sunshine boy

sunshine boy

SARAH ROGERS

— barnet, vermont, 1915 —

“The artist in you strikes again,”

Smiling, Sarah turned around to come face to face with her lover. His skin was a healthy tan color from a full day of lounging near the shore of the lake the day before, warm and soft when he wrapped his arms around her middle. Joseph’s lips moved from one shoulder to the other and finally came to rest his chin against the crook of her shoulder and neck. The dog tags around his neck were cold against her back in a lovely contrast.

They were spending Joseph’s last days in England before training camp by using his grandfather’s lake house in Ambleside. The house was a beautiful cottage that overlooked the waterfront, sat upon a bed of wisteria flowers and forget-me-nots that Sarah couldn’t help herself. The painting in front of her stood unfinished with just the trees painted in strokes of chocolate brown and emerald green and the outline of the waterbed near them. She still needed to paint the flowers both in and out of the water. The pristine swans would be added last. “Well, I wanted to leave it as a gift for your grandfather for letting us stay here” she said, tilting her head against the soldier’s, “Perhaps I’ll add in a couple sunbathing by the lake,”

“Uh-huh. You know I love your art, but I hardly doubt we can leave a painting of us naked for Grandpa Grant,” he chuckled, breathe light against her bare skin, “You’ll give him a heart attack,”

Sarah gasped, dabbing a line of green across Joseph’s forehead in retaliation. “You know that’s not what I meant!” she huffed, “Why do you have to ruin a perfectly innocent thing?”

The brunette man danced away with a squak of disgust, wiping at his forehead with a huge grin on his face. He grabbed at the maroon blanket that was the only thing preserving Sarah’s modesty in the chilly morning air, though the nurse held onto the cloth tightly with a small yelp. She tried to narrow her eyes at him, small smile on her lips because nothing this man could do in the moment would ever be to hurt her. Not when she knows that he is completely head over heels for her — her dazzling boyfriend. “Don’t you have anything better to do than bother me?” she joked, dipping her brush on the dollop of green before returning to adding the fine details on the hanging vines from on of the trees over the lake.

Joseph leaned against the white railing with a hip, overlooking the scene that Sarah was currently painting, cigarette between his lips. He’s blocking her view of the beautiful landscape, but Sarah thought he was perhaps even more gorgeous than the blooming flowers. Her charcoal pencil called her like a siren, enticing her to sketch out a quick outline of the man before her into the painting. Childhood scars, dusted freckles, tousled hair — all of who Joseph Rogers is.

She sketched quickly, grateful for the fact that Joseph was distracted by his matches enough that he didn’t dare move a muscle from the pose he was keeping against the fence around the porch. She had just gotten done drawing the basic shapes of the man when he looked up from the match to smile at her, and said, “I have some news to share,”

“Oh, dammit,” she mused, “Did my husband send you a letter?”

Throwing his head back, Joseph let out a laugh that shook his whole body just for her stupid joke. She loved this man. “No, no. I … forget it, it’s not important,” his jaw clenched as he moved the cigarette away from his lips. The embers were discarded on the pristine white paint of the fence that left a smudged black stain that Sarah thought looked a lot like bird in flight. A raven etched into the lake house until the next fall of rain wipes it away like nothing. Sarah smirked.

“What? Tell me,” she hummed, turning back to sketch the intricate details of Joseph’s torso and smile. “What could you possibly tell me that could ruin this vacation?”

Joseph was quiet, the only sound around them being the slow intake of smoke and the excessive chirping of a tanager. The water lapping against itself lulled Sarah into a deep sense of ease that was only achieved when she was around Joseph or her grandmother. It was like being wrapped up in the arms of an angel. She lost herself in the English scenery that could not compare to that of Ireland, yet still held its own beauty in a way that was similar yet so different. England held an ancient beauty that radiated absolute idyllic fantasies while Ireland had a quiet panoramic which lured you in with whispers of magic and mist. Years from now, this will be her happy place. The perfect spot to remember and become one with nature as the Lord intended.

Watching the wind blow through the hanging leaves, Sarah didn’t notice that Joseph was once again behind her. His arms were around her once more, his body against her bare back, his lips soft on her skin. Those lips ventured and tickled her neck, making her buck slightly and giggle, but he held her tight with a chuckle before he whispered into her ear - softer than any muse or fae, “Marry me,”

Sarah turned fast to stare at Joseph with wide eyes, “What did you just say?”.

“Marry me, Sarah MacCarthaigh,” he said in a devilish drawl, “You’re it for me, dove, I love you more than anything,”

She could feel his heart racing from where it was pressed against her, thumping a song so old and timeless. A song that knew no notes, no orchestra, no limits. Their hearts were in perfect harmony. He pressed a kiss on her temple, a loving gesture that she could never get sick of. Voice low, Joseph begged her for an answer in a manner than a drowning man begged for salvation.

Though, then again;

“You asshole!” she cried out, smile wide in disbelief as she jumped from her stool to hit him playfully, “You can’t just propose to me while I’m naked! That isn’t romantic!”

Joseph laughed, cigarette long gone from his lips. He grabbed hold of her forearm, twirling her like he did the night they met, and pulled her close to his body. His forehead against her, she felt lighter than the clouds above. “How about I make it up to you with the most romantic wedding in history?” he hummed, hands closing around her own as they swayed to the music of nature around them.

