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Most weeks after Mass, Matt would stay behind. Matt would stay and Maggie would find him. And they would try and place new building blocks on the foundation of aired-out secrets. Because forgiveness was one thing, something Maggie could never be grateful enough for, but a relationship was another. It was something that took far more time than acceptance and forgiveness had. But trying was better than ignoring it.
So he would meet her after Mass and she would find something for them to do, some menial task she needed to complete. Folding laundry, washing dishes, sorting donations, something like that. Sometimes there were other people, sometimes it was just the two of them. When there were others there, they never questioned Matt’s presence. There were often volunteers at the church, just looking to do their part.
When they could, they would talk. Or at least they would try.
“How was your week?”
“Good. Yours?”
“Good.”
It was awkward, at first. With all these secrets out in the open, finding a way to move forward was confusing at best. But they were both too stubborn––“obstinately loving,” Father Lantom might have rephrased it, had he been there to do so––to give up.
“How was your week, Matthew?”
“Good. We were able to help someone who was being wrongfully accused of drug trafficking.”
“That’s good.” What else was there to say about it? “And the, uh, night shift?”
“Found the guy actually running drugs who was framing our client.” There was no need to say what had happened to him. They both knew. “How was your week?”
“Nothing as exciting as yours. Got another call from school about one of the kids. She’s been starting fights.” Maggie laughed dryly. “Winning them, too.”
Once upon a time, maybe Maggie would have remarked on how familiar this sounded. Now it was different. So she said nothing.
Water and soap set wrinkles into their fingers as they methodically scrubbed at plates, bowls, and cutlery.
Finally:
“Has she ever said why?” Matt asked.
“Why what?”
“Why she’s starting fights. I mean, no kid just goes around punching their classmates for no reason. Even if it doesn’t feel like there’s a reason.”
“She doesn’t talk to us. She doesn’t explain. She doesn’t even lie and say she’s sorry like a lot of kids probably would. She seems upset most of the time. She thinks she hides it well and maybe if I hadn’t seen this sort of thing before, she’d be right.”
Matt took a sharp inhale and pursed his lips for a moment, teetering on the brink of a decision before finally saying: “She kinda sounds like me.”
“What do you mean by that?” Maggie asked, as if she didn’t know.
“Well, you remember all the fights I used to get into.”
“‘Used to’? I wasn’t aware you’d stopped,” Maggie quipped, and Matt laughed. It was nice to see him smile so freely nowadays.
“Yeah, well… guilty as charged, I guess,” he said.
They both chuckled that time. Maggie didn’t know Matt was the kind of person to laugh at his own jokes. It was endearing, in its own way.
Jack used to do the same thing.
“But I’m guessing there’s more to this than just your kinship with people who like picking fights, am I right?” Maggie said.
“Well, people who pick fights are usually angry.” Matt’s face grew somber and a little contorted, as if he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to say this, but knew he had to. He’d stopped washing the dishes. So had Maggie. “When I was a kid, I was angry then, too. Angry at the world, at God, at myself, Stick, the guys who killed my dad, anybody who tried to pity me. I was angry at everyone. But really, I just felt alone.”
I should have been there.
I wasn’t there.
I failed.
“So what do you suggest?” Maggie asked, keeping her voice as calm and cool as ever. Anyone who didn’t have Matt’s senses or didn’t know her better than most people ever had would never have been able to tell she was anxious.
“Talk to her in her own time. If she doesn’t want to talk at first, don’t make her. That’ll only make her dig her heels in more. But let her know you’re there to listen. She needs to let out whatever’s going on in her heart and people usually only talk about that sort of thing when they feel safe enough to do it.”
And for a moment, Maggie wondered what that said about the two of them. But all she said was: “Easier said than done.”
Matt chuckled again. “Yeah.”
“But I’ll take your word for it. ‘A soft voice turns away wrath,’ after all.”
“Hm?”
“Proverbs fifteen, verse one: ‘A soft voice turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.’ The second part is common sense, but the first part’s what takes practice.”
“Father Lantom was always good at that,” Matt said almost wistfully. “I can’t remember him ever getting angry or shouting. Even when I tried everything I could to provoke him, he never let me. Just kept a level head until the anger just seemed to fall away and showed him what I was really feeling.”
“He had a way of getting to people’s hearts like that.”
“You’re not so bad at that either. You might even be more relentless about it than he was.”
It still felt so wrong to be talking about Paul in the past tense. It felt so wrong for him to be gone.
“Thank you, Matthew,” Maggie said, trying to not let her voice choke and stumble.
Matt, for his part, said nothing about it, save for: “You’re welcome.”
“And I’ll try and take your advice. Let her talk in her own time.”
“Maybe try helping her find a better outlet, too. Like punching a bag or a pillow instead of people’s faces,” Matt laughed.
“Because you’d know all about punching things other than people’s faces,” Maggie jabbed lightheartedly as she hiked up her sleeves to finish cleaning up the few remaining dishes.
“It’s not like I never use a bag.”
Matt still came stumbling into the church at night every once in a while. It wasn’t often, thankfully, in fact it barely happened at all. He’d finally accepted that when he was injured beyond his own capabilities that he could go bother that nurse friend of his––Maggie was pretty sure her name was Claire––that he’d spoken about. And often his injuries weren’t severe enough that he couldn’t patch himself up at home. But sometimes, he came to the church anyway, slinking in through the basement door for which Maggie always left a key outside under a flower pot. Just in case.
