanne-Marie are good friends."

"Why did you have to invite Jean-Paul?"

"JAMES!"

"He's a jerk. Look, I'm fine with Kyle and Kyle can come round if he wants but Jean-Paul just drives me crazy."

She laughed.

"I'll see you downstairs. Maple syrup?"

"What?"

"Pancakes? Oh, I swear you never think straight first thing in the morning."

She stepped into the bathroom and locked the door before switching on the shower. The warm water woke her up and she savoured the few minutes that belonged to her before turning off the water, stepping out and getting dressed. Already she was thinking ahead. The kids needed dropped off at school, then she had the bathroom to repaint and then she needed to take the dog for a walk and Jeanne needed her booster shot and the washing needed doing and she needed to go shopping to get some food for the weekend and… she really needed some time away.

But she smiled and went down and turned off the TV, ignored Curt's protests, called Eva and Jamie down, hurried them through their third pancakes and managed to get them out of the house, stopped to scrub some jam off Curt's face then hustled them into the car. She waved to James as he set off to work and then returned to telling Curt that it wasn't nice to hit Jamie around the head with a toy dinosaur, no even if he did call you an uneducated imbecile. Then she turned back and wondered once again what it was in her or James' genes that meant that Curt and Jamie were full brothers and so completely different. Jamie was quiet, bookish and loved school. Curt was noisy, hyperactive and would rather –in his own words- stick his head in a vat of hot wax than go to school.

Dropping them off was easy. Jamie absent-mindedly waved then walked off with his nose in a book, Eva ran over to play with her friends –conspicuously all boys- and Curt tried to run in the opposite direction. Marie steered him into the playground and as soon as his friends ran over he cheered up and promptly ignored her. Smiling, Marie got back into the car and set off home, via the supermarket.

When she was back she managed to get Callie to sit up and smiled slightly. Callie was a one-man dog, given to James as a puppy for his birthday and now far too old to do anything more energetic than wander idly around the block. So different from when she had first met James, the boy with the dog that would never sit still.

"Come on girl. Walkies."

The tail wagged slightly and Marie clipped the lead on. Jeanne sniffed from her sunning spot by the window and Marie was suddenly back when the starving, flea-ridden kitten had turned up on the doorstep and she'd taken her in. Callie had been slightly startled with this new intruder but order was soon regained. Jeanne was undisputed queen of the house.

The walk was really more of a ramble. Slow, steady and with frequent toilet breaks. Years of being secretly fed treats first by a man who seemed to think that the world revolved around his dog and his wife –in that order at times- and then by three picky kids who soon realised that any unwanted food could be fed to the dog had left Callie a bit on the rotund side. Marie managed to hurry Callie the last hundred yards then had to force Jeanne into the cat basket. Jeanne hated the cat basket as that would mean one of two things. Vet or cattery. Both were regarded as worse than hell by a cat that was born in an alley behind the worse restaurant in the area.

After getting back and soaking the cuts in disinfectant, releasing Jeanne and then removing Jeanne's claws from Callie's back, Marie started rooting for the paint in the closet when the doorbell rang. Sighing she managed to get herself out from behind the boiler, yelled "Coming!" at the impatient caller and hurried over, grabbing a cloth to wipe some paint (Sunset Mist) off her face from where it had spilt.

"Hello?"

The woman was standing on the step, dressed in red, her auburn hair shoulder-length.

"We don't buy things door-to-door."

"Tora?"

Marie shook her head.

"I'm sorry. I think you've got me confused with someone else. There isn't a Tora here. Or even on this street."

"Marie then?"

"What…?"

"Marie, I've been looking all over for you. I never thought you'd be in Canada."

"Who are you?!"

Marie's hand quested behind the door for something heavy and picked up the heavy and exceptionally ugly statue James' grandfather had dumped on her as a wedding present.

"Marie, I'm Wanda. Please say you remember. Come on, you have to remember. You have to fix this."

"I'm sorry, wrong house."

She tried to close the door but the woman's foot prevented her from closing it fully and then she was in the hall, glancing at the pictures.

"Where's Laura?"

Marie gulped.

"My stepdaughter is at college. Now, get out."

"Marie…"

The statue was brought up.

"I said, get out."

The woman stepped forward.

"You're different. There's something different…"

Marie swung the ornament but the woman grabbed her wrist and twisted, so she dropped the statue and it shattered on the floor.

"I thought so. You're sloppy. Tora would never let me know that she was going to do that until it connected. She was too good."

Marie snarled.

"Get. Out."

"You have to fix this! Please. Tora, this is huge. This is worse than what I did. You have to find a way of fixing this. Please…"

The woman's eyes blurred with tears.

"You honestly don't remember me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I have to do it like this."

And suddenly her hand was glowing red and Marie's eyes widened. The ball of red light was shot towards her, hit a gleaming waterfall and Marie slipped away into blackness.

Wanda stared then smiled slightly.

"So we aren't entirely doomed."

"Typical. Wanda being as melodramatic as that."

"Phoenix, we were all melodramatic."

"Says the Mistress of Understatement…"

"No, I wasn't good at understatement. My area was sarcasm. Which did overlap at times, but you know… I never liked the speeches."

A.N. Sorry about the delay. I was away and couldn't get to a computer. However, I did manage to get a book called The Physics of Superheroes so expect amusing little factlets -like the Golden-Age Krypton must have had a mass approximately 15 times that of Earth's and hence to avoid having a radius so great it became a star, it must have had a neutron star core.