“Mm. I want a pearly white dress with pearls,”

“Of course,”

“And I want it to be in Ireland,” she whispered to Joseph’s lips, “I want both our families to sit all together. No sides. Just family,”

“Ambitious thinking,”

Joseph leaned down to kiss Sarah, but found that her slim finger was pressed up against the plush lips of her lover. She moved backwards enough so that she was a good half a foot from man. “One more condition,”

“Anything, dove,”

“I’ll marry you only if you promise to come back,” her voice shuttered involuntarily; it forced her to pause long enough to steady the trembling in her, “You have to promise you’ll come back to me, Joseph Grant Rogers, I’m not going to be a widow,”

The tanagers chirped loudly and cheerfully. Joseph kissed her finger as if it was glass. “I promise to you and God, I’ll come back to you,” he sighed, “I will always come back to you. You’re it for me. I’d be the luckiest man alive for just the chance to grow old with you, dove. We’ll get a nice house out in New York City, big enough for a whole horde of kids. We’ll work like mad, you and I, but it’ll be worth every second. But most of all, I see us old and gray, sitting in the kitchen bickering over the most senseless things. You are my dream, Sarah,”

Sarah’s heart soured, surging up on her tiptoes to press a chaste kiss to her boyfriend’s — fiancee’s! — lips. She was aware, vaguely, that Joseph was sliding a ring onto her ring finger. The feel of the cold metal on her finger made it feel a tad bit off, but the way the modest diamond sparkled in the morning sunshine around them casted a rainbow over every surface was well-worth it. “As long as you come back,” she said, “Just promise me you’ll come back to me,”

“You have my word, Sarah Rogers,” he smiled like Icarus. Sweet Icarus with wings of promises and youthful beauty. The foolish boy who overestimated his wings, and perished in the sea alone while his loved one was forced to live on without him. It was a smile of a man who was flying too close to the sun and would burn to a crisp without even the foggiest idea of what was happening, “I love you, dove,”

The painting was finished that afternoon, and it stayed there in the abandoned lake house long after its last guests left in a cloud of happiness. Last Sarah heard, the lake house had gotten the reputation of being haunted by the ghost of a young man with the sun on his face and a picture of his wife between blistered fingers seen in the painting once made on a sunny morning. She didn’t believe in ghosts, only angels with wings of gold.

The morning she found the officer outside the apartment she was renting in London during her medical training, the world became dark and barren. The thunderous clouds rolled to cover the entire sky and a purge of rain showered down upon the heads of the English while a young Irish woman screamed on the floor of her kitchen.

Three days later, Sarah woke up to a bloodstained massacre under her blankets and an empty womb.

Two months later, she’s holding her new son in her arms, rocking him in a wooden chair that a tenant left behind in a makeshift nursery from items the other mothers in the building had donated to her. She sang him a lullaby as he coos in her arms, a life long dream finally realized. She’s not alone. For the first time in a very long time, Sarah Rogers found herself surrounded by love and happiness that filled her heart to grow three times it’s normal size. She kissed his brow and muttered her love to the sunshine boy.

SARAH ROGERS

— brooklyn, new york, 1934 —

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Rogers!”

The bags were heavy in her arms, brown paper bags filled with the cheap produce that Sarah had managed to charm her way into getting from the grocer down the road. A years long crush that served her well when needing to provide substantial food for Steven — especially when he comes down with one hell of a fever like he has now. By the time she arrived to the steps of the building, her breath was in pants when the young man on the stoop greeted her with a smile that has lately been the talk of the young women in the shop.

James Buchanan Barnes had long since grown out of his energetic youth and into a strapping man that his father took pride in showing off in every way possible. Though he still sported baby fat on his cheeks, the rest of James had become hard and toned from working down at the docks heaving boxes to and fro on strong legs that had rarely buckled. Seventeen years old and sharp as a tack, George was already grooming the boy to one day inherit the Barnes family business of mass produced farm goods that was started several generations before James. It seemed that only Sarah and Steven knew that it won’t happen, not when the curly haired boy’s eyes looked to growing Goliath structures of New York with a shine and kept talking Steven’s ear off about the different kinds of buildings around the world. It was a secret best kept between the three of them.

Now, the young man sat with his arm holding the railing in a white knuckled grip. Face flushed and covered in a fine sheen of sweat, legs spread out in front of him with books at his side when he flashed Sarah the million dollar smile. “I was just on my way up to give Stevie his homework,” he said, voice tight, “Heat got to my head a little. Just … just takin’ a breather,”

Her heart bled for the young man. Both boys have found out quick that the world looked down on those who weren’t born completely healthy. Being cut from a different cloth than the other boys in the neighborhood, it only strengthened their bond to one that Sarah has never had the pleasure of experiencing in her own lifetime. The only thing that set James and Steven apart was that while the Jewish boy’s legs buckled every so often, Steven’s disabilities and illnesses only seemed to add on as the years went by. Scarlet Fever, asthma, color blindness, heart arrhythmia … if it exists in a medical book, Steven has probably had it a few times.

While Steven chose to accept his ailments and learned to live despite them, though, James adopted the philosophy of denial.

Though Sarah knew it wasn’t just James’ philosophy. Not from the way Winifred and George kept pushing to boy to join any sport both in and out of school.

