Wings

not

Renée’s reaction was completely different. Her jaw dropped somewhere around the point where Kestrel came into play, and she all but collapsed when I spread my wings. She started babbling nonsensically when Gran accepted me as I was, saying something like “Whaaa… wings…Mel…Sarah… artist... pancake… wings... Josh… what…human…not… What?!”

I sighed. Ren wasn’t as open-minded as Gran, and it showed. She had always taken my side in arguments with our parents, but it was obvious that she didn’t completely approve of my choices. When I dropped out of MIT, she didn’t speak to me for three days. I guess she forgave me, though, when I drew an amazing charcoal portrait of her.

Now, she was just finding out the rest of my decisions. Her long-lost sister who she hadn’t seen for eleven years showed up out of the blue, crashed into her on her grandmother’s front step, and announced that she had wings. Not to mention the tattoos, hair, contacts, and accent. Oh, and the girlfriend. She definitely wasn’t a fan of that, but tough luck, she was stuck with me. And I wasn’t going to change.

I picked Ren up gently and laid her on the couch, turning to Gran.

“Okay, that’s her reaction to me. And I already heard yours, so do you understand why I’m here?” Gran shook her head.

“Mel, I get why you were nervous about the wings. But why exactly are you in the States? You could have called us, or borrowed a video-chat thing from Josh. Why are you here in person?”

I smiled slightly. “Gran, I haven’t seen you guys in eleven years. I wanted to see you in person. I couldn’t afford a flight from England to New York, so I packed a backpack and flew. I’ve been in the air for the last day or so, flying from London to Lisbon, and then a direct flight east. I spent last night on a skyscraper roof, and tracked down your address today. I was a bit impulsive in coming here, but I wanted to test my wings. Maybe I went a bit too far, considering I was in the air for fifteen hours straight. But I want to try to repair things with my parents.”

A stunned silence followed my last statement. Then Gran found her voice, surprising me with what she said.

“Well, all right then, Wings. Is it ok if I call you that?” I nodded, liking the way the name sounded. Wings. I thought about it. It pretty much summed up me at the moment.

Gran smiled. “It seems to suit you. But I should probably warn you that your parents probably wouldn’t welcome you. They kind of… stopped talking about you. Your name is basically taboo in their house, even on the phone. And all the pictures of you are gone. They refuse to think of you as anything but a cute, misguided little girl. I guess you’ll have to teach them a thing or two about feminism. Remember that Rachel and James take ‘respect your elders’ to a whole new level.”

I sighed. I seemed to be making a habit of surprising people lately. I resigned myself to doing that for the rest of my life.