The Dark Knight

Des Noms Apres Guerre

At the end of the pier to Steve’s right, a man dropped to a knee so suddenly Steve thought the man was ill.

When he saw a hand reach upward with a ring, Steve realized he was much more an EMT than he was a romantic.

Steve was going to point out the proposal to Rika, but she was gazing back the way they had come, hoping for one last glimpse of the whales before they got in the rental and headed for the airport.

Steve wasn’t sure if he and Rika would ever get to the point of the couple on the pier, but he knew, right then, there was something he had to do before that juncture.

Steve turned and took Rika’s hand.

“This probably seems random, but I need to tell you something.”

Rika turned toward him, the smile from seeing her first whale in person fading.

“Your tone sounds scary.”

“I didn’t mean it to be. It’s weird and I should have told you sooner.”

“Oh god,” Rika said, immediately thinking it could be bad enough that she wouldn’t want to sit next to him on the plane or even take the same flight.

Her pensive expression scared him so much the words he hoped to say calmly, smoothly, came out of his mouth like a drunk being thrown through a saloon door in a western.

“I have a sibling I never told you about and I wasn’t born Steve Smith.”

Rika’s eyebrows elevated, then crashed, and she folded her arms in front of herself.

“Is that it?”

“Mostly. I guess. I should have told you sooner, I guess.”

“You should have told me sooner for sure.”

“Probably.”

“For sure. Sibling? You want to talk about it? Are they ill? In prison? It isn’t me, is it? You weren’t ashamed to tell your sibling about me, were you?”

“I haven’t spoken to her since long before we met.”

Rika took both of Steve’s hands in hers, feeling blindingly selfish.

“Oh shit, you’re estranged, I’m sorry. I should have guessed. Tell me whatever you feel comfortable telling me, or don’t.”

Steve rolled back in his mind what Rika had said.

“Ashamed of you? Never. Never never never, no. I wish I could tell her about you.”

Rika let her many questions swim around her head but stayed silent.

Steve turned and walked along the beach, still holding Rika’s left hand with his right.

After a considerable silence, Rika asked, softly, “What was your last name before Smith?”

“I wasn’t even born a Steve. My birth name is Adam Abel Genesee.”

“You were adopted? You never told me–”

“No, no. My birth parents gave me that name. They were…”

The pause was so long and the expression so pained that Rika pulled Steve toward her and hugged him.

“...Very religious.”

Rika nodded. “You did tell me that. Lots of people are. There’s nothing…wrong with it.”

“For a while, when I was a kid, they went by the last name Genesis, like the book in the bible.”

“That’s… extreme,” Rika said.

“Yeah, that wasn’t the most extreme thing…but anyway. I have a sister. When I was 20 I legally changed my name.”

“Adam Genesee isn’t a horrible name. I kinda like it, actually.”

Steve grimaced.

“I had my reasons.”

“What’s your sister’s name?”

“I don’t know,” Steve said.

Rika stopped walking and stared.

“Oh, her birth name was Eve Mary.”

“But that’s not what it is now?”

“I’m not sure what it is now but I know damn well it isn’t Eve Mary Genesee. When we were kids she started going by Sarah, on the internet, then Amber. We didn’t have internet at home. Our parents thought it was a tool of the devil. So we went on at the library.”

They walked along, silently again, Rika giving Steve reassuring squeezes. She knew there was more, she just didn’t want to ask him.

They got to the rental car.

Maybe it was the sun, all the wine, the after dinner drinks all week, maybe even lines from all the laughter, but Steve looked like he had aged.

“Ummm…remember me telling you about breaking my ankles?”

Rika nodded. Steve was playing superheroes and went a little overboard, jumped from too far up.

“Amber…she was really fond of the name Amber I think. It was a long time ago… she always told me that you could make your own dreams come true. She would tell me that she knew a handsome man would find her, marry her. One day outside the library, a young guy in a nice car pulled up and drove away with her. I never saw her again.”

“Jeezus Steve, how old was she?”

“Sixteen.”

Rika’s eyes widened. 

“They didn’t look for her? Some man just-”

“My parents didn’t believe cops would bring her home, just prayer. By the time school reported her absence they were long gone. I didn’t get a license plate number, because she wanted to go. She wasn’t being abducted, as far as I was concerned she was fulfilling her dream. I thought I would see her again, get invited to the wedding, get to wear a tuxedo like Bruce Wayne. But she was gone.

I was ten years old. I wanted to be Batman. She made her dream come true, I thought I could tuck a black garbage bag in my shirt for a cape, and jump off a railroad trestle, and make mine come true. I was wrong. “

Steve chuckled, quietly, lost in the memory. “Anyway, I thought you would want to know.”

Rika hugged Steve around the neck, kissed his chest.

“I’m so, so, sorry about your sister.”

“Why?” Steve said. “Her dream came true. If she wanted to be found, if something was wrong she could have been found, trust me. She could have found me. By the time I turned 20 I knew she didn’t want to be found, so I changed my name. Ended that chapter.”

“I hope she’s okay,” Rika said. “I hope she is having a happy life. I’m sorry my love, but I don’t have a lot of faith in someone who would drive off with a 16-year-old.”

“He could have been close to her age. I didn’t get a good look. I was 10 years old. All I know was that she was thrilled, and I choose to think she’s still happy.”

“I hope so, honey, I truly do, but that story gives me the creeps. I hope whoever she’s with is good to her.”

Steve looked down at his feet. There were pins in the left one. He could feel it when it was going to rain, just like he could feel that his sister was safe.

“He couldn’t be any worse than our dad,” Steve said. “No way. No way in hell.”

***

Something tells me you’re gonna.

***Photo Courtesy of Getty Images