Prompt: Superhero Grandmother

Karen pelted up the steps and through the lobby doors before they fully opened. She barely waved to Hodge, the security guard she usually chatted with before heading down to her mother’s room. She raced down the hall, pushed open her mother’s door and then stood limply, staring at the stooped old lady in the wing chair by the window. What was she thinking? She burst into tears.

 The old lady looked up. “What’s the matter? Why are you crying?” She asked with a tremulous voice.

 “Oh, Momma!” Karen dropped to her knees and laid her head on her mother’s lap. She felt fingers brushing her hair, and she sobbed harder. How she needed her mother now.

“What’s the matter, dear?”

 Could she? Could she know? Karen looked up hopefully. “Momma, do you know me?”

 The old lady’s hand dropped to her lap, and her kind blue eyes clouded with confusion. “Um…”

Karen sat back on her heels. “Momma, I need you. I’m sorry, I really need you. I don’t know what to do! Please. Please try…”

The old lady frowned as she thought. “Karen? What’s wrong?”

“Momma, they took the boys. I left them with the dogs at home to run to the grocery. I shouldn’t have left them, but they were sleeping, and it’s been so long—”

“Who took them?”

“I don’t know!” Karen wailed “Oh, Momma, I wish you could help me. I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

The old lady gestured to the bag Karen had dropped by the door. “What’s that, honey?”

“Never mind, Momma. I’ve got to go—”

“What’s in the bag, Karen?” Her mother asked in the crisp, no-nonsense voice that tolerated no evasion all through her turbulent childhood. No matter what else Serina Farhold may have been, she was first and foremost a mother.

Karen looked at her with a flare of hope in her eyes. Serina lifted an impatient eyebrow. Karen ran to get the bag and brought it back to her mother. She pulled out the silky fabric and laid it in her lap.

 “Momma, I don’t know why…I just thought maybe, maybe if you saw it, you would remember. Maybe you could help me get my boys back…”

Serina picked up the tunic, let it fall from her fingers. She looked out the window, and Karen felt her hope fade. She reached for the clothes in her mother’s lap. Old fingers, wrinkled and delicate, wrapped around her wrist in an iron grip. She froze.

 Serina picked up the mask in her other hand and slipped it into place with the ease born of years of use.

Before Karen could even blink, Serina Farhold, the last of the superheroes, once again stood befor her, tall and powerful in her costume, cape flaring behind her.

“There’s no time to waste, now is there, Karen. No one messes with my family and gets away with it. Let’s go get your boys.”

TBC (perhaps)

Time writing:	20 minutes
April word count:	24,515