Their Fates
Chapter 02 [https://www.rellawings.com/superluminal/chapternum/chaphead_2.jpg]
Leo giggled as he raced through the living room with his hands held to either side like wings. In each hand was an action figure, clutched like they were his pride and joy.
“Whoooosh! I’ll get you, you dirty Black Angel!” Leo whooped and slammed one against the other. “Hahaha! Take my blizzard! Hiyaaaaaa!”
“Auuugh! It’s so cold! My feathers are frozen! If you want a piece of me, take a huge cloud of darkness in—your——face!!! Raaaaaawrrrr!” The figure of a dark angel with ebony plumage collided with her cloaked hero opponent.
“Your darkness won’t work on me! If you want to blind me, I’ll send a flurry to blind you and freeze your butt! Ehehehehe!”
“Nooooo! Not that, Mistral! I hate that attack! EVIL BLAST!!!”
“Auuughhhh!” Mistral fell to the ground and Leo stared down at her. Albert, who was meanwhile sitting on his recliner enjoying a beer, rolled his eyes.
“It’s so hard playing a fight all alone—” Leo’s eyes sparkled as he delightedly ran to his father. At five, he was precocious and a bundle of energy.
“Daddy! Play Mistral for me! I think I have Black Angel down now. I worked really hard to get it perfect!” He beamed at his father.
“Oh—those dolls again—” Albert laughed and scratched his head. “Don’t you have a guy part to play?”
“Huh? Awww... But they’re girls and they’re REALLY STRONG!!! When I grow up, I wanna be strong and super cool, just like them!” Leo jumped up and down. “You remember when Mistral froze her butt last time, right? She, like, captured a whole city! Monteel or something! Hehehe——Because it’s so far up north like that, she’s so strong Black Angel can’t win no matter what she does!” Leo enthused.
“Uh huh—” Albert shrugged indifferently. “We got you a strong-looking guy figure, though, right? That Vanguard is a proper hero! He’s who you should be—”
“But Daddy! He never fought Black Angel… I don’t think so—” Leo tilted his head and pursed his lips. “Anyhow, Mistral is wayyyyy cooler! I love her!” He danced and grinned. “I wanna be able to control the weather and call lightning and make everyone go whooooo!”
“Hahaha—” Albert facepalmed. “You’ve told me all about it, Leo. It is pretty great to make storms, but you know—she’s a girl. They’re the weaker sex. Get me that figure I bought you.” He squinted at his son.
Leo pouted and fidgeted. “But she—um—” He winced when the look turned withering. “Okay—we can pretend that they fought! And you can be the big strong superhero! I’ll be Mistral and we’ll fight Black Angel together! I think my acting will—”
Leo’s ears suddenly rang as he collapsed on the floor. He blinked to clear his vision as he looked around with uncertainty.
“Oh, God—I’m sorry——I couldn’t help it———I just don’t know how to handle kids!” Albert knelt down and helped his son up. “Does it hurt? I really didn’t—”
“O—owwwwwww!” Leo started crying when he realized his father had struck him. “I don’t—ahhhhhh!” He sobbed.
“Oh, jeez—I meant nothing by it—” He looked around for some refuge but an idea occurred to him, “We have some ice cream. Let’s go have some, and—”
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Goonie stood watch over Leo as he tossed and turned in his hospital bed. The poor boy’s sleep was restless. She wanted to cuddle him, to help him relax, but she feared waking him before he’d properly recuperated would do more harm than good.
After their emotional rescue of Leo, she and Quinn had rushed him to the nearest hospital to get him checked out instead of the meal she promised. For the moment, they were keeping him overnight for observation; at least it would give time for the social worker to come by. Goonie had previously resolved herself to not let her nephew out of her sight, but now it was all catching up with her old bones.
On top of being physically exhausted, Goonie was far more emotionally depleted. In fact, she was just plain tired, in a spiritual sense.
