You don’t know me, but that’s okay. Let me introduce myself. My name is Maria Anna Logan Canadian and I’m the great, great granddaughter of the Wolverine. I’m one hundred and twenty six years old as of yesterday, been married three times, buried all of ‘em next to my children, my grand children, and today I’m burying my Mother.
You think I’m joking? You think I’m lying? Mmph, figures. Let me clue you in on a few things. Nearly three hundred years ago the world was in chaos, mutants were being ridiculed, hunted, and tortured out of fear and lack of education. Humans didn’t want to believe that they could be wiped out by evolution so they blamed all the mutants in the world for their problems.
My grandpappa and grandmamma fought for mutants and human rights for years. They bled for those that would kill ‘em, that wanted to kill all the human beings. They did for one reason and one reason only. They fought for love.
I know what you’re thinkin’ that’s so melodramatic, so fake that its not even funny but it’s the truth. See Wolverine met the woman who would be his wife in a backwater Canadian bar when she was seventeen. She hitched a ride with him, and got under his skin. Through kidnappings, attacks by other mutants, the army, and the prejudices of those around them they forged a bond so strong that not even a thousand miles could separate them.
There’s a tale in our family of the night that he took her away from the ‘geeks’. He’d been gone for three years and she’d managed to send him a wedding invitation to her wedding…she was supposed to marry one of the ‘good’ guys, someone they’d picked out for her.
Well he wasn’t overly happy about it and came back in the dead of night. Busted the door down to her room and stalked over to where she was sitting up groggily in bed. After a brief ‘discussion’…and I laugh about that word because there was no discussing anything with either of them. He swore and threw things, she swore and threw ‘em right back at him. He wrapped her in a blanket, knocked her out, packed up some clothes, her gloves, and such and left the mansion.
Nine months, two days, and a handful of minutes later my great grandmother was born. Of course the geeks followed ‘em, found out where they were and tried to take grandmamma back with them to New York but she refused. Said she wasn’t going to sell herself to the highest bidder just because it was what they wanted. She had what she wanted, what she’d always wanted and she wasn’t leavin’ Wolverine.
Every time I think of that I smile, the words are as familiar to me as my own skin. The sound of heels on concrete draw my attention and I turn to the door as it opens slowly to reveal a duel-shaded brunette. Dressed in tight black leather, with gold stitching and a scrawling ‘W’ on it she eyes me with warm brown eyes so deep you could drown in them.
“You ready to go, baby-girl?”
“I miss her.” I whisper painfully as I move into the warm, comforting embrace of a woman older than anyone else around me.
“I know, but you’ll never be without her. She’s as much a part of your heart as your sons, your husbands, Frank.”
I smile tearfully and shrug, “Grandmamma why is it so hard? Why couldn’t she be like the rest of us?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps it has something to do with the cure that I took when I was a silly girl. Maybe it was just her soul was tired. Everyone needs a rest now and then.”
“Are you going to die to?”
She smiles at me, her hand pressed against my face as she thinks about her answer. “I’ve died a lot of times, pumpkin. And every time the love I feel, the love I’ve received in this life has brought me back.”
“I’m serious.” I snap pulling from her grasp and pacing to the window. I stare out over the grounds of the house and try to quell the tears.
“As long as I’ve lived I’ve never thought of it. Pappa helps me stay young, stay alive and…”
“What about him? What if he dies? What if we lose him? I don’t want to be alone anymore.”
“You aren’t alone.” She whispers coming up to wrap me in her arms again. “Look around you Maria, you have a son, grandchildren, a new husband, you have your brother, you grandmother, aunts, uncles, cousins. No matter who comes and goes in this life you are not alone, you will never be alone.”
“Will I die?”
“If it’s your fate.” She hugs me tightly and we both turn at the sound of a harsh knock on the door. I stare into the warm hazel eyes marked with pain that stare back at me and move from her arms into my grandpappa’s. “I miss my Mom.”
“I know, kid.”
Wrapped in strong arms, I press against the flannel shirt before me and inhale the smell of tobacco, bourbon, and the faint metallic odor of his skeleton. He holds me while I sob and suddenly I realize that no matter what happens, grandmamma was right. I will never be alone!.
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