I was drinking a glass of milk when I saw the very small object on the kitchen counter. Not knowing what it was, I set out to find the answer to this question. It was a very scientific question. I liked that. I am a very scientific person. The question was also challenging. I liked that, too, as I enjoy being challenged.

“Skye,” began my mother from the dining room. She was sitting at the table drawing a picture with a set of colored pencils and an eraser. I noticed that she was using the eraser more than she was using the pencils. I also noticed that the amount of time spent on erasing and the amount of time actually drawing was indirectly proportional to each other when one has a picture to complete on a deadline and one was drawing at a consistent rate for the required amount of time. My mother was an illustrator for children’s books. The picture she had now was one out of many laid out in order on the table. There was an angelic girl and a boy. The next picture showed the girl smiling her angelic self and doing her laundry. The next picture showed the boy throwing his clothes on the floor while his mother yelled at him. Finally, the boy is shown to stomp out the door only to be eaten by a bear. The final page, which depicted “The End” in black capitals, showed the boy in a mangled and bruised heap, the bear, the mother, and the angelic girl. They were all smiling and holding hands. Even the wounded boy. I sighed. No wonder my mother’s stuff didn’t sell. It was much too stereotypical.

“Skye,” my mother said, more firmly. “What are you still doing here? Get your milk and go away. I can’t work with you watching me.”

I put my cup on the counter. “In the dishwasher!” yelled my mother.

“Sorry.” I made the correction and left. It was best not to argue with my mother. My father was a little more pliable, but he was gone. He was in the military designing something. It wasn’t that my mother would do anything drastic, she just seemed so worked out. Depleted. So I left her alone. She wasn’t my problem.

My problem was the small object on the counter. Small and brown. Like an insect. But not quite like an insect in a most non-insect kind of way.

I left the subject and the kitchen alone at the same time. Pushed it out of my head. It came back into my thoughts. Mentally, I pushed it into a corner. Stuck it in a box. Left it alone. I could not afford to wonder and think right now. No sir, I could not. I could not until the finals were over and I had passed the eighth grade before summer break. Not until I had made the top ten percent. Not until tomorrow night, when the tests were done and the results were in, coming through in our class email.

I had to focus and concentrate. I was working in science, my favorite subject. I was reviewing the energy transmissions during photosynthesis. I was almost done, and then I would be as studied as I would get and would take the test tomorrow. I was confident in all my other subjects, had studied since I came home from school. I was sure I would do well. Excellent. Extra credit, maybe.