Thankfully, Leo eventually settled down, his eye movements and breathing returning to normalcy and regularity. Letting out a breath of air that contained both weariness and relief, Goonie’s thoughts turned to her daughter.
Exiting the room, Goonie found Quinn where she’d expected, seated on the ground, leaning against the wall just outside. The little girl had been humming to herself and blinked, startled, when the door’s latch loudly clicked to swing inside.
“Oh, thank God. Thank God,” the emotional floodgates finally broke and Goonie wept the moment she saw her child’s worried expression. She closed the door behind her while Quinn rose off the ground. She’d waited in the room with her for a while, but the sight of Leo with all those gadgets and gizmos hooked up to him bothered her. Unable to handle it, she’d fled just outside, in tears.
Now she waited expectantly for her mother to explain how her baby cousin was doing, chewing her lips as she tried to push negative thoughts out of her mind.
Having come here directly from the Walker family’s household, Quinn had on the same cutoff shorts and sneakers as when they’d rescued Leo earlier. Here and there were stains of goodness-knew-what, the odors still ripe and Goonie’s own dress was similarly battle-scarred.
“I’m sorry that you had to wait, Quinn.” With a slight shake of her head, Goonie let out a small sigh of relief.
“Good news—then?” The girl hopefully asked, her green eyes even more awash with concern as though she doubted it. “Is he really gonna be okay?” She sobbed softly as Goonie reached out to embrace her.
Goonie’s own green eyes gleamed in reminiscence as she ran her fingers through her daughter’s blonde hair. Truly, nothing was thicker than blood. Her own little girl reminded her so much of her dutiful younger sister, Yvette, and their mother. It was sometimes eerie how these things worked out.
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Laguna Ramses was the much older of two daughters.
While the sisters both took aspects from their parents, Goonie much more took after their father while Yvette did their mother.
Their mom had been a diligent nurse who drove her personal motto into the head of her children nearly every day: ‘Do no harm and always be of service.’
Those words were likely what inspired Yvette to pursue a career in medicine too, but Goonie had different ideas. She too wanted to do her part for those around her, but Goonie knew from day one that she could never handle going to college; nor would she ever be able to work a regular ol’ nine-to-five.
Their dad was an ‘entrepreneur.’ He’d always had a gift for the gab that wonderfully meshed with his genuine passion, he found, operating his food truck. But coming as little surprise, food service didn’t always make ends meet, so this regularly forced him to work this or that odd job to help provide for the family.
His big break came when he and some buddies worked to scrape together enough funds to form a fleet of a half dozen ‘Papa Ramses & Co’ trucks. While it wasn’t quite a smashing success, it provided more stability for the household. Perhaps it was through watching his hustle that led to Goonie catching the entrepreneurial bug just like him, as well as discovering her own passion for cooking.
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Having begun her career working in one of her dad’s trucks at eighteen, she could cajole him into teaching her how to order the supplies, keep the books, and how to handle all the other managerial duties over the next several years.
Her own daughter, Quinn, came to be when Goonie ended up pregnant, the fruit of a fling with a charming hippie nine years before rescuing Leo. They’d enjoyed each other’s company, but Quinn’s father was never one to be tied down.
To his credit, he earnestly tried to pay child support, but it had always been intermittent, likely because he couldn’t quite grow past his hippie lifestyle. The only actual contact between them was an annual Christmas card.
Goonie frequently wondered what her younger self had ever seen in that long-haired vagrant. It may have been that they were both vegetarians. That mattered because while she’d dated many people, meat eating was something she simply would not do because it was a hard deal-breaker for any suitors.
Sadly, despite Goonie’s best efforts to break Quinn’s own addiction over the last several years, a battle waged for the sake of her health, her daughter still craved meat.
She would wheedle with her puppy dog eyes whenever they ate out, and once in a great while, the effect of Quinn’s adorable and impish expressions would overcome Goonie’s resistance.