Sarah adjusted her grip on the groceries. “I see that. It is awfully hot today,” A pause. “In fact, I’m completely drenched from just walking to the supermarket. Would you be a dear and carry the groceries upstairs?”

James panted a tad less harshly, swallowing as he pulled himself up on strong arms. He stood up on shaky legs, though he quickly covered it up locking his knees to avoid any suspicious. The books came up with him. “Of course. It would be my honor to have a beautiful woman such as yourself on my arm,” James winked, childishly and teasingly that Sarah couldn’t help but laugh. His arm intertwined with her own, leaning some of his weight on her for support as they made their way slowly to the stairs.

Hard times had befallen the building in the last couple of years. What once was a shiny and polished home with bright light became a den of sorts that chased any rays of sunshine to swallow in the darkness. Tenants moved out, new ones moved in. Sarah had lost track of who remained, the only ones she could count on on remaining in the complex was the Barnes’. They had a talk about moving to a larger home when their home had turned into a near circus with baby number three, but the Depression crashed into the company like a bulldozer and left them with no choice other to remain in the building alongside Sarah and Steven.

James had to give up his room, but he didn’t seem all that broken up considering that he still got to live just a staircase away from his best friend.

“How is he, by the way?” James asked quietly, sweat dripping once more down his temple.

“Still the same as yesterday. He’s eating, so it’s a good sign,”

James hummed in agreement, brow furrowed in concentration as he pushed through whatever pain he was currently in. Their steps were loud in the empty floor, slow and tedious as they tried to make their way to the second floor. Suddenly, the stairs looked like mountains. They walked in silence until James spoke once more. “Mamma wants to me to get crutches,” he said, face twisted bitterly, “I don’t need ‘em,”

“Need them, or want them?”

The boy tightened his jaw, joint popping under his olive skin. He didn’t talk for the rest of the journey up to the apartment, saying nothing as if he didn’t know how. The sweat dried by the time they reached the door, and he took the groceries in his hands as he stood there on strong legs while Sarah searched her purse for the key.

Opening the door, a sense of happiness settled over her tired bones when she spotted Steven sitting on the couch with a notebook open to a blank page. At sixteen, her boy hadn’t grown to be quite the stature that the other young men his age possessed. He stood about a head shorter than James, and only an inch taller than Sarah herself. His thin body refused to put on any more meat, leaving him seen by most as a lesser man, but she knew he could have any woman he wanted if he just learned to subdue his natural urge to be unbelievably stubborn. Be it that she was his mother, Sarah couldn’t understand why he spoke so lowly about his looks. He was truly every bit as beautiful as Diana, with a dash of stoic features from what Sarah believed was perhaps from Steven Senior. Just sitting by the window in the living room, he was surrounded by warmth and light. Pale skin that illuminated slightly if one looked hard enough, dark bruises painting a sharp contrast on his skin from his last scuffle, dotted freckles that would no doubt multiply once he’s well enough to go outside. The scar on his arm was smaller than it once was, though the guilt that it brought her still stayed the same weight.

“Steven, you’re supposed to be in bed,” she tsked, motioning for James to set the groceries on the kitchen counter, “There’s plenty of light in there to draw,”

Steven shrugged, flushed face still looking down at the notebook. “It was stuffy,” his voice cracked, and he cleared his throat, “And I’m running out of ideas of what to draw in there,”

James set the groceries on the counter so lightly that Sarah didn’t even hear it, just the slight vibrations of the taller boy’s footsteps as he approached the couch to lean over Steven’s notebook. He smiled, and when he spoke near the shell of the blonde’s ear, she noticed the slight goosebumps that erupted on her son’s skin, “You should draw Patty Mae Jones from school,” James chuckled, “She looked stunning today in class,”

Steven swallowed thickly, bangs moving towards his flushed face as he adjusted himself to better turn his back on his only friend. “‘M not gonna draw somethin’ out of a nine-pager, Buck!” Steve said, “That’s gross. I wanna draw something — I don’t know — classy, ya know? Like those Italian painters,”

“Oh, man,” James snapped his fingers, “You should draw that hot aunt of yours. What was her name? Something with a ‘D’,”

“Ew! What’s the matter with you? She’s your mom’s age!”

“Not in that way, you mook!” Sarah smiled as the boys bickered, “I mean like a portrait of her,”

The exchange went back and forth, between Steven pointing out how terrible James’s taste in women was and James protesting that Diana was attractive. It’s a discussion they’ve always had — a repeated argument that held no heat and was mainly brought up by the brunette to rile Steven up when he was sick. It usually ended within seconds.

Steven shoved his friend, sending the young man toppling over with a loud protest on the hardwood flooring. Sarah was just about to chastise him when James opened his mouth. “Ya know, for a skinny guy, you’re really strong,”

The smirk on Steven’s lips was brilliant, the first flash of teeth she’d seen since they realized he had contracted yet another fever. Besides, James didn’t seem to have taken the push to heart, instead moving back up on the couch to peer over the notebook. Sarah could tell by the way the pencil moved over the page that he was starting to draw the basic shape of a young feminine face.

