I think people are scared of my mom.
I'm not sure why, except they always back up a little when she comes into a room, and their eyes get real wide. Most of the time Mom's carrying me, though, so I don't know why everybody's so afraid of a lady with a kid.
Mom and Dad's friend Shay said it's 'cause not a lot of people look like Mom does… but Shay kind of looks like her, I think, except softer. So do their other friends who come visit sometimes— and they all have those cuts on their arms like Mom, too.
After Shay told me that, I asked why Dad's not scared, since he kisses Mom lots, even when she uses her mad voice (like last week when I didn't clean up my room). Shay said that taking on millions of years of evolution was his hobby, and I didn't get that part but I forgot to ask about it 'cause just then she showed me the cool new hover board she got and even let me ride on it a little with her. Then Mom and Dad came in and looked like they were gonna need life-extension treatments and Shay got yelled at.
Also, Mom and Dad are on the newsfeeds lots of times, and sometimes I'm even on there with them (the funniest time is when a hovercam kept getting way too close to me, so Mom flung it into the wall and it broke into a bunch of pieces). But shouldn't that mean everyone knows how Mom looks, so nobody should be scared of her?
One time I was at Grandma Maddy's house, and it was almost time for bed. I visit her a lot, but only sleep over when Mom and Dad have to go on trips to other cities— they say I'm too little for coming with them. I was sitting on the counter chewing a toothpaste pill and looking into her big mirror.
"My eyes are weird-colored," I told her. "They're blue and green at the same time."
"No, dear," Grandma Maddy said, while she was brushing my hair, "they look like your mother's used to."
I stared at her. "You mean Mom got surge like those people in the city?" That sounded really weird, since Grandma Maddy's house is like ours: it isn't in the city, it's outside it. She says she's used to living outside the city, and nobody ever says 'no' to her, not even official city people.
"She did," Grandma Maddy said, lifting me up. She carried me into her bedroom and put me on the bed, the pulled the blankets over me.
"What kind of surge?" I asked. I couldn't remember Mom's eyes being anything except black.
Grandma Maddy took a minute to answer. "A special kind," she finally said.
I smiled at her, showing my teeth. One had just come out yesterday, when it was so loose that Dad tugged it out for me. "Mom's special," I said, snuggling into the pillows and yawning.
I think I was almost asleep when Grandma Maddy said, kind of sadly, "Yes, she certainly is."
*
The day after Mom and Dad got back from the other city and took me home, I was watching Mom make my lunch. Usually she waits for Dad, 'cause Mom hardly ever eats and mostly burns stuff she tries to make anyway, but I was really hungry and Dad had to talk with Important People, so we were alone.
"Mom?" I said.
"Hmm?" she said back, then muttered a bad word that I got in trouble for saying too.
"Grandma Maddy said your eyes used to be like mine."
She didn't say a bad word then, but I think she should have, 'cause she was quiet for so long that my sandwich started smoking. My city-friend Kina says that normal moms don't make their own kid's lunch, they let the house do it, but my mom does lots of things different from other people.
"They did," Mom said, really quiet, then looked at my sandwich, then said a bad word, then threw it in the incinerator. She took a big breath and let it out slow, the way Dad does when he's trying not to get mad. The flash tattoos on the side of her face were spinning faster than normal. I sat on the kitchen chair on my knees and pulled her down so I could touch them. I want flash tattoos whenever I'm allowed to get surge. They are so icy (I think that last word means "good," since Shay says it a lot and Shay's mostly happy all the time).
Mom smiled a little when I traced her flash tattoos. "Why did you change your eyes?" I asked her.
"I didn't exactly… well. It's hard to remember," is all she said. Mom does that sometimes— explains things so that I still don't understand, like when I asked why some lady on the newsfeeds called Dad "ugly," or how come Shay and her friends are sorta like Mom but less.
I shrugged, and wondered if I should ask for another sandwich or just eat a snack instead, but then Mom picked me up so she could look in my eyes… the ones that are like hers used to be. I tried to put my blue-and-green color in Mom's, but it just looked weird: Mom has black eyes. Just like some newsfeed man asked me one time if I wanted my mother to look more Pretty, whatever Pretty is, exactly, and I tried to imagine it but just couldn't— but only after Mom made me turn around so I wouldn't see what I saw later anyway on the feeds, which was her slamming him into a wall and telling him to get out in a voice that sounded like it was full of knives.
Most people have softer faces, like Dad and Grandma Maddy and my city-friend Kina and her mom. So maybe that's why people are scared of my mom: she's something they've never seen before.
Maybe newsfeeds really don't count. Maybe my mom is somebody you have live with for a long time before you get used to her.
I put my hand on her tattoos again. They were spinning really fast. "Do you want my eyes to be like yours?" Mom asked me, her voice real quiet again. "We could look alike, they way you and Dad look alike."
I stared at her, sort of confused. "What for?"
She didn't say anything for a minute. Then she patted my hair real light, like only Mom can. "I could change," she said, so soft it was like she was whispering a secret. "If you ever get… if you ever get scared of me."
I tilted my head sideways, the way Dad does when people don't make sense. Why was Mom worried I was scared of her? I'm not, even though lots of people don't like her sharp face, and her sharp teeth, and her sharp black eyes and her dark flash tattoos.
"No," I told her, and picked up a piece of her hair from her shoulder so I could play with it. She was still holding me, leaning against the metal counter. "I'm not scared of you, and I don't want us to look alike."
Now Mom looked kinda confused, which was mega-Helen weird, since Mom usually knows everything. "Are you sure?" she asked, but like she didn't really want to. "I don't want you…" Mom took a big breath again. "I just never want you to be nervous because of how I look. I could go back to looking like I used to— like you."
Then I rolled my eyes, the way Dad does sometimes when Mom breaks stuff, right before he calls her 'dramatic' and asks her if she's gonna go throw it in the fire now. Which doesn't even make sense, but that's just how Mom and Dad are.
"Mom," I said, wrapping my legs around her waist tighter so I wouldn't slip, "if you looked more like me, you wouldn't look like you."
It took her a second, but then Mom smiled so big that her eyes crinkled. "You get more like your dad every day," she murmured, and added, "You want to try for another sandwich?"
"Yeah!" I cried, laughing. Mom spun me around before she put me back in the kitchen chair, so when I looked at her, I couldn't help but feel dizzy.