Whether, on those few and far between nights, Matt came to the church because it was simply closer and he needed first aid quickly or because he felt guilty about bothering Claire, Maggie was never sure. But she was grateful he felt safe enough to come anyway. Sometimes Maggie slept through it, and Matt simply took what he needed from the first aid kit Maggie kept stashed among the shelves and went on his way. But sometimes he woke her––intentionally or not––and sometimes she was awake anyway. Maggie had always been an insomniac, and it was a welcome relief to have something to do with those endless, timeless hours of the morning. Even if that something was a bloody task that left behind the lingering cologne of gunpowder and antiseptic.
By some uncomfortable irony, these were some of the times Maggie felt most at ease with her son. And maybe she shouldn’t have felt that way, but she did. Perhaps she’d take confession about it later, if it continued to hound her conscience. But for now, she simply took solace in the familiarity of the scene.
“You really ought to see about getting some armor again. Because, frankly, you look like an overripe banana with how banged up you’ve gotten,” Maggie said bluntly as she dabbed antiseptic at one of the slashes on Matt’s back.
Matt barked a hearty laugh at that, which he immediately regretted, grasping at his ribs as they stung in painful protest.
“Thank you for that… wonderful description, Maggie.”
“I’m not saying you have to be Iron Man, I’m just saying it wouldn’t kill you to go out in something other than a flimsy athletic shirt and some cargo pants.”
“I’ll work on it.”
Maybe he was lying, maybe he wasn’t. Maggie didn’t know. She simply kept tending to the bruises and slashes littering his back.
“How was it tonight?” she asked.
“Not so bad until about half an hour ago, although there was one attempted murder.”
Maggie sucked in a sharp breath. She didn’t think she could ever fully understand how Matt dealt with all this every night.
“But the last one––before I had to come here…” Matt’s voice started pitching into something more volatile. “I mean––I just… I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“What do you mean?”
“It was a group of guys. And a girl. Just a block away from here. She was young, Maggie. Couldn’t have been more than 15.” Maggie’s hands slowed as she listened to his painful confession. “And… I started thinking with my heart instead of my head. It never stops getting to me, that sort of thing. And I just… I snap.” His voice was a whisper now, echoing faintly through the cold stone walls of the basement.
“Matthew…”
Maggie ached to pull him close to her, to fold her arms around him and tug him in, blood on her clothes be damned. But she didn’t want to push too far. She was afraid she would push him away. So instead she laid cautious hands around his shoulders and rubbed circles against his skin with her thumbs.
For a five-second-long eternity, neither of them spoke.
“Is she okay?” Maggie finally asked.
“Hm?”
“The girl. Is she alright?”
“Yeah. Physically, yeah, she’s okay. They… they didn’t hurt her.”
“And the men that tried to hurt her, did you kill them?”
“...No. They’ll live to pay for what they did.”
“Then the way I see it, you’re doing the same thing you’ve been doing for years: helping people who need helping.”
“That’s not all it was and you know it!” He was angry, like a dog gnashing his teeth and snarling, a defensive anger. But underneath it, there was a tremble in his voice. Fear. Fear of himself, fear of what he could do, of what he had already done. Maggie finished with the lacerations on his back, but did not turn him around to face her just yet.
“What is it you’re so afraid of, Matthew?” Maggie asked, pointed but gentle.
“I… I’m scared that… one day I’ll snap and I’ll never come back. That I’ll let the devil out a- and that part of me will just take over.” There was a single quiet moment, a few seconds at most that hung heavy with words unspoken. Then Matt laughed, dry and humorless. “Do you remember Frank Castle? The Punisher?”
“Hard to forget a man like that.”
“He once told me I was one bad day away from being him. And I told him he was wrong, of course, that I was nothing like him. But he’s more right than I ever wanted to admit. I’ve almost crossed that line before.”
“But you didn’t. You haven’t. And you won’t.”
“But––”
“No ‘buts.’ Turn around, I need to see to the cuts on your front.”
Maggie sighed, collecting her thoughts. Matt shifted to face her and she began cleaning up the cuts and bruises on his chest and stomach.
“I’m not going to say I understand what exactly goes on within that heart of yours,” she said. “And I’m not going to pretend I know what it’s like to feel like you’ve got hellfire in your soul.” Matt winced as Maggie applied rubbing alcohol to a deep slash just beneath his chest. “But I’ve made my peace with who you are. Matt Murdock and Daredevil are the same man. And both of them are… They’re both someone that I care about.”
They’re both my son.
“I…”
“And the same goes for your friends. We know who you are, Matthew. And if you don’t feel like you can trust yourself, then trust us when we say you are good. And trust God when He says that He loves you. He did not make us perfect people, He knows we struggle and have flaws. So He made us to be people who can bounce back and learn, and He gave us His love and His forgiveness to help us get up when we fall.”
“What if I don’t deserve it?” Matt’s voice was choked and painful, small and afraid. Like a scared little kid.
Maggie placed a gentle hand over the small golden cross hanging around his neck, pressing the skin-warm metal against his chest. Should could feel his heartbeat now, a steady ba-dum, ba-dum .
“It’s not about deserving, Matthew. Loving you is something God chooses to do because he wants to. It’s a gift, not a reward for good behavior. And we may not be perfect like He is, but the same goes for us here on Earth. You are loved whether you think you’ve earned it or not. And that’s our choice to make, not yours.”
Matt hung his head in what Maggie hoped was acceptance and muttered his thanks. Maggie simply nodded as she wiped the blood off his skin.