Her planned meals and lunches included alternative protein sources that led to Quinn’s growing to become a well built, energetic child for her age. Or, at least so Goonie thought.
In reality, Quinn had been swapping lunches with other kids who were curious to try out the weird but tasty stuff she brought in every day, and soon enough she started buying burgers and chicken nuggets with her carefully saved allowance, allowing her to get her fix on the sly.
Most tragically, Quinn never really got the chance to know her grandparents very well because they had passed away at nearly the same time. In fact, it had happened the same year, while she was too young to recall much from those years.
Ever the selfless workaholic, Mama Ramses had been pushing herself far too hard, sadly to the point of her ignoring the troubling signs of cancer. By the time they diagnosed her, it was far too late, and she left the world half a year later. Papa Ramses’s passing wasn’t far behind, suddenly having a stroke several months after.
In the fallout of this loss, the sisters amicably split their meager estate, with Goonie specifically asking to keep the ‘Papa Ramses’ business. Some time after, she cashed out of her stake in the food truck fleet to save the funds as seed money for a new venture she was planning.
Now, Goonie’s plans for the future would have to wait until she could sort out what was going on with Leo.
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“Mom, why didn’t a superhero come and save him?” Quinn’s sudden question hauled Goonie away from her trip down memory lane. The young girl’s tone was imbued with such hurt and anger that Goonie’s heart almost broke all over again.
“Oh, honey, heroes can’t be everywhere like that. They can’t stop every bad thing from happening,” Goonie soothed. She wasn’t the biggest fan of the world’s superheroes, but their good work saved countless lives, so she at least felt the need to defend them a little.
Goonie changed the subject, saying, “As for your Uncle Albert, he had been spiraling out of control for a good while. But the only thing that I, or anyone else, could really do was watch him like a hawk and constantly check on Leo. I knew something was wrong when he stopped responding to my calls.”
Goonie took a deep breath, letting air in and out through her nose. “My sister always saw and brought out the best in people. Albert was no exception. But with Yvette gone… I guess the worst in him was unrestrainable under stress and grief—"
After a long pause, Quinn asked a question, putting on a smile. It was one that Goonie had no clue how to answer. “Is he going to be my brother now?” The young girl’s face became a little eager as she added, “I always wanted one.”
Goonie felt her lip tug upwards a bit. Her spunky daughter was simply irrepressible. “Well, I hope so… but we still have a huge legal tangle to get through.”
“Is it really all that complicated?” Quinn puzzled over Goonie’s statement, drawing her face ever closer to her mother’s. “Why can’t we just take him home?”
“We can, since we’re family, but he needs to be nursed back to health before that. In the meantime, I’ll talk to my lawyer and see if he’s able to set a court date soon. I honestly don’t think that good for nothing father of Leo’s will come back, but you never know. We need to settle this while he’s still out of the picture. If he proves himself to be a decent human being, we can talk about it after the fact, but for right now, he doesn’t even deserve the chance to defend his actions... Or to be anywhere near Leo.”
“Where’d uncle go?” Quinn asked, aghast. “Uncle ran away?”
Laguna nodded and sighed. “Your Aunt Yvette’s death broke him in more ways than I thought. He was always drunk when I called to check up on them. His excuses turned into irrational anger and I started worrying about what his behavior suggested that he’d do to Leo. Albert was falling apart. What happened to Yvette hurt me too, but that’s no excuse to harm your child! Leo won’t smile!”
“Why? All you need to do is think about cheerful things and the smile will come naturally, right?” Quinn asked innocuously.
“It’s not that easy… you can pretend, but inside you’re hurting and your heart is caving in. It’s far easier said than done, just putting on a genuine smile, that’s what I mean.” She gently patted the bright sandy blonde hair atop her daughter’s head.
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Albert eventually turned up in a flophouse close to a bar he’d tried to sleep in. Most nights, Albert would try to make one of the pool tables at the bar his bed for that night, but the bar manager wasn’t having any of that, so Albert had to make do. While the manager considered permanently banning Albert, he took pity on the poor broken man for a time, but sooner than later, enough was enough and finally called the police and got Albert some real help.
