The piano was silent the next morning. Instead, it was a sharp knock on the door that woke Marie. They would be going to church, before going up to the hospital, her mother informed her. And the way she said it left little room for argument.
Marie would have preferred the piano.
She reluctantly consented, but only because she figured that it was a small thing she could do that would mean a lot to Mama. It was also probably karmic retribution for telling Granny-Mae that she still went to church every Sunday. If nothing else, at least she'd have a chance to pray for forgiveness for her sin.
Marie went through the motions of getting ready. She hadn't exactly packed with church in mind, but she had brought enough clothes that she was able to throw together an outfit consisting of a blouse, sweater, and skirt that was unlikely to set anyone's tongues wagging. If it was just her, she wouldn't have cared, but she was trying to make a real effort to be a good daughter.
She let her mother drive, mostly because she hadn't been able to come up with a good excuse for driving herself separately, and Mama had insisted that they wouldn't stay long after the service. Marie wasn't sure that she believed her, since Mama's after-service chats were often small marathons, but maybe that had changed in recent years.
The tension between them in the car on the way to church was palpable, but given all of the things that could have been said, Marie was grateful for the silence.
When they pulled into the parking lot of the moderate sized church, it was already about halfway full. Mama frowned.
"What is it?" Marie asked.
"There's more people here than I thought," she replied. "I haven't been to the early service in a while..."
It might have been Marie's cynical nature, but she had a feeling that her mother didn't want to have to explain the return of her wayward daughter, and had hoped to largely avoid that inconvenience by going to the less attended of the two services. Marie would've been happy to stay home if that was truly the case, but obviously her soul being in need of saving was more important than preventing the gossip mill from receiving fresh fodder.
It probably wouldn't have helped much anyway, given that several of the parishioners had already seen her yesterday. If all of Meridian didn't know she was back by now, Marie would be surprised.
Mama found a spot and parked. "It'll be fine," she said, more to herself than to Marie. "We're here for praying, not for talking."
It was a strange thing to say, but perhaps her mother was tired of being asked how her husband was doing. Marie imagined it would be difficult to relay the same update to fifty different people each week. Well-meaning though the inquiries might be.
When they entered the sanctuary, the congregation was already filing in and taking seats in their regular pews as the organ played. Mama insisted that they sit in the back row, and that Marie sit at the end, near the outside aisle. Mama sat next to her, and Marie pretended not to notice that she set her purse and bible down on the pew between them, leaving a buffer. She either hadn't seen Papaw kiss Marie on the bare cheek, or didn't care to take her own chances.
The service started promptly, but Marie's attention drifted from the sermon. She had grown up in that church, and while she didn't miss it per se, there was something about it that was almost comforting to return to. The stained glass, the architecture, even the smell. It was pure nostalgia.
It surrounded her and caused an unexpected ache. Like she was missing out on something. It was easy to picture herself in another life, as it might have been if things had gone as she had been raised to want. Instead of sitting there with Mama, she'd be with her husband, and their children would be on the pew between them. After the service, they would stick around and enjoy coffee and baked goods while they chatted with friends.
It was nice to imagine—pretty and bucolic—but that life would have never been hers. In reality, she had married a man that didn't fit into that picture any more than she did. And while they might have tried to keep up the illusion in order to stay part of the community, it would have never felt genuine. She had always been a bit of a rogue. Even before her mutation.
At the appropriate times, Marie stood and pretended to sing along with the hymns. She went through the motions, learned as a child, so that she didn't stand out among the rest of the congregants. Her mother nodded along with the service, and when Marie finally tuned back in to the sermon, the pastor was ranting about the evils of mutantkind. Of course, he didn't actually say the word 'mutant', but the underlying message was clear.
At the end of the service, they all bowed their heads and said a prayer for the sick, and Samuel D'Ancanto got a special mention.
Mama tried to hustle them out the door when it was over, but people kept stopping her to ask questions. Marie waited off to the side, and soon became aware of the glances in her direction. Some were brief, but others lingered for a smidgen longer than was polite. This was generally followed by heads leaning in, and what she could only imagine were hushed conversations about her sudden return. She had no idea what her mother had told the community about her disappearance, but since her grandparents didn't know the truth, she highly doubted the rest of Meridian did either.
Marie had spent so long trying to stay out of the way of others, that having a virtual spotlight pointed at her was uncomfortable. What she wanted to do was ask for the keys so that she could wait in the car, but that would require interrupting her mother and making a scene. It wasn't even a guarantee that Mama would give her the keys anyhow.