Matt’s birthday was coming up and Maggie wanted to try something new: she wanted to get him something. What to get him, well… that was the issue. She liked to think she knew Matt better than she used to, and she did. But she didn’t know whether he preferred chocolate or vanilla, or if he hated both. She hadn’t known his favorite color, back when he could see such things, and she didn’t know if he still had one. She didn’t know his favorite food, or favorite restaurant. She didn’t know how he preferred to spend a lazy Saturday afternoon. She didn’t know how he took his coffee, or if he preferred tea. She didn’t know what music he liked. She didn’t know the little things. It was a sad fact, really, one she didn’t dwell on often because she tried to believe that the way to get to know the little things was through experience. So she would just have to wait and keep trying.
Still, his birthday was all too soon and she didn’t want him to think she’d forgotten––not to mention she still felt guilty for not doing anything for Christmas––so she’d just have to figure something out.
“You know, I hope your plans for your birthday include sleeping in. You look like you need it,” Maggie said, setting her bin of folded clothes aside and moving on to the next unfolded bin.
Matt cringed guiltily for a moment, but never ceased his mechanical movements as he neatly packed away clothing donations.
“My birthday?” he asked. He sounded confused.
“Yes. That is this week, isn’t it?” Maggie desperately hoped she hadn’t gotten it wrong.
“Oh. Yeah. Right. Forgot about that.”
“Most people don’t forget their own birthdays.”
“I’m not most people.”
“I suppose that’s true. Do you not usually celebrate?”
“It depends. For most of my life, I tried to just ignore my birthday. I didn’t like the attention and… y’know, it just made me miss the people who I might have liked to celebrate with.”
There was a moment of silence, heavy with words unspoken.
“Does it still?”
“A little bit. But… it’s gotten better. I have friends now.” Maggie smiled when he said that. “Friends who do stuff like remember my birthday and badger me into celebrating.” Matt laughed. “Y’know, I never even meant to tell anyone when my birthday was. I told Foggy when we were in college but he only even got it out of me cause I was drunk. I’m more surprised he remembered, ‘cause he was even more out of it than I was.”
That golden affection of his, bright as sunlight and sweet as caramel, dripped from every letter of every word Matt spoke. Though Maggie rolled her eyes at the recounting of drunken shenanigans, she couldn’t help the smile that the utter love and fondness in Matt’s voice and expression brought to her face. Those close enough to him to receive that love were very lucky people indeed.
“But he remembered anyway?” Maggie prompted.
“Oh yeah,” Matt responded. “Made a point of it, even. And every year he always does something. Even though I’ve forgotten his birthday some years.” Matt’s face briefly twisted into a guilty, self-loathing frown at that. “I didn’t forget it this past year though. Not sure remembering your best friend’s birthday like a normal human being is something to be proud of, but the fact exists, at least.”
“Any plans, then?”
“Well, I always ask that if he’s gonna insist on doing the birthday thing that it at least not be too big. So he and Karen and I are just gonna go get dinner and then go back to Karen’s for dessert. She said she wanted to bake something. Jessica Jones threatened to take me bar-hopping until we both passed out, but I declined.” Maggie scoffed as Matt fondly shook his head at the idea. “No idea how she even knew when my birthday was, but I think I’m past questioning her at this point. She did get me a bottle of my favorite whiskey, though. Said it had to be an early present since she was going out of town. I could bring some for you, if you’d like.”
“You sure you don’t wanna save that for your party in a few days?”
“It’s not a party––”
“It’s you and your friends having fun. As far as I can tell, that’s as close to a party as you’ll ever get.”
Matt smiled and chuckled. “What gave it away?”
Ultimately, Maggie went with the tried and true option of giving someone money for their birthday. It felt like a stupendously lackluster cop-out, but she knew it wouldn’t go to waste with Matt being constantly tight on money. So at least there was that. Then she booked a time to use the braille printer at the library and wrote and printed him a note. Then, of course, there was the terrifying question of how to give it to him. Or, more accurately, the mortifying fear of rejection. Yes it was “what if he thinks the gift is thoughtless?” and “what if the note isn’t good?” But more than that it was “what if he doesn’t want this ?” What if he didn’t want Maggie to try to do this?
She could put it all away, if she wanted. Put it in a box and save it for a different time. A braver time. A safer time. A time when she knew better exactly in what way he wanted her to be in his life. But with a man like him, was there ever a better time than the present? Maggie imagined this must be something akin to how the families of soldiers must feel, not knowing if their loved ones were going to live to come home at the end of their tour, or even to see tomorrow’s sunrise. Not exactly the same, of course, but that threat of deadly “what-ifs” was still unbearably present. Besides, she’d already written “happy 30th birthday” in the note, so it wasn’t like she could save that for another time. Or, that was how she was justifying this to herself, anyway.
“Matthew, could you wait just a minute?”
“Yeah? Everything alright?” Matt turned back around to face Maggie, halting his route to the door.
“I have a gift for you. For your birthday. Sorry it’s a few days late.”
“Oh. Um. Thank you,” he said. She held the envelope forward.
“It’s not much,” Maggie caveated.
“Smells like paper,” Matt said, opening it.
“It’s fifty dollars,” Maggie said. “You can have one of your friends verify if you don’t believe me,” she joked, trying to relieve the very one-sided tension in the room.