Sarah wasn’t stupid. She started seeing how Steven stared longingly at the young girls that walked past them on the street, gliding on kitten heels and a cloud of sweet perfume while they giggled among themselves. Eventually, her little boy was going to find a nice young girl and introduce her to Sarah … the problem was that the nurse was terrified of what that might entail. She’d been only a couple years older than Steven when she had her first boyfriend — a meek and boring pastor’s son that barely spoke a few words to her the entire month they dated. She remembered breaking off the relationship the moment the weasel laid a hand on her breast, resulting in a broken finger that wasn’t any of hers. She doesn’t want her boy to grow up to be one of those kind of men. A man who thought he had a claim or right to a woman simply because she allowed him to take her on a date. In seventeen years, she hoped that she was able to instill a strong respect for women in her son. Opening a door, listening to her interests, complimenting her intelligence, they were all things she hoped Steven had memorized from their midnight chats over cold dinners.

It’s things like those that first attracted her to the wild foreign man that was Joseph Rogers. The way he would hold her hand every chance he got, crooked smile that shone on the darkest days while she rambled about the frustration of medical training. While most men did things to impress a lady enough to peek under her dress, Joseph seemed to do all that and more because he genuinely loved doing them. Picking wildflowers from the side of the road in the middle of a heavy downpour, showing up at her doorstep completely soaked but smiling as he said, “ The lilies reminded me of you,” - that’s the kind of man he was.

And although she knew Joseph wasn’t Steven’s real father, Sarah couldn’t help but hope that her son would inherit her husband’s devotion.

She’s just about halfway done with putting the groceries away when she noticed that Steven and James were no longer in the living room. The notebook was discarded on the couch, and the voices from both young men were muffled from behind the closed door of Steven’s bedroom. Now was a good time as any to star getting supper underway before she had to head out to work.

Sarah settled on a dish that didn’t require many ingredients, choosing to save most of the groceries to last them a bit more than a day. It didn’t take long to get it all together and push it into the oven with a cautious nudge, turning her grandmother’s hourglass upside down to count down the minutes until it was ready.

The moments in which Sarah had to herself were precious. It was too painful to hang photos of her first love, too many memories tied to each and every picture taken. Over the years, Sarah found herself forgetting certain details that she once committed to memory. Like the mole that he had near his eye - was it on the right or left? Was the tattoo of a cross on his bicep or chest? The image of her young husband was blurred with that of the blistered dead soldier. Though she did keep his photos in a box stashed deep in her closet, nuzzled right under the yellowing wedding dress that has since become a feast for moths. They were untouched — to remain so until a historian would one day find them and come to the conclusion that the young couple in the photos lived long and happy lives side by side. It was a secret hope that a stranger in decades from now would write Joseph a happier ending.

Nevertheless, tucked in an envelope in a heavy medical book, Sarah pulled out the letter Joseph wrote her when they were still only dating. The words were meaningless now, unfulfilled promises and shattered hopes, but it protected the only photo of a crooked smile that she allowed herself to keep alongside the pressed rose from their first date. Besides Steven, it was the most precious thing in her life.

Her cheek felt wet, so she wiped it with her sleeve cuff before making her way to Steven’s room to let the boys know that supper was ready. She probably should’ve knocked before entering the room, but all rational thought slipped her mind as she turned the handle to open the pristine white door.

“Boys, supp-” was all she managed to get out. She froze.

Steven and James’ eyes were as big as dinner plates, both flushed red and lips shining in the sunlight as they broke apart. They were only mere inches away from one another, leaving nothing to the imagination of what was happening in the room. James was the first of the three to move, looking over at the other boy with his mouth shaping around words, yet nothing came out. He jumped up. “I … uh, I’ll see you later, Steve,” he muttered, wiping his lips. The taller of the two pushed past Sarah without a glance, swiftly exiting the apartment to leave mother and son to bask in the awkwardness of the situation.

Sarah opened her mouth to speak next, yet all that she could manage to get out was “Go wash up, supper is on the table,” and then retreating to the kitchen with hurried steps. There were a million thoughts running through her head, most involving around fear and confusion as she kept replaying the image over and over. The gentle misplacement of lips against each other in a kiss that was obviously both their first and graceless. It was horrible. They were too young to know what society would do to the two; a beast with an endless appetite to rip apart any semblance of diversity that came even near it. Homosexuals were seen as filthy, pedophilic, and disgraceful. Her boy was anything but those words — Hell, he’s a descendant of a Goddess, divinity poured into his veins and light illuminating from his skin.

Christ , what’s Diana going to say upon Steven’s eighteenth birthday? A woman raised on an island inhabited by females and females only, there no doubt has been sapphic interaction between a couple of Amazons, right? Or did the religious law also tether them to not seek out pleasure and love from anyone other than a male? It didn’t matter what Amazons did or didn’t do, her son was just kissing another man. Both sexes that were greatly frowned upon in Themyscira.

Sarah was so over her head, and there’s really nothing she could do about it. Her only hope was to get Steven to feel comfortable enough to talk to her about these feelings and emotions. When the door of the bathroom opened, however, whatever stradegy she had in mind suddenly turned to dust and left her speachless.

Steven shuffled out of the bathroom with his head hung, taking a seat across his mother. He sat with his eyes tracing the patterns on the old wood - blinking heavily as if he were to fall asleep at any moment. The soft sounds of the world outside the window filled the silence, though it didn’t mask how incredibly loud the clanking of the chipped porcelain bowl being set in front of Steven. She winced. Her son didn’t even so much as twitch. Could it be from his partial deafness or mortification, she had no idea.

