Superman

by Amber Erin Diaz

            Sixteen is the age when Catherine is addicted. She’d lay on the floor, curled up like a cat, watching Futurama on the TV. You couldn’t help noticing the blemishes populating her chin.

            Really, she’d gotten high in the bathroom while you were asleep. When she thought about calling her grandpa, but didn’t, it’s because she was high and forgot.

            You called him. You woke up and took your cellphone to the apartment’s parking lot to wish him happy Father’s Day. It had seemed to Cat that you wanted a private conversation. Maybe you wanted to talk about her, or maybe you knew she was high.

             Back then, you liked to complain about her to your family and your friends. You’d tell them you didn’t know what to do with her, and she didn’t know how you held yourself together so you could keep her from falling apart.

            When you came back inside after the call and saw Cat, glassy eyed and preoccupied with a cartoon, you told her, “Grandpa had to get off the phone; he was tired.”

             The next day you get a call from Mom and she says Dad has passed. You tell Cat. She was looking at the sky on the patio of your apartment.

            Outside there’s a bird. No, it’s a plane. No, it’s … Remember when dad used to say he could fly? “Psst,” he’d say. “Want to know a secret? I’m Superman.” Dad, the little boy whose teenage mother felt guilty for not being able to afford meat, and so she a stole chicken by putting it up under her shirt and bolting out of the grocery store. Dad, the man who joined the United States Navy to get his citizenship. Dad, the man who got seasick his first time out, throwing up off the ship as it set out from San Francisco.

            On the day of Dad’s funeral, it takes you and Cat an hour-and-a-half to drive to the cemetery. You sit on folding chairs behind a small group of mourners, surrounded by little American flags planted in the grass. You and Cat have always been so far away, not the way a daughter and granddaughter should be. No one but your sister and your mother know who you are. Distance isn’t measured by miles.

            You watch Cat. She’s silent with wet eyes. Three men in Navy dress blues march to the front of the coffin, led by a Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge. “Detail … halt!” One of them plays Taps on the bugle. The other two take the American flag from the black coffin and fold it carefully into a triangle shape. One of them marches to your mother, sitting in the front row, and hands the triangle to her with white-gloved hands. Her head is bent downward as she accepts the flag.

            The sailor returns to the rest of the detail. They stand at attention, heels together, service rifles at their sides. “Present arms!” The sailors raise their rifles and hold them diagonally, in front of their bodies “Ready … aim … fire! Ready … aim … fire! Ready … aim … fire!” 

            It happens too fast. The sailors march away, and you wish they would come back. You can see the soles of their shoes as they march, single file—leaving you to a world without Dad.

            You look at Cat. Your breath has been stolen—your dad, trying to wipe tears from Cat’s cheek, puts his hand on hers. She doesn’t see him, but he’s here with you and with her. He’s kneeling, stretching his blue tights, the red “S” stretched over his swollen belly. His cape flutters behind him, and he flashes a wide, toothless grin.

            He puts his finger to his lips so you understand. He laughs, tilting his bald head back, the way he did when he’d told one of his famous dad jokes. At the sound of fire truck sirens, he stops laughing. He looks at you, and you already know. He waves goodbye as he soars into the sky. You watch him shrink into a distant speck, then disappear completely. You keep your eyes where he’d been, still trying to see him.

            Cat is overwhelmed with guilt and pain. You don’t have the power to soothe her the way you’d like to, but, you’re allowed to hug her, and you say, “Grandpa wouldn’t want you to hurt like this,” knowing that’s what he’d want you to say.

            Days and months pass, then a year. Dad doesn’t come back again, and things don’t get better for a while. Helping Cat is your life, and you have your own superpower for not giving up. You think of Superman. You think of Dad. You look to the sky, to the stars, to the blank, white ceiling, and say, “Dad, super is who we have to be.”

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Amber Erin Diaz completed her MFA in writing at the University of San Francisco. She's previously worked for USF's literary magazine "Invisible City". Currently, she is working on her second master's in education.