Matt laughed as he thanked her and almost tried to politely refuse the gift before she insistently stopped him. When he finally conceded, he slipped the money back into the envelope and pulled out the note. “Oh,” he said simply when he began to skim his fingers over the words.
Maggie waited awkwardly as he read the note, her anxiety absent from her appearance save for how her hands had begun to sweat. Matt tended to wear his heart on his sleeve––or rather, on his face––but now any reaction was hidden behind dark glasses. When he seemed to have finished reading it, she was too afraid to say anything. For a moment, he said nothing either. Maggie still could not read his face.
Matt still remained silent as he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Maggie, a tight hug spilling over with all the love Matt’s bleeding heart had to offer. She could feel now the way his chest shuddered with restrained emotion and she held him even tighter. The moment was short, no longer than a few seconds, yet it was burned into Maggie’s mind for the rest of time.
“Happy birthday, Matthew,” she said with a smile when they parted.
“Thank you,” he managed to say, his smile as wide as the ocean.
Matt visited Father Lantom’s grave every now and then. It was in the churchyard. There was no final resting place for his body more apt than the very ground of the place he’d helped to forge into a home for so many.
As far as Maggie could tell, Matt’s visits were usually about once a month. Sometimes more. Maggie had rarely been able to catch him while he was there. At most he’d mention it, or she’d see him from a window while she was caught up doing something else. But today, she found herself free, for the time being, and it just so happened that Matt was there again. He was sitting in the grass before a heavy granite headstone, his cane folded beside him and his glasses catching the sunlight in a way that made the red lenses seem as though they’d been set aflame.
“Hello, Matthew.”
“Hi, Maggie.”
“Do you mind if I sit?”
“Go ahead.” He gestured loosely to the ground beside him.
The early spring ground was still cold enough to send a chill up Maggie’s spine. Matt took off his jacket and offered it to her.
“Am I that obvious?” Maggie said dryly.
Matt chuckled. “Only to me.”
The idea of being so known like that––by the son she’d tried to abandon once upon a time, no less––twisted like a knife in Maggie’s heart and yet warmed it beyond compare all at once.
Matt laid his jacket around Maggie’s shoulders.
“I hope I’m not interrupting,” she said.
Matt shook his head, quick to reassure her. “No. No, I just come here to talk sometimes. I don’t quite feel comfortable enough with Father Thompson yet.” Matt shrunk into himself slightly as he admitted that, as if it were a shame to not immediately take well to something new and unfamiliar. As if he was somehow wrong and weak for needing time to grieve and adjust.
“Well… I know I’m no priest, but I’d like to think that I can still help. In whatever ways you’d like me to.” Like she’d promised on the day of Paul’s funeral months ago.
“Thanks.” He was smiling, but it was as though the corners of his mouth were the arms of Atlas, two pillars upholding all the burdens of the world. Maggie saw the glint of a tear in her son’s eye as he lifted his face skyward, as if hoping that would stop the tears from slipping down his cheeks.
“I just… I miss him.” His efforts did nothing to stem the gentle flow of tears. “I miss him, Maggie.”
“I know. I miss him, too.”
Maggie felt tears prick the corners of her own eyes, now, too. Tentatively, she reached a hand across the grass and laid it gently over Matt’s. In return, he gripped her hand tightly in his own, trying desperately to control his sporadic breathing and flooded eyes.
Maggie took a deep breath. And slowly, very slowly, giving him every chance to back away, she reached her arms around Matt’s shoulders and pulled him close. After a moment of indecision, she felt his arms wind around her back in return, his fingers digging into the fabric of her shirt.
Neither of them wept very much. Neither of them were much the type for openly crying, especially not when they could be seen by any random passerby. But still, Maggie felt a small wet patch bloom atop her shoulder, and felt a few tears slip down onto her own cheeks.
Even when their breaths had finally leveled out again, when their rib cages had stopped rattling with suppressed sobs, and what very few tears they’d allowed themselves to shed had stopped, they did not part. She kept him tucked inside her embrace and was enfolded in his arms in return.
“Would you like to pray with me, Matthew?”
“...Okay.”
Still Maggie kept her arms wrapped around her son. And he kept his arms around her as she prayed for both of them.
“Dear Lord, bless us this day. It’s been months since Paul was taken up to the Kingdom of Heaven, but we still feel the pain of his absence here on Earth. Please grant us your great peace, Lord, that the pain we feel now may subside with time. That we may never forget your great servant and our dear friend, but that our remembrance of him may grow less overshadowed by grief. Give rest to our weary hearts, Lord, as you have given eternal rest to our friend’s soul. Amen.”
“Amen.”
Slowly and gently, they finally parted and Matt tilted his head upward again, this time as if turning his face toward God.
“Did you write that one down first?” he asked with a small laugh, weary but true.
Maggie chuckled. “What can I say? I’ve had a lot of practice.”
Matt’s face pulled into a soft smile. “Thank you, Mom,” he breathed.
It was barely more than a whisper, but his words echoed deep and resonant in the chambers of Maggie’s heart. There was no disguising the way her pulse stuttered, the way her breath hitched at his words, at the first time her son had ever called her “mom.” She didn’t explain herself. She simply squeezed his hand tightly one last time before pulling away, hoping that would convey all the things she couldn’t find the words for.
The way Matt smiled, far less burdened and weary this time, seemed to say he understood.