Screw it, she could wait in the parking lot.
Despite her best efforts, Marie caught snippets of conversations as she weaved her way through the crowd on her way to the door.
"—and that's why she left."
"Well, I heard that it was because—"
"Poor thing. I don't blame her for—"
"Didn't you know? They were both in the hospital, but—"
The door was in sight, and not a moment too soon because she felt the electric hum of her skin turning on. Old fears about being around so many people without her gloves flooded back in, even though it was irrational. She knew how to be careful.
"Marie?"
She stopped short of running into a pregnant woman with curly blonde hair. It took Marie a moment to recognize her former best-friend, but when she did, she offered her a smile. "Hi, Becca."
It was another thing that Marie felt guilty about. Another relationship dropped and person left wondering what had happened.
"I thought that was you making a beeline for the door," Becca said. She looked her up and down, eyes momentarily snagging on the ring on Marie's finger in the process. "You haven't changed at all. Except your hair."
"And you, you look—"
"As big as a house?" Becca laughed. "Five more weeks to go."
"No, you look...great." Marie desperately wanted out of the conversation, but felt obligated to continue with the small talk. She was about to ask Becca if she knew what she was going to be having, even though she really didn't want to go down that rabbit hole of a conversation, when Becca gave her a quick hug and scared the wits out of her. Thankfully no skin came in contact with hers.
"Oh honey, I heard about your daddy, I'm so, so sorry."
When Marie's heart started beating again, she remembered to tell Becca, "Thank you."
"But I'm also so glad that you came back to be with your mama. She's been all alone this whole time, poor thing." She looked back to where Marie's mother was standing with a frown, and then turned back to Marie and leaned in. "Not that I blame you for leaving after what happened, though."
Marie nodded, like she was in on the secret.
"I tried to get in touch a while back," Becca said. "But your mama said that she didn't have your address or phone number." It wasn't phrased as a question, but it was obvious that Becca was fishing for details all the same.
"Oh, I moved around a lot," Marie said, figuring that she needed to offer up some kind of explanation. "But I finally settled in New York. Just outside the city."
"Wow, fancy. But good for you. And it looks like you found a new man?" She gestured to the ring.
Marie looked down at her hand. "Bobby. He proposed last month."
"I don't mind saying that I was so jealous of you back in the day. The first of our group to get married! And Remy was handsomer than any of the boys from around here. You two made such a cute couple! And then he bought you that precious little house..." Becca sighed wistfully, lost in the memories, but then snapped out of it. "Do you know, I saw him a few years ago and I just kept driving. Didn't even stop to say hi."
Marie gave Becca another polite smile as her brain struggled to keep up. "Where did you see him?" She understood why her grandparents had run into Remy, but how in the hell had Becca? Unless maybe she had taken a trip to New Orleans and passed him on the street.
Becca waved her hand in a dismissive way. "Oh, he was in the driveway, working on his car. Some real sleek-looking classic that my husband would've drooled over."
"The driveway?" Marie was even more confused.
"Yes, ma'am. His head was under the hood, so he didn't even see me." A little girl had wandered over and was tugging on Becca's hand. "This is Ellie, who I'm guessing was sent to come get me. Ellie, say hi to Miss Marie."
"No!" Instead Ellie hid her face against Becca's leg.
Becca shrugged it off, with a, "Just as shy as her daddy," and then she looked over her shoulder at a man, presumably Ellie's father, who was pointing to his watch. "Well, I've gotta get going. It was nice seeing you again. We should try to get together for lunch, and catch up."
It was sad, but Marie suspected that they both knew the lunch would never happen. They had been close back in high school, but their lives had just diverged too much since then. "We should," she agreed. Because in another life, she would have.
Marie didn't have to wait long outside before her mother showed up.
"That wasn't so bad," she said, after they'd gotten into the car.
Mama hadn't been the one stared at, so of course she would think that. Which reminded Marie, "What did you tell people about why I left?" Her parents would've had to tell folks something, even if just to save face. But people definitely would've asked.
"Well, we didn't tell them the truth, if that's what you're wondering."
"I didn't think you had."
"Don't you take that tone with me, Anna-Marie. We said that there was a car accident. I mean, what were we supposed to say? That our daughter had turned into—into one of those, and that her husband was one too?"