The two ate in the quietness of the fading afternoon, golden light filtering through the windows. Steven had only taken a few spoonful into his mouth in the span of the time it took for Sarah to almost completely finish her own bowl. Finally, she broke the silence. “I tried something different. The recipe called for liver, but I know how you despised having to eat it as a child, do you remember?” she got no reply back. “I used beef this time. Not quite the same taste. Next time I want to try using cooked liver. Would you eat it if it was cooked? I promise to drown it in salt if it mask-”

“Are you disgusted with me, Ma?”

Sarah sighed. She was the one that initiated the conversation to try and get Steven to speak, but now she regretted it. Time to face the music, she was going to have to actually talk through these emotions now. Joseph Rogers was somewhere up in the Heavens, laughing his ass off at her. The blonde set her spoon down, intertwining her fingers together and resting her chin upon them. Her mother’s voice chastised her for having elbows on the table — she didn’t care.

“I’m not disgusted ,” she started, “I- … It’s a shock, is all,”

Steven leaned back in his chair with a sour twist to his lips, sucking on his teeth in an almost challenging way. His eyes never met Sarah’s, knowing that she knew him inside and out — save for the homoerotic tendencies, apparently. His arms crossed over his bony chest. He nodded to show that he could hear her just fine. “It shocked me too,” he said, “Buck kissed me first, if that makes you feel better,”

She’s really not shocked. Seventeen was a lovely age for girls in which they were allowed liberty to doll themselves up, for boys it was an age of understanding urges that weren’t there before. “It doesn’t. I don’t need you to make me feel better, Steven, I need you to talk to me,”

“About?”

“About your feelings. Did you …” she shrugged with puckered lips, “ … like it? Hate it? Talk to me, love,”

Wiping his hands down his face, Steve lifted those gorgeous blue eyes towards the ceiling. It stung, seeing that her son didn’t trust her enough to look her in the eyes when he spoke. “There’s not a whole lot’a girls linin’ up to kiss me, Ma. Look at me. No one wants a fella that she might step on,” he sighs, “Buck … he has all these girls that really like ‘im. He can have any girl from school, but he chose me to be his first kiss. Said he trusted me. It was … Ma, it was the most magical moment of my life,” Sarah nodded for him to continue. “I really liked it. I’m so sorry, but I did,”

Sarah didn’t say anything, her mind swirling to the dizziness she felt the first time she kissed Joseph. Every time she kissed Joseph. There hadn’t been one kiss, one peck, that didn’t leave her weak in the knees for the man. Seventeen years later, and she still remembered what it was like to feel the gentle press of a lover’s soft lips against her own. The rush, the passion, the adoration. Joseph poured all his feelings into a simple good morning kiss. For the few years they were together, he didn’t even leave a single ounce of doubt in her mind that he was completely gone on her.

“What did it feel like?”

Tears shun in Steven’s eyes when he looked into hers. “It felt like love. Like in the stories you would tell me about Dad. Everything just seemed … to melt away.,”

That’s the kicker, isn’t it? That’s the whole secret to the universe that philosophers have poured centuries to discover; loving someone too much will only result in suffering. She loved Joseph with every fiber in her being, and it wasn’t enough to stop the gas on the battlefield. She hoped that Steven wouldn’t have to go through this, at least not for a few more years to when he was matured. All hopes lies in fruitless efforts, she supposed.

“What are you really feeling right now?”

A dam broke somewhere within the boy, and a cascade of tears leaked out onto his gentle face. His breath hitched dangerously, thin shoulders shaking from holding it in too long. “I-I think I love him, Ma. I’m so sorry. Please, please forgive me,”

Pushing her seat back, Sarah flung her arms around her son in a tight embrace. She committed the way his skin felt under her fingertips to her memory, the way the slight shine that came from it felt warm despite how someone with her son’s blood circulation would be chilled. Steven grabbed onto her as tight as he could, strong in a way that he shouldn’t be. He was small, overlooked by so many that he even overlooked himself, but there was so much to her boy that made him one thousand times more of a man than any bastard with muscles. He was everything to her. Her one true love.

She pulled away and kneeled at his feet as if he were a king. Her hands cupped the sharpness of his jaw, framing his reddened face like a golden portrait. Tears leaked down his cheeks in succession with his hitched breaths, and she used her thumb to wipe them away. “Steven Grant Rogers, look at me,” she said firmly, only speaking again when his eyes met hers, “You are my flesh and blood. There is nothing you can do that will be unforgivable to me,”

“B-but-”

“Deep breaths, baby boy,”

“How can you possibly understand?”

Wiping away Steven’s tears distracted her from her own salty tears, a painted sorry sight of two lone souls crying in the heart of Brooklyn. “I don’t understand. I never will. Steven, I’m not supposed to understand, because my love for you is not rooted in understanding. I love you unconditionally and endlessly,”

“What would people think? They already think I’m bad, ”

“ Fuck what people think! You’re my son, damnit, and we Rogers’ don’t take shit from no one,”

“ Ma !” he squeaked, giggling under his breath. Sarah joined in despite her tears, bringing his face closer until both their foreheads were pressed up against each other. She closed her eyes and breathed in their bond. She understood, now, why Diana was so hellbent on being a good mother. It wasn’t because she felt an obligation to the child she birthed, but because the connection between a child and its mother was so powerful . It was a drug, addicting and euphoric whenever they were together. Even being gone for longer than a few hours felt like a gaping hole in your heart - Sarah couldn’t imagine what it was like for Diana to be so far from Steven for almost two decades. Being a mother was both the hardest and freeing thing Sarah had ever faced.