Mother’s Day and Father’s Day were always sensitive subjects at St. Agnes. Children who had neither were inundated with the overwhelming knowledge of what life had denied them. For almost thirty years now, those had been difficult days for Maggie, too. Except, where the children were not at fault for their unfortunate position, Maggie was solely and wholly to blame for her own. It had been the worst when Matt was a kid living at St. Agnes. She could tell how sorely he felt the absence of his parents, as many of the children did. But unlike the other children, Maggie knew that, with him, it was all her fault. But of course, back then, she had said nothing. Maybe that was wrong of her, or maybe it wasn’t, who knows? There was no changing the past either way. But the present…
While less outright tragic now, the idea of a Mother’s Day with all secrets exposed felt, at the very least, incredibly awkward. Last year, neither of them had said anything, and she’d learned after the fact that Matt had been out of commission that day anyway due to a particularly horrific stab wound. And now this year, she wondered if, should Matt show up to Mass that Sunday, they would awkwardly tiptoe around each other and avoid the subject entirely, or, worse yet, that it would be something they’d fight about. Well, there was still a week until Mother’s Day. Maggie had time to ignore it.
“Morning,” Matt greeted Maggie when she found him in the diminishing crowd after the service.
“Good morning, Matthew. I’m afraid I don’t have anything for you to help me with today.”
“Oh. That’s alright, I actually have to get going. But, um…”
“Are you alright?”
Matt sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, lifting up his glasses slightly as he did. “I um… I… I never really, uh…”
“Are you alright?” Maggie asked.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m alright,” Matt answered. And it seemed true enough. “I just wanted to ask, um… Do you wanna, maybe, have lunch sometime?”
“Hm?” Maggie replied, as if she couldn’t quite believe he’d ask that.
“Well, I never really see you outside of church and… I dunno. There’s nothing wrong with getting to spend time with you here, don’t get me wrong, I just… I thought it might be nice to do something a little different.”
“Oh.”
“Is that a ‘no’?”
“No! No, not at all, Matthew. I can’t say I have too much money, but I’m sure a lunch couldn’t hurt,” she said with a smile.
Matt laughed. “Well, I can’t say I’m doing too much better in the financial department, so I hope you don’t mind something a little on the cheaper side.”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
“Are you, uh, are you free next Sunday?”
“Next Sunday?” Maggie quickly reviewed her schedule in her head. “I think I can make some time around 2pm, if that works. I can meet you in the park across the street.”
“Yeah, that works. So I’ll see you then?”
“See you then,” Maggie echoed.
It only hit her as Matt was leaving that next Sunday was Mother’s Day. She didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or maybe just repeatedly bang her forehead against the nearest wall. Had he known? Was she reading into this too much? Surely he was aware that Sundays were her busiest day, though, so he wouldn’t have asked specifically for Sunday unless he knew next Sunday was Mother’s Day. Had he avoided saying it outright for his sake or for hers? Or maybe both? Would he ignore it, too, if she did? Was she supposed to ignore it, or should she mention the glaring subtext? Maggie really wished there was a guidebook for this stuff.
A few days later, all that worrying went out the window, replaced by much more terrifying concerns. Sister Maggie Grace felt her body turn to dust and then be reassembled as five years elapsed in the span of a few seconds and she vanished and reappeared with half the universe’s population. They called it “the Blip”. Maggie thought the name sounded a bit silly, but that was really beside the point.
She was lucky, considering the state of many Blipped people. Protected by God’s grace. When she came back, Clinton Church was more than ready and willing to welcome her back to her place with them. Others were not so fortunate. The church took in as many refugees as it possibly could (and maybe a few more than it reasonably should have). It was less than a day since she returned after five year-seconds, on what would have otherwise been an average Tuesday, and Maggie already had her hands full caring for the displaced and for the children she’d been entrusted with. So many kids had aged out or been adopted in those five years. She never got to say goodbye.
That whole first week, Maggie didn’t let herself think. After all the day-long tearful reunions with her fellow sisters and many of the children had wound down, and after she’d received the (frankly horrifying) barrage of information she needed to understand what in God’s name had happened, fears began to crowd into her mind like a swarm of flies preying upon a rotting corpse and she found herself wishing she could turn her mind off, work as if sleepwalking, anything not to feel this wild swinging pendulum of relief and screaming anxiety and, worst of all, soul-sucking emptiness. Maggie didn’t want to think. She didn’t want to process, she didn’t want to do anything but work and sleep.
As much as being around the other sisters helped her cope and feel stable, they could only do so much with hands just as full as hers, and the incessant work could only do so much to quiet her racing mind. So that whole first week, Maggie clung to the hope of Sunday, of the peace and familiarity of Mass. And, maybe, of seeing her son. She clung to the hope that she’d still get to have just one familiar thing, perhaps one of the only familiar things left for Maggie.
To her, it hadn’t been more than a few days since she’d last seen Matt. But for him it had been five years. Maggie had learned that soon enough, since there were reports of Daredevil having been active throughout the five years of the Blip. If she let herself think too long, Maggie began to fear that now, with all the time that had passed, she might be a complete stranger to him once again, or that he might be so changed by these five years he’d be a stranger to her. She didn’t know which was worse.
So she didn’t think. She just set her mind to her work and waited for Sunday. When it came, Maggie found herself the most restless she’d been during a Mass since she was a child who’d wanted to get home in time to catch her favorite show. She kept scanning the over the tops of the parishioners' heads, hoping to catch the glint of a red lens or hear the rhythmic tapping of a white cane.
Neither ever happened.