While in the drunk tank, Albert received a subpoena and had to appear before a criminal court. Not bothering to hire any counsel, he went alone and meekly accepted the jury’s verdict without protest. His eyes were downcast and his face unshaven, his voice mute as the jury found him guilty of all charges.
“We, the jury, in the case of the State of California versus Albert William Walker, find the defendant guilty of abandonment and neglect of children, and attempted second degree murder.”
The judge cleared his throat and spoke, “Thank you, Jury, for your service today. Court is adjourned.”
After spending several days in jail, Albert was once again summoned before the court where the judge handed down his sentence, “Mr. Walker, I therefore sentence you to fourteen years of jail and a fine of six-thousand dollars.
“Furthermore, you have proven unfit to fulfill your parental duties and responsibilities. Thus, Leo Walker will be placed under the care of his aunt Laguna Ramses, his closest living relative.”
Even though Laguna was Goonie’s real name, everyone called her by her cute and strange nickname. Particularly Leo took to calling her that, mostly because it was easier to say.
“Furthermore,“ the Judge resumed, ”a restraining order will henceforth be placed on Albert William Walker.” He looked seriously at Albert, sitting alone at the defendant’s table. “You may not approach your son, Leo Walker, within one hundred yards.”
The gavel struck the striking block with the sound of unambiguous finality.
Albert abruptly and apparently lost his mind as he started laughing uproariously in court.
“Do you think I care about that twink brat?! Hah! Are you really shipping him off to that hippie bitch?” He pointed accusingly at Laguna, taken aback by his outburst. Quinn glared at her uncle, pursing her lips.
Albert obliviously completed his rant with, “Really? She couldn’t raise a crop!” His tirade devolved him to ape hood that earned him another year of jail on top of the previously mentioned sentence. The judge was initially attempting to be lenient with the man, considering his loss and considering his good behavior until that moment, he changed his mind some time after Albert opened his mouth.
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After Leo’s treatment at the hospital, Leo went to Laguna and Quinn’s house, a place he’d visited in the past with his mother, so it was a little familiar and felt warm.
After they crossed the threshold of the doorway, Quinn spoke with a broad smile, “So I guess you’re staying with us for good after all.” To that, Leo nodded numbly, still anxious about the changes, although he was happy to be in a warm and clean home.
He looked around and licked his lips, wordless. “Aww. C’mere you!” Quinn exclaimed as she pounced and scooped her little cousin up in her arms to hug him warmly. “Y’know, we’re cousins and all, but I always wanted a little brother and I’m thrilled you’re living with us now!”
Leo smiled weakly and looked more around the home. Theirs was a two-story townhouse with a small rear yard and a bit of a lawn in front. At that moment, a smell started pervading the cozy home, recalling Leo’s previous visits in more detail. Goonie was cooking, and he remembered that her food was tastier than anyone else’s. The fragrance from his aunt’s amazing cooking was mouthwatering, and now he could enjoy such delicious smells and flavors every day.
Knowing that it was now his home, the place had a whole new magic to it. But then he recoiled, remembering the face of his mother, smiling warmly at him, snuggling him for no good reason. He’d always squirmed away from the cuddling sessions, pouting, but now he wanted it all back. How he missed her.
Tears of deep despair streamed down Leo’s cheeks. Goonie walked into the room to announce that their dinner would be ready in a half hour, but seeing Leo’s dewy cheeks, she swept over to scoop him up and snuggled him relentlessly.
Leo continued to cry, struggling a bit at first, but eventually giggled as his aunt rubbed her face against those pink and damp cheeks.
“Don’t cry… you’re not alone.”
Time passed and while Leo never forgot his mother, the walls he’d built up slowly came down brick by brick. It was an admittedly long task, but nothing worth doing ever comes easily.
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