It took all her might to pull away, kissing him on the forehead with a loud smack that earned a disgusted yelp from the boy. “‘M not a little kid, ya know,”

“Oh, nonsense,” Sarah smiled, “You’ll always be a little kid stuffing newspaper into your shoes to me,”

He looked down at his lap, licking his lips. His body language shifted from relaxed to slightly tense. “You and Dad … you really loved each other, right?”

“Loved him enough to marry him,”

“Then why aren’t there any photos of him up?” his eyes danced around the walls and shelves of the apartment, scanning each and every frame as if one of them held the secrets to becoming an emperor, “There’s Nana, and Mamó, but I don’t even know what Dad even looks like,”

Sarah sighed once more. How could she describe this in a way that someone so young could understand? “You’re so young and new to love, Steven. I hope that you never have to know what it’s like to lose someone you love so much,”

Steven nodded and dropped the subject. He returned to his supper, eating it a faster rate than before. Sarah, meanwhile, stood up and dusted off her skirt with an eye looking towards the clock on the counter near the stove. It was about a quarter past six, giving her a good fifteen minutes to wash up before she had to report at the hospital. Thankfully she had the foresight of putting on her nursing uniform before leaving for the market - save for her apron and cap, of course. “Well, I’d say that’s enough emotions for today,” she chimed, “Don’t get up until you finish your supper, young man. I’m going to go get ready for work,”

“Yes, Ma,”

Arriving to St. Raphael Hospital, Sarah was breathless from the rushed paced she had to keep if she wanted to make her shift on time. There was already a leniency that her superiors allowed her since many of her coworkers vouched for her impeccable bedside manner and on account of her son’s many illnesses, but she didn’t want to push her luck too far by being unnecessarily late to relieve one of the nurses. The tiled floors made her shoes clack loudly as she entered the front doors, hand digging into her purse for her rogue lipstick. She knew she had seen it only a minute before leaving the house …

“Evening, Sarah!”

The nurse jumped with a slight gasp, hand on her chest as she opened her eyes to come face to face with Nurse Jenny Lee. One of the newer hires, she was a sweet girl that kept an air of professionalism and politeness that was often the main point of jealousy among the other nurses in the hospital. From what she told Sarah, Jenny was a midwife that transferred from a small nunnery in Poplar, England — a town that the blonde remembered from when she lived in England all those years ago — and had chosen to instead care for the elderly in their final years. The slow hours of the night were often filled with stories she would tell the other nurse about all the friends she missed from Nonnatus House. Sarah liked hearing all the strange patients and babies Jenny had encountered, though she did feel bad at how unfortunate it was that someone willingly went by the name of Chummy . “Hello, Jenny,”

Today, Jenny had a spring in her step as she fumbled with her scarlet cardigan, fixing her hair to better tuck under the pristine cap on her head. “I just got here myself, so I’m afraid I can’t tell you how everyone is feeling today,” she said, smiling at Sarah as she fell into step with the other woman, “Word around hospital is that we’re getting a new ward. I think it’s a marvelous idea, don’t you think?”

“What for? Unless they hire more nurses, we’ll be stretched thinner than a strand of hair,” Sarah rolled her eyes, handing her purse to Jenny, “We’re already working ourselves ragged, mind you,”

Jenny swung Sarah’s bag absentmindedly as she watched the other woman pull on her own cardigan, silently thanking a young man for holding the door to the stairwell open for the two. She seemed to think about Sarah’s response for a long moment before saying, “I suppose you’re right. I left Nonnatus House because I wanted to leave midwifery and they have me working in both the birthing and elderly ward,”

The two chatted more about work, quipping complains to one another about their jobs as if they’d ever leave it. Becoming a nurse was hard enough with the judgement that came upon them from society deeming them as spinsters or too ugly to marry a man to support them, they didn’t need to be proving the onlookers right by quitting the only profession that held some prestige for women. The conversation only halted when Jenny laid a delicate hand on Sarah’s arm.

“By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask, how is your son?”

He’s a disabled homosexual in love with his best friend and in two years, he’s going to learn that not only am I his adopted mother, but also that he’s the son of a Goddess. “Better. His fever should be expected to break any second now,”

Jenny smiled with a head tilt. “That’s good to hear,” she sang, “I was worried that the weather might keep him down for longer,”

“No, he’s far too stubborn to be pushed down by a mere fever,”

Both laughed as they arrived to their floor, hands reaching for the time cards that rested in the small cubby labeled with their names. The other nurses starting their shifts made quick to punch in their cards and slot it back into the proper place, greeting Dr. Moor from his place at the desk near the slots. He hummed back the same greetings, never once looking up from his chart until Sarah reached over to punch her card in.

“Just a moment, Nurse Rogers,” he piped up, looking up at her from over his specs, “It seems that you have been transferred,”

Jenny’s face screwed up unpleasantly, leaning forward as if she didn’t understand what Dr. Moor said. Sarah narrowed her eyes. “Transferred? Dr. Moor, I’ve been working in this ward for years, where could I possibly be transferred to?”