It wasn’t unusual for Matt to miss church. He tried his best to go weekly, but sometimes life got the better of him, as it would anyone. Maggie couldn’t fault him for that. She didn’t fault him for that. But it still stung. Just a little. It shouldn’t have. It wasn’t his fault, and it probably wasn’t hers.
Maybe he’d finally realized she was never worth it.
It was fine. Maggie was fine. If Matt had other things to do, then he had other things to do. For him this was just another Sunday, not an insane five-year time-skip that left him reeling and grasping at straws for any sense of familiarity. Maybe his friends had gotten Blipped and now that they were back, he was spending his time with them. It was childish, really, to not only have held onto this flimsy hope, but to feel so dismayed when that hope crashed and burned. It was nonsensical.
It hurt anyway.
It had been almost a month since the world had turned upside down for the second time and, understandably, the world hadn’t calmed down one bit. Thankfully, many people being housed at the Clinton Church in the aftermath of the Blip had families or friends with whom they were able to be reunited, but many weren’t so lucky for any number of reasons. And in any case, they had to be extremely careful with who came looking for lost loved ones. Kidnapping and identity fraud had reached a record high in the weeks since the end of the Blip. She’d heard several families quietly thank God that the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen prowled the streets, keeping as many people as he could safe from opportunistic criminal hands. And Maggie subtly smiled every time, ignoring the twinge in her stomach at the thought of an ever-impending reunion with said “devil.”
It was some detestable hour of the morning when Maggie’s insomnia drove her to wander onto the steps that led to the courtyard, desperate for some fresh air, hoping it would act as a salve to her weary, flagging heart and, if she was lucky, maybe even help her sleep. As she quietly sat and observed the sleepless streets of the city––still full of lights and populated by a few pedestrians and cars flitting about even at this hour––she lifted her gaze to the sky, skimming over the tops of towering buildings to gaze into the starless abyss. The one thing Maggie never liked about living in the city was that it was so damn difficult to see the stars. As a child, she’d been drawn to the natural beauty of God’s creation, to the allure of the earth and of the sea and most especially of the night sky. It made her feel ablaze with wonder and alight with endless secrets and lifetimes of adventure. She still felt that way sometimes, if she let herself.
But this would be the one and only night in her life that Maggie would be thankful for the light pollution of the city shining too bright for the stars to show themselves. For if she’d been able to see the burning beauty of the universe, she probably wouldn’t have noticed the shadow of a man leaping between nearby rooftops.
“Matthew?” she whispered. It was mostly a question to herself, as if she couldn’t quite believe her eyes.
Instantly, he froze in his path, his head whipping toward her, still all silhouette in the darkness. For half a moment, Maggie was terrified that he’d sprint off into the night, but instead he made his way off the neighboring roof and into the courtyard of the church. As he slowly approached, the first thing Maggie noticed was that the full devil getup had made a return. It seemed less armored than before, but still protected in a few key places. Had Maggie’s mind and heart not been racing with terrified anticipation, she would have almost chuckled at the horns atop his helmet. She’d always thought they looked a bit ridiculous.
Matt still hadn’t said anything as he continued walking slowly toward her. Even with all the bloody reds of his suit, he seemed to melt into the shadows. Sister Maggie didn’t fear the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, but she had to admit he made for an intimidating sight.
He was silent as he walked forward, his steps inaudible and what little she could see of his face was unreadable. He stopped maybe half a foot in front of her. She could see the slight rise and fall of his chest as he kept his breathing intentionally steady. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but no words came out. So Maggie’s heart commanded her to do something that her brain thought was very stupid. She reached an arm up, slowly and almost expecting Matt to reject her, and cupped the rough, scarred, and stubbled skin of his cheek in her calloused hand.
“Hello, Matthew,” she whispered, though no one was awake to overhear them. Nor see them, hidden in shadow as they were.
Matt seemed to hesitate for just a moment before he pitched forward, almost as if he was drunk, and wound his arms so tightly around Maggie she felt the air forced out from her lungs. He was trembling as he held her and she laid her arms around semi-protective leather.
But the moment was gone as quickly as it had come, as if this warm touch after years of nothing but cold air had burned him. He yanked away from her, something sad and sour twisting the corners of his mouth. Maggie felt as though he’d taken her heart with him, tearing it bloody from her chest. Of course, she showed none of this on her face. Not that he would have known.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry, I…”
And Maggie was terrified that he meant, “I’m sorry, but I can’t do this. I’m sorry, but to me, you died five years ago. I’m sorry, but I have to leave.”
But Matt hadn’t moved a muscle, so Maggie let that embolden her words.
“It’s okay,” she told him, in the tone she often used to comfort young children after they’d had a nightmare. “It’s okay, kiddo.”
He took a deep, shaky breath.
“Would you like to come inside? Or do you have to go?”
After what felt like far too long of a moment, he answered, “I can come in. For a little bit.”
“Okay,” Maggie whispered as she led him around the back. “Just wait outside a moment until I say you can come in. The church is hosting lots of refugees, so I don’t know if anyone’s awake.”
“Okay.”
Maggie quickly went inside and took the short hallway that led into the kitchen. Five years ago, she would have brought him into the crypt, but now that was being used to house refugees. Thankfully, no one was in the small kitchen. She led Matt inside, locking both the door to the outside and the door that led into the church, just in case anyone got up during the night and wandered over this way.
Of course, now that they were both inside, Maggie hadn’t the foggiest idea what to do. Matt gingerly removed his helmet and gloves and set them on the counter. His hair was messy and flattened by the helmet and his cheek was darkened with new bruises.
