Sad Blue Eyes

When I was little, my mom used to carry me everywhere. She would cradle my pudgy pale body and rock me back and forth, watching me as I cuddled close to her warm body. My mom's eyes were big and blue, but were always terribly sad when they saw me. On the days when her eyes would become so glossy raindrops fell off her face, my mom would roll up my dress sleeve to reveal a delicate bangle resting around my wrist. "Your number suits you…sweet like berries…" she would coo in my ear, "Palmer and Rodney don't have numbers as sweet as yours." Her voice would weaken and shake whenever I asked what my number was.

I didn't understand why it bothered her so much. It was really pretty bangle, with intricate detail work that was designed to look like silver stems. Those stems led to sixteen bronze daisies, where a moonstone was in the center of each one. No one I knew had a bracelet as lovely as mine. My brothers' bracelets were plain and boring-- iron bands with a lot of small gems randomly secured in the metal. My mom's was almost gaudy, with colorful, circular jewels that followed a three-color pattern over and over until the bracelet ran out of room. Palmer had told me that when our dad was still around, he had a bracelet too, which was carved like a fish and had diamonds for scales. I never saw it though, and despite Palmer's insisting, my mother would always deny its existence.
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My mother still tried to force me to wear white dresses with frills and flowers like the ones I wore when I was younger.  The dress still itched at my knees and pinched me when I raise up my hand to speak, but seeing as birthdays are important to her, I decided to humor her today.

"Hey, Robyn," Beth said, finding a place on the bus next to me.

"Hey," I said, "Thanks for the alarm clock. I'll be sure to use it."

"Sorry, I wanted to give you something no one else would…I mean, everyone got you flowers," Beth said solemnly, "I mean…"

"Beth, I was joking…" I said, watching her face become too much like my mother's to bear. I turned my attention to the window. Everyone was dressed in black, down to their backpacks as they quietly walked out of school. All of them with my mother's sad eyes. It made my stomach churn so much, I swear it was making butter out of the chocolate milk I had for lunch. I turned back to Beth.

"Robbie…I'm gonna…"

"Don't," I stopped her. "Here, come to my house. My mom and I have a lot of decorating for the party."

We both swallowed hard to avoid crying when I said that. For the first time, my mom had allowed me to wear makeup, and we both knew that meant we couldn't cry. If she cried, I would too, and then my mom would have wasted her time as well as the last of her makeup. I
don't want to think she wasted her time with me.

When Beth saw my house she froze in awe and fear before running to her own house, which was the next block over. I wanted to go with her, to escape somewhere and breathe for a bit, but I knew I couldn't. My mother would freak if I tried. I took a deep breath, strutted past the hearse, the flowers, the morbid black flowers...I sprinted to my room.

It was there I saw my mother, and a government official holding her bracelet.
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To be honest, I expected my funeral that day. Everyone else seemed shocked too, because if the government gives someone a funeral warning the day before their birthday, generally speaking, it's them that dies, not their mother. I can't believe I failed to realize that the year I turned sixteen was the year her jewels were all accounted for. I feel so overwhelmed…all this time, I thought she was protecting me from the year I died. Really, she was trying not to think about the leaving me alone.

I don't remember much about the funeral, only that I wore a frilly white dress stained with my dead mother's makeup. I'm sure a couple people said their condolences, but I wasn't listening. Instead, I was trying to figure out how my mother managed to die on my funeral day. Trying to figure out whether or not I should cry or smile. Then I lifted up my sleeve to reveal my bracelet, and with my mom's sad blue eyes I manage to say, "Bittersweet like berries."