Dr. Moor sighed heavily, a few more wrinkles setting into what once was a meek and shy face. He adjusted his coat and position on the chair, scanning the names on the list in front of him with a finger before stopping on one in particular.

“Now, now, don’t shoot the messenger, Rogers,” he turned the chart to face her, finger still pointing at her name written neatly on the line with a small footnote next to it. “You’re being transferred to the tuberculosis ward on the fifth floor. A nurse up there will settle you in, don’t worry,”

sarah rogers

— brooklyn, new york, 1936 —

The sun was getting real low over the New York sky, and Sarah knew that she wouldn’t live to see it come back up.

Two years. It’s been a long journey, full of bloodied handkerchiefs and painful chest convulsions. Who knew that simply transferring up three more floors would effectively be signing her own death certificate? Who knew, who knew, who knew.

It was all in the past now. There’s nothing Sarah could do about it; she was just a simple Irish girl with a fascination for art. In her eyes, she has lived a good life full of love and struggles, loss and gain, miracles and damnation. She married a beautiful man, and experienced a love that would limitless in motherhood. There had been many patients that had taken the time to visit her at home, bringing gifts of pink carnations and lovely chrysanthemums — pulling up the wooden chair by her bed and sitting to reminisce about their hospital days of which Sarah didn’t remember at all.  They bring with them words of encouragement, gratitude, and we’ll-see-each-other-soon’s.

Winifred and her children often visited too, always holding a new dish in her hands, faking a smile on her lips. She’d sit on the bed, knit, and talk about all the things that Sarah was missing out on. Winnie would talk for hours in one-sided conversations that would pause to ask a question once in a while, making it Sarah’s cue to speak. She loved it when Winnie visited. It was as if they were two young mothers again sitting around the table with cookies made with American chocolate and drinking watered-down wine. The blonde was allowed to pretend that she was as healthy as a horse, strong once more to fight the world around her that dared to touch her son.

Winnie once said, “ Don’t you give up on me, now, Sarah. Who else will sit and gossip with me? Betty Marks? Please, that woman is just trouble,” yet her face became somber, reaching out to touch Sarah’s hand with her warm one, “ You’ll get better, darling. Just you wait. We’re meant to be two old birds sitting on the stoop for the rest of our lives, you and I,”

She’ll miss Winnifred Barnes. She did hope that the woman will find another friend to ramble with, a new best friend to replace the one she lost. Though sweet, Sarah was also selfish, and gifted Winnifred her hourglass to remember her. Winnifred had accepted it with a tight voice, smiling past the lump in both their throats and said, “ I’ll use to to count down the minutes to your recovery,”

Denial is the worst kind of lie because it is the lie you tell yourself.

Still, Sarah went along with the false promises of miracles and failed prayers for good health. Laying on her deathbed, Sarah didn’t fear Death at all. She’s confronted the bastard time and time again, shook his hands and danced with him on nights full of loneliness and despair before she met Steven. There was no use in fighting him, now, because she knew her name was written on his list. She’d gladly take his bony hand into the light — that is, if it wasn’t for her son.

Once upon a time, Sarah made a pact with a Goddess to tell her child about his true origins come his eighteenth birthday. It was October, the colors and chills having long since set in. Steven still believed Sarah to be his real mother, treating her like a Saint instead of despising her for keeping the truth from him for so long. Like she said, Sarah was a selfish woman, and she couldn’t bare the thought of her one true love hating her even for a second. He deserved to know who his real parents were, but for right now, she wanted him to still love the ones he grew up believing.

Sarah licked the envelope concealing a letter that contained everything Steven needed to know about Diana Prince and Steve Trevor - everything that had transpired in the past eighteen years of his life. The idea was for Steven to open it after she had passed, a coward's way out of a web of lies and deceit. She hoped it would bring him closure long past she had died along with the sun on the horizon. It’s the least she could do. Writing his name on the front, Sarah set the envelope on the nightstand for later and noticed that Steven’s bowl of soup was still almost full to the brim.

“Steven?”

He looked up from his notebook, face smoothed into that of a man, “Yes?”

“You have to eat,” she sighed, sinking into the plushness of her pillow, “Carrots are good for the memory. I want you to pay attention and learn. You keep studying and drawing like you do, and you’ll be someone,”

The scowl on his face told a million words, some of which probably are blasphemous in the name of carrots, but he simply shrugged and settled on saying, “Why would I want to remember this?”

Sarah nodded. She’d rather not argue with Steven about this, not when she’s fighting to breathe at the moment and she has so much she would like to say to him. He’s grown so much in the past few years — getting a job at a local grocer to support them when Sarah became too sick to continue working at the hospital. The Barnes’ help out, also, when they have the time between the three little girls running around and working at keeping the company afloat. It’s strange. All her life she was told that no one would help her in her time in need, yet she had a whole village behind her. She must’ve done something really good to deserve the help.