She wished she could hug him again, but clearly that was off the table.
“Would you like some cocoa?” she offered, even though it was the middle of summer.
“Sure.”
Maggie set about heating milk and retrieving hot chocolate packets. The room was silent as she worked. When she pressed the warm mug into his hand and leaned against the counter opposite him, cradling her own mug, they both opened their mouths to speak at the same time.
“Sorry,” they said in unison.
“You go first,” Matt said.
“Well, I don’t really know what I was going to say,” Maggie admitted. “I’m… I’m glad to see you, Matthew. Are you okay?”
Matt laughed somewhat darkly. “I think ‘okay’ is a pretty relative term nowadays,” he said. “But… yeah. I’m doing the best I can. How about you?”
Maggie noticed how he didn’t give any details, but she decided not to say anything. Perhaps too much had changed. Perhaps it wasn’t her place. Perhaps it had never been her place.
“The same as you, I think. Doing the best I can. The church was kind enough to take me back when I… returned. I’ve been busy ever since.”
Painful silence overtook them, as if every step forward they’d taken had been stolen by five missing years.
When Maggie could take it no more, when the raging thoughts inside her mind couldn’t bear to be contained and bitten back a moment longer, she finally said, “I haven’t heard from you since… everything.”
Matt said nothing, but lowered his head away from her.
“Maybe it’s none of my business,” Maggie continued, leaning on the crutch of well-practiced calm, “but I was worried about you.”
“I’m fine,” Matt insisted stubbornly.
“You don’t sound it.”
“Yeah, well a lot of shit happened the last few years, but I managed,” he spit out curtly.
“I’m sorry, but what do you want from me, Matthew?” Maggie shot back, exhaustion and fear mixing into an acid that wore her nerves short. “What could I possibly do?” She was half angry, half begging for an answer.
“I don’t know!” Matt shouted in return. “I don’t know! I don’t know what to do!”
Maggie remained silent, letting defensive anger wash away into something more painful and vulnerable.
“I don’t know what to do,” Matt repeated much more softly, his voice hitching and broken. “You were gone. You were all gone. Foggy was gone, Karen was gone, you were gone. And I… I was alone again. And I know it’s not your fault, I don’t blame you, I could never blame you. Any of you. It just…” Matt breathed a humorless laugh. “Y’know for all the times I’ve been alone, you’d think it’d get easier.” Tears had begun to quietly slip down his cheeks.
“Matthew, I…” Maggie didn’t really have the rest of her sentence figured out, so she said nothing more.
“And I know it’s not fair for me to be upset, because you were the one who died for five years and I was lucky enough to be left alive. But that was the first time in years that I felt like that scared little kid who wondered if he was the reason his mom was gone and his dad was dead.”
In that moment, Maggie could swear she felt her heart shattering into shrapnel, sticking bitter, grief-stricken shards into her ribs and lungs.
“And it had been getting better!” Matt let out a hopeless laugh, tears sliding freely down his face. “Y’know, before the Blip. That was the worst part: it really had been getting better, Maggie. I… I was getting to know you, we were trying, I… It was good…” He said it so softly, a bittersweet hope tainted by disillusioned grief. “And then you were gone.”
Again.
“And it wasn’t your fault,” Matt said. “ God knows it wasn’t your fault, that’s not what I’m trying to say.” Matt brutally smeared a hand across his eyes, as though he thought that if he could be violent enough, the tears would be too frightened of him to continue falling. His tears, of course, felt no such compunction and fell anyway. “But it still hurt. And it was you and Foggy and Karen all at once and everything was slipping through my fingers for real this time and I––” Matt failed to fight away a heaving sob as it clawed up through his rib cage and exploded from his mouth in a pathetic, desperate sound. Maggie did not step closer. She didn’t know if he’d want that anymore.
“I’m sorry,” was all she said, the only words she could even think to say. They were far too small to hold everything she wanted them to mean.
“And I know I’ve got no damn right to feel like that, to feel abandoned.” Matt continued. “Cause I wasn’t, not this time. And I should know, I’ve abandoned people my whole life and it was my fault. People who didn’t deserve it. Just cause I was scared.”
“It runs in the family, kiddo,” Maggie said with a sad smile. She almost regretted saying that as soon as the words left her mouth. Only ‘almost,’ though, because it made Matt crack a smile. A wry and painful smile, but a smile nonetheless.
“Yeah. I guess it does.”
“I’m sorry, Matthew.”
“For what, some alien erasing you from existence for five years? For our shitty luck? For something that was a thousand miles out of your control?”
“No,” she said resolutely. Tears that had been threatening for a while finally started to slip down Maggie’s cheeks as she desperately tried to hold her voice steady. “For everything else. The things I never apologized for. For leaving you as a child. For not trying harder. For not telling you sooner. For standing by and doing nothing. For every single mistake I ever made. You deserve a better mother than me. You always did.”
Calling herself his mother still felt strange. The words felt forgeign on her tongue and sounded rough as they escaped her lips. Like they didn’t quite fit in her mouth as she tried to force them out anyway, like a stone not yet fully hewn into the sculpture it must be. Something she still wasn’t used to saying out loud, and certainly not something he was used to hearing.
More proof that even her best efforts would never be good enough.
“What if I don’t want what I deserve?” Matt whispered.
Maggie inclined her head inquisitively and took a step closer.
