Disclaimer: Well, in truth, I know who owns "Roswell" and it ain’t me...so why do I even write these things? This is so pointless! I mean, honestly!

Author’s Note-Anything in italics represents a thought or past event.

***

She always cried every year on that day. I never knew why, because she told me it was nothing. But it’s wasn’t, because I saw it every other day of the year. The hurt, regret, betrayal...everything she still lets out on one designated day a year.

"Mom?" I opened the door to her room and she looked up at me. Her eyes, red and puffy, overflowed with fresh tears. She was surrounded by a sea of used tissues and was curled up in bed.

"Yes, Charlotte?" she answered, her voice cracking. "What’s wrong, baby?" I walked over to her and she cast her gaze to the floor. As if my own gaze hurt, as if there’s something wrong with my eyes.

"Mommy, why do you cry this day each year?" I asked her as another tear trickled down her cheek.

She finally looked up at me, with all the wisdom of her 40 years. She reached out her hand to cup my cheek and I suddenly saw a flash...

*flash

My mom and tall, dark man dancing. My mother was laughing and smiling...but she never smiles like that anymore. Why? What devastating tragedy left her so sad and barren?

*flash

I got those flash things a lot but never knew why. I can also take out stains and fix things. I had always wanted to talk about it with someone, but what could I have said? "Hey Mom, I think I have superhero powers!" I was sure she would love that.

"Let me tell you a story, Charlotte Marie Alexandra," she began, as she patted the space next to her and I went to sit next to her. She only called me by my full name when she was serious. "It was in a small town in New Mexico, where rumors filter about and are believed by everyone. A tourist town."

"Roswell," we said together. Somehow I knew where she was talking about, and she looked at me with her big doe eyes, startled. But she recovered quickly and continued.

"I was your age, and I was a waitress at Grandma and Grandpa’s café. One day, in the beginning of my sophomore year in high school, there were two men who were arguing. Eventually, the argument led to a gunshot, and it hit me. As I lay dying on the ground, a boy who I had known since third grade named Max ran up to me, ripped open my dress, placed his hand over the wound, and healed it." I looked at her and my eyes widened. "The next day at school, he told me that he wasn’t from around here."

"Where was he from?" I asked, and she pointed upward. "What was he, Canadian?" She shook her head and pointed higher. "He wasn’t...an alien, was he?" She nodded, and I looked at her incredulously.

"I fell in love with that boy, Chara, but I knew that one day, he would find a way back to wherever he was from. I knew I would never let him stay." She looked up at me and I saw her eyes were glassy with tears.

"Did he ever...?" She looked away.

"The day came when we were 24. We had both gone to Harvard-he was studying medicine, and I molecular biology." And finally, a proud smile graced my mother’s face. I knew she loved being the head of biology at Harvard and it shows, then and now. But the smile faded once she remembered. "He looked at me and said, ‘Liz, we found a way home.’"

"We?" I inquired.

"His sister, Isabel, and his best friend, Michael, were...not of this earth, too." She paused, as if catching her breath. "They were allowed to bring one person. Michael brought my best friend, Maria. They had fallen in love. Isabel brought my other best friend, Alex. They, too, had grown to love one another over the years." An agitated frown crossed her face.

"Why didn’t you go with Max?" She looked at me, and a glimmer of pain crossed her dark brown eyes.

"I was pregnant with you, Charlotte, and I didn’t know what we happen. It would have been too devastating to lose you, because you are Max’s child." She brushed her hand against my cheek. "And that is why you may see things, like memories, or are able to heal or change things. I refused to go, so Max told me he would come back for you and me one day...but it’s been 16 years, Charlotte, and he hasn’t returned." I felt tears stinging my own eyes, but I fought back. I have to be strong, I reminded myself. Strong for Mom, strong for Max, strong for the hope that one day he may return.

"I’m sorry, Mommy," I told her.

"Don’t ever be, Charlotte." She smiled at me. "You have brought me more happiness than you can ever know. You left a piece of Max to sustain me while he is away...you were sent down from heaven to be my baby." I buried my face in her shoulder and began to cry. To cry for the losses of my mother and me. The loss of Max, her love and my father, her best friends, a chance for life somewhere else...

And later that night, I heard a soft, almost vibrating hum-a familiar sound that I knew human vocal chords could never generate. The sound was calming, like a lullaby. It was practically like I knew the sound by instinct...a hum, maybe, that my father, aunt, and surrogate uncle knew, too. And an almost memory of strong, dark arms and pure love surrounded me, as something I knew must be my father reached out across a galaxy of space and time to tell me, "Yes, Charlotte, I know about you. And yes, Charlotte, I love you."

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