Sitting on her attic floor, surrounded by boxes containing her mother’s most sacred secrets, Jia’s frozen as her mother stares down at her. She snuck into the attic looking for evidence of her family’s recently discovered history of martial arts. Her dad slipped and revealed her mother and grandfather were once great fighters but when he realized what he said, he immediately clammed up.

Attempts to get either parent to elaborate proved futile. Her curiosity eventually led to this attic and the boxes of evidence her parents hid away. Evidence of a history she never suspected until she started digging.

Now her mother’s standing there. Neither of them is sure what to say. Finally her mother breaks the silence. “So, you found my stuff. I guess now’s as good a time as any to have a little chat about it.”

Jia waits for her to continue but she’s seemingly waiting for a response. “Okay.”

Walking over to Jia, her mother looks into an open box containing two similar costumes. She has a strange look of sadness on her face. Crouching down, she runs her hand over the costume on top, the one that looks meant for a young woman. Turning again to face her daughter, she asks, “What would you like to know?”

Trying to pick one of the millions of questions rushing through her head seems impossible. It takes a few moments to narrow it down. “What is all of this?”

“As good a question as any I suppose. It’s a long story though. We might as well start at the beginning. At least the beginning for our purposes. This art has been passed down in our family for generations. Your grandfather was taught martial arts by his father at a young age. You never saw that side of him.” She moves the first costume aside and looks at the one underneath it.

“It’s hard for me to imagine him hurting anybody.”

“He was very dangerous at one time. You’ve probably seen some of the evidence of that in these boxes. He joined the army as a way out but he planned on keeping his head down and serving out his time. That didn’t really work. He fell backwards into fame and before long he was part of the most important mission of the war. When he got home, he found he enjoyed the fame, maybe too much. He tried to help people for a few years here but that was always difficult with the public mindset of the time and eventually he retired.”

This doesn’t seem real, but nothing in her mother’s demeanor suggests she’s lying. She seems more at peace than Jia’s ever seen her. “He kept living that life for a lot longer than he should have. It was a long time before he met your grandmother and settled down to have me. They wanted more children but then your grandmother died and I was all he had. He didn’t want to remarry and since he wasn’t going to have a son, I was his only choice to keep his legacy alive. He didn’t just pass down skills and training though. He gave me his whole identity. He wanted me to be Serenity.”

That’s the name she’s been waiting to hear escape her mother’s lips. The hair on her arms stand on end. “I trained until I was strong enough to take even him on. Eventually he wanted to go out, to return to his old life. He wanted me with him. By that time it was the 70s. There was so much more danger on the streets than he’d seen twenty years earlier. He didn’t care at all. He decided I was going to prove myself and there was no other way.”

Her mother seems to be struggling through this part. The lighting’s dim but she can hear the emotion in her mother’s voice. “We don’t have to keep going if you don’t want to mom.”

“I want to get through this so I don’t have to do it again. At first I was excited to learn from him. My whole life was about getting stronger; I was so proud of everything he taught me. I felt like the luckiest girl alive. When I got out on the streets though it was different. It was no longer about learning. I had to hurt real people, people doing bad things but that didn’t make it easier. I hated it.”

She pauses and takes a few deep breaths. “I couldn’t let my father down so I kept pushing, for far longer than I should have. Things got bad. I was afraid I was going to die almost every night, or that I’d have to kill someone which seemed just as bad. Then I met your father and I quit. I don’t think your grandfather ever really forgave me. He said he was okay but I knew that was a lie.”

“Mom, seriously, we can let this drop for tonight. Why don’t we talk about it later?”

He mom shakes her head. “No, I want to get through this now. After tonight I’d prefer to put this all back in the past where it belongs. I swore off martial arts and decided I’d never wear that costume again. I put it in a box and packed it away. I almost burned both of those costumes but I couldn’t quite bring myself to erase it, to act like it wasn’t a part of me. I swore you and your brother would never be pushed into that life, never learn to fight even.”

“Is that why you never told me you knew how to fight, even when I started competing?”