"We were born mutants, Mama. It's genetic. We didn't 'turn into' anything." She stopped short of repeating the speech that she had once heard John give Bobby's parents about the X-gene.
Mama nodded. "And the baby would've been exactly the same. Maybe that's why—"
"Don't," Marie warned. "Don't you dare say it."
She didn't, but couldn't resist getting the last words in anyway. "I guess God knew best in the end."
xxx
It took a Herculean amount of effort, but Marie refused to let her mother see how upset she was. When they got back to the house, she went right up to her room after telling her mother that she'd meet her at the hospital. If she had attempted any more words than that, they would not have been kind.
Coming back to Meridian had been a mistake. Marie should have never even opened the letter. She should have just dropped it in the mail and gone to her damn engagement party. Now, she was stuck there until the situation came to a natural conclusion, but she didn't know how she was going to make it without getting into at least one big argument. Probably at an inappropriate moment.
Marie should have been changing into her regular clothes, so that she could be on her way, but instead she stood at the window, looking out. The view was so familiar that she could have described it in her sleep. She could name each tree and type of flower that grew in the backyard. Standing there, she almost wished that she could go back to a time before things got complicated.
There were so many things that she would have done differently.
But who would she be if she had taken an alternate path? Would she have been tempted to use her powers for less than legal activities? Hard to say. She wouldn't have been one of the X-men, though, that was almost certain. And while they weren't related by blood, she considered the other mutants her family. It would have been a shame if she had never met them.
Speaking of... Marie checked her phone for missed calls, but there were none. It wasn't surprising that people would want to give her space, but she had at least expected Bobby to want an update. She scrolled through the names in her phone book, and then stopped on Logan's contact.
He picked up on the second ring. "Hey, Kid."
She smiled at his nickname for her and felt worlds better already. Her powers settled back down. "Hi, Logan."
"What's up?"
"Nothing, I just wanted to hear a friendly voice."
"I heard you went home." Logan, who knew why she had left Mississippi in the first place, would understand what it meant that she had returned. "You okay?"
"Not really."
"Do you need me to come down there and threaten anyone?"
She pictured Logan coming into church, claws out, and smiled. "No, but I'll let you know if that changes." She toed her shoes off. "Were people upset that I wasn't at the party on Friday?"
"Nah. A party's a party around here. I think the only thing that would get people pissed is if it was canceled."
"And Bobby?"
Logan hesitated. But he would tell her the truth, no matter how ugly it was. "He didn't look too heartbroken. But I didn't stick around once I realized you weren't there."
Was she surprised by that? Disappointed? She imagined Bobby dancing with the other girls and having a good time without her, and she couldn't even muster up any hurt feelings.
"A better question is, how come he's not with you?" Logan asked.
"I didn't want him here."
"Hmm."
She knew that sound, and also what it meant. "Out with it."
"It's none of my business, but if you don't want him at your side when it sounds like you could use a shoulder to cry on, and you're calling me to cheer you up, then are you sure that you even want to marry him?"
She could always count on Logan to ask her the tough questions.
"The cure's starting to wear off."
"Shit, Kid, I'm sorry."
"Me too."
"Is that why you accepted his proposal?"
She didn't answer, but Logan waited, so she had to say something. "I don't know. I just felt like everything was slipping away from me." And marrying Bobby was one thing that she could control.
"Do you need me to tell you what's wrong with that?"
"No." She knew exactly how wrong it was, but she was also very good at pretending otherwise.
"Didn't think so. Listen, I told Storm I'd cover your classes—"
"Shit." How had she forgotten to make those arrangements?
"—but some of them meet at the same time as mine, so she's either going to teach them, or cancel them for you."
"I can't believe that didn't even occur to me."
"You had other things on your mind."
Yeah... "Thank you. And thanks for talking with me."
"Anytime, Marie. I mean it."
He was probably the only one that did. "I know."
After she hung up, she turned away from the window and caught her reflection in the unfamiliar mirror over the unfamiliar dresser.
She didn't know why she had thought that she could stay at her parents' home, like nothing had changed, and she had a loving family, and everything was okay. It hurt worse to pretend, and to not talk about everything that had happened.
And she was so tired of pretending.
Marie changed her clothes, swapping the skirt for jeans and the blouse for a t-shirt and light jacket. Then, she stuffed the clothes back into her suitcase and packed up her carry-on bag. When she was done at the hospital that evening, she was going to get a hotel room.