Steven’s bangs fall into his eyes as he draws, fingers stained with charcoal and sitting in an awfully painful looking position on a chair that didn’t exactly do wonders for those with scoliosis. His legs were long and skinny, practically swimming in his trousers that James had lent him when the young man put on a few more inches and couldn’t fit in them anymore. The freckles that use to pepper his skin were fading along with the baby fat that had still clung to his cheeks until a few months ago. It’s foolish to think so, but Sarah thought that he looked so much like her own father. Both men were thin, but noble and loyal to those that they loved most on this Earth and the next. Steven looked up once more with a smile on his face, turning the sketchbook to face her. “I drew this for you,” he announced proudly, “It’s the castle from the story about the Swan King? When you’re all better, I want to go visit it with you,”

Sarah’s heart squeezed. The castle was gorgeous. It looked exactly like how she herself imagined the famed castle to look like — complete with the tall pointed towers and covered in lovely windows that Steven had colored to look like gold. It stood among a forest of emeralds with a large body of water behind the castle itself. Oh, how she use to dream of traveling to far off lands that inspired so many of the stories she would read Steven at night. One of the most prominent of those dreams were to lay in the sun in the middle of a grand field full of hydrangeas and zinnias somewhere in Germany. She wanted to feel the Earth under her fingers, the scent of the flowers filling her senses, and breathing goodness into the universe from her spot in the grass.

But, laying in a bed surrounded by bouquets of flowers and next to her son was perhaps better than anything she could have ever dreamed of.

“It’s beautiful,” she smiled, “But you and I both know you’ll have to journey there yourself, my love,”

“No, I won’t, because you’ll get better, right, Ma?” and oh, how his eyes shone like stars when they got teary like this. She swallowed the lump in her throat, reaching to touch his hand. The stark contrast between golden skin against pale sickly skin made her wrinkle her nose.

“Be strong, baby. Go on and eat your soup. Mrs. Barnes made it, it’d be rude t-”

“I don’t want it!” Steven bellowed, desperation in his face casting shadows on his features to make him both seem older and younger than he really is, “I want you to get better! You can’t leave me, Ma, you can’t,” he angrily wiped a straw tear with his thumb, “ I’m the sick one. It should be me , not you. Why does it have to be you?”

The sun was started to get low, and the room was starting to illuminate just like it did the day she brought this beautiful man into the world. Her chest started to ache from trying to breathe past her lungs beginning to shut down. There was a sudden rattling that filled the air when she took a breath, a shooting pain when she exhaled. That’s when she saw him .

Joseph Rogers standing in the corner of the room, light surrounding him in a beckoning cloud of warmth that whispered ‘ come towards me’ . He stood straight, wearing his formal military uniform filled to the brim with multiple medals and decorative praise. The skin of his fingers and face was clear like the day he left with a hushed promise on her lips to be back before she knew it. A part of her didn’t want to see him, fearful that he would shun her away in disgust at how sickly thin and pasty she looked, but the smile that broke out on his young handsome face only gave her courage to face the unknown chapter of her existence.

She tugged at Steven’s hand, weakly encouraging to follow suit. “Come here, sunshine boy, I have to tell you something,” she said. Her crying son obeyed, crawling into the small room towards the edge of the bed to lay next to Sarah — an aged up version of the way she once held him when he was only five and begging her to tell her a story before bedtime whilst cradling a nasty gash on his arm. Laying his head in the crook of her neck, she used to last of the strength she still had in her to squeeze him close in her embrace. “Your life is always going to be a difficult one, but don’t let that harden your heart. A hard life can be a good life as long as you always do what you can to help others. Never forget that,”

“Momma, please …”

“It has been an honor to be your mother, Steven,” she didn’t know if it was the TB or her own emotions that was starting to make it hard to breathe, “You have been the greatest love of my life, and I wouldn’t trade even a second of these years for all the riches in the world. You must promise me that you’ll go on to spread as much goodness in the world as you have given me,”

Steven clung to her even tighter — as if his own hand could anchor her to life. The world was growing dark around the edges, and Joseph was now standing even closer to the bed than before. “Momma, don’t go. Please , don’t leave me. I need you! I need you, Momma, please. Don’t do this to me,” he begged, whimpering, and sobbing just as he did when he was a child. Her golden crowned Prince. Her neck was damp from his tears. “ Please ,” 

“Hello, dove. It’s been far too long,”

“Steven, listen to me. I have to go, your father is here for me,” she whispered, for it was all she could do, “I love you. No matter where you go or who you become, I will always love you. I have loved you all your life, and I will continue to love you in death. You’re my beautiful sunshine boy,”

There was a loud wail that ripped the silence in the room, Steven’s fingers gripping and pulling at any surface of her body that he could touch to just stay, Momma, please, please, take me with you. His love for her radiated from him in bursts of blinding lights, the God-like divinity that lived in him only made her feel even more at peace.

Everyone tries to die with an Earthly title that becomes meaningless in death. Fame, fortune, and power were nothing compared to the love that remains long after a body turns back to dust. Sarah knew that she wasn’t just a simple Irish girl, nor was she a sweet nurse, because Sarah Rogers realized that she is loved . When God lays his hand on her head, and asks her, “Who were you, Sarah?” , she’ll reply in a voice as strong as her heart, “I was loved” . She was the luckiest woman that ever lived — because she got to be loved by the most amazing thing to grace this world, and she was blessed with having the love of good souls to follow her into the darkness that laid before her.

Sarah Rogers neè MacCarthaigh — cherished mother, daughter, and wife — closed her eyes for the final time, and never opened them again.