Her mother nods. “When you started getting older, my father begged me to train the two of you or at least let him do it but I refused. The day you decided to get involved in martial arts was one of the worst of my life. I’d been so careful to keep you away from martial arts. I always talked badly about fighting, I wouldn’t let you watch the movies, none of it mattered. I was so sure my father got to you somehow that I drove to his house and screamed at him. He swore he didn’t do anything but it took hours before I believed him. Your dad convinced me I should let you learn even though I didn’t want you to. He said it wasn’t the same as what I’d trained in and it was good to know how to protect yourself.”

Jia sits there unsure how to react. “That’s a lot to take in.” Now it’s her mother’s turn to nod. “So to be clear, when you were younger, like my age, you dressed up in this costume and fought criminals in the streets.”

Her mother starts laughing, putting her hands behind her head. “Sounds crazy doesn’t it? I can barely believe it myself. I just couldn’t do it anymore after a while, and when I met your father I saw a different life. One I’d never even considered.”

Her mother pauses at this point, taking yet another deep breath before continuing. “Right at the end, there was a terrible murder I was looking into. The police were having no luck solving it. I’d heard awful things about the killer and how dangerous he was from a friend. I didn’t want anything to do with the case. I’d already started cutting back on the vigilante thing and I thought the police could handle it. Your grandfather wasn’t having it. He saw an article in the paper and he called me asking if I was looking into it. I told him to let the police handle this one, that was their job after all. He told me it was my duty to try and save anyone I could. He even threatened to suit back up himself and go out there.”

“How old was he at this point?”

“Well, this was the late 80s, so probably in his mid to late 60s. He was too old and I didn’t want him getting hurt so I agreed to at least poke around. Things went badly. That’s all you really need to know. I was so afraid, not of dying but of living after what I saw. Your father, well that’s a story for another night but he knew about me. He convinced me I deserved a life where I could have peace, where I wouldn’t be risking my life every day. That’s just how he put it too. Saying it that way, it sounded as ridiculous as it was. Why couldn’t I just be myself? My father talked about legacy but running around fighting crime wasn’t our family legacy. Martial arts maybe, but he was the first one to put on a funny costume and go fight crime. I learned the arts, I told him that would have to be enough.”

Jia doesn’t know what to say so she keeps her mouth shut. Instead of talking, she stands and walks to her mom, squeezing her in a hug. They stand like that for several minutes. “I know you didn’t want me to go into martial arts mom and I get why now. I did go into them though. I got really good. If this is our family’s legacy, why don’t you train me so I can pass them on?”

Her mom ends their embrace and practically shoves her daughter away. “Not a chance. That is only going to lead you down a bad road. I made that decision a long time ago.”

“Mom, I’ve been sitting around here doing nothing and going nowhere for six months now. I can’t figure out what to do with my life or even with my days. I need something to grab onto. This could be it. If grandpa trained you then you can train me. I don’t want to run around in a costume. That’s crazy. Richard Hughes is a maniac, talking about bringing back vigilantes. I just want to know our family heritage. Then I can pass it onto my kids someday. If the legacy is enough then we should keep it alive, right?”

“Martial arts can bring focus but you don’t need these. You can practice what you’ve spent ten years studying. A little family history isn’t going to give you a purpose in life. You don’t have some destiny. Your life is what you make of it. Your grandfather may have disagreed but it isn’t like it led him to a lifetime of happiness. Trust me honey, I know what I’m talking about here. You wanted to know our family history and after you found all of this, I figured I should tell you. That’s it though. This stuff’s going back in boxes and we’re going to keep living our lives like we always have. Besides, if I taught you any of this stuff I don’t know how your father would take it.”

Jia is caught off guard by this last part. “Dad doesn’t want me to learn? I thought he was the one who was okay with me learning martial arts. He’s always been so supportive.”

“Your dad was supportive of you learning to defend yourself. He did tell me I could teach you the arts if I wanted to years ago. That was before though. He knows I don’t really want to and with everything going on in the world right now, I think he’d get scared that you were going to follow in my footsteps. Maybe I’ll reconsider someday but not now.”

She walks to the box of costumes and puts it’s lid back on. Picking the box up, she sets it back in the stack where Jia found it. Once that’s done, she heads for the stairs, pausing only long enough to say, “Good night honey. I’ll see you in the morning. Make sure to close up the attic when you come down.” With that she’s gone.