“I just…” Matt sighed, clearly trying to collect himself and find his words. “I just want you, Maggie. I just want us being whatever semblance of a family we can be. That’s the whole point I’m doing a really awful job of making. And after five years alone, I had no idea where to start again, and it was terrifying, so I just didn’t and I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Their tears fell in beautiful, bittersweet harmony.
“I forgive you,” Maggie said gently, uselessly swiping one of many tears off her cheek. Of course she would forgive. How could she not? How could she not when she was here again and he still wanted to try––or maybe they had moved past trying and were now just being ––and maybe, just maybe, things were going to be okay?
“Do you remember that note you wrote me?” Matt asked. “For my thirtieth birthday?”
“Yes.” That was much more recent for her than for him.
“That was one of the only things that kept me going some days, the past few years. I don’t have pictures or videos or things like that to remind me of people I love. I had a few mementos from Foggy and Karen. And your necklace and letter.” As if to prove a point, or maybe just for reassurance, he reached under his collar and revealed the very same, simple, gold cross necklace Maggie had given him years ago, rubbing his thumb back and forth across the pendant. “I read that letter so much it started to get worn away,” he said with a small smile.
“Oh, Matty,” Maggie whispered, almost unconscious of how the nickname slipped past lips slick with spit and tears. But Matt’s head jerked up and Maggie’s heart fell, sure she had done something wrong.
“Dad used to call me that,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” Maggie said.
“No, I… I like the way it sounds in your voice.”
Maggie took another step closer. Then another. And Matt walked forward to meet her in the middle of the tiny room as the first echoes of dawn began to creep through the window. Without another word, Matt leaned down and gently, slowly, but not at all hesitantly, wrapped his arms around his mother. She wound her arms across his back in return and felt herself dissolve into the embrace, tears still flowing fast down both their faces. He did not pull away this time, and neither did she.
“What did I do to deserve you, Matthew?” Maggie whispered with a tear-soaked laugh.
“Didn’t you once tell me it’s not about deserving?” Matt said.
“Oh, now you remember the things I tell you, huh?” she teased, rolling her eyes in spite of everything.
“Well, only if I can use them in an argument,” he joked back, and she laughed with him. For a moment, it felt as if the whole universe existed in that small church kitchen, the smell of cooling, out-of-season hot chocolate mingling with the taste of tears and light kiss of the summer breeze flitting in through the cracked window as Maggie’s world began to right itself, propped up by the arms locked around her back and the steady heartbeat she could feel against her own.
“It’s getting light out,” Maggie said.
“Okay,” Matt replied.
Neither of them moved.
“Y’know,” Maggie said hesitantly, her heart thundering, “Before I… disappeared… you asked me to have lunch with you sometime. Would you still like that?”
He finally pulled away from her embrace, letting his arms go slack at his sides. He seemed to briefly search through his memories before understanding illuminated his face.
“Yeah,” he said, his face like a sunshower: still wet with tears but beaming with a smile brighter than any star or streetlight. “Yeah, I’d like that.”
“I’m free on Wednesday afternoon, if you are.”
“I’m sure I can make time.”
“Two o’clock? I’ll meet you in the park across the street.”
“I’ll see you then.”
Maggie reached up once more and gently wiped tear tracks from his cheeks and he laughed, breathy and light. “Taking you to lunch was originally supposed to be a Mother’s Day thing,” he admitted. “Not that I really knew what I was doing with that. Still don’t.”
“Well, we’ll just have to figure it out,” Maggie replied with a smile.
“Guess we will,” Matt agreed.
After a moment’s breath, Maggie whispered, “I love you.” Quiet and soft, as if she did not yet have the courage to say it with all her might yet.
And maybe that made her weak, or a coward, or unworthy, but Matt simply smiled, gave her one last quick hug, and said, “I love you, too.”
Maggie was still smiling as Matt donned his helmet and gloves once more and snuck out of the church into the slowly rising sun of a new day.
Dear Matthew,
Happy 30th birthday, kiddo. I’m not sure I should be calling you ‘kiddo’ anymore, but then again you haven’t told me to stop either.
I know this gift and note aren’t much, but I wanted to do something. That being said, I didn’t exactly know what ‘something’ to do. It’s not like there’s a guidebook on trying to make up for the whole lot of nothing I gave you for most of your life.
When you first came into my life, I didn’t understand how much of a gift it was to have you there. Instead I was afraid. When you were brought to St. Agnes as a child, after what happened to Jack, I was afraid again. When you came crashing back into my life after over a decade, I was afraid then, too. Mostly because you were half-dead, but just a little bit for entirely selfish reasons. And when you finally found out the truth and nobody knew where you’d gone, Lord knows I’d never been more scared.
But I think the most terrifying ordeal yet has been trying again. I know I will never be your mother the way I should have been. And for that, I will always be more sorry than I could ever find a way to put into words. But in spite of the fear of screwing it all up again, I believe that the greatest gift God has ever given me is your kindness. I would say you’re too kind for this world, Matthew, but you’re not. You’re the kindness it needs, in spite of everything it’s done to try to take that from you. Including what I’ve done.
So what I want to say is thank you. I hope you can believe me when I say that I love you, because I know now that those are some of the truest words I’ve ever said. Or written, I suppose.
Oh, and I hope the gift isn’t too lackluster. It only hit me when I was trying to get something for you that I don’t know too many smaller details of your life. Like your favorite song or how you take your coffee or what the hell to get you for your birthday. I’d like to learn, with time, if you’ll let me.
Happy (late) birthday, Matty.
Love,
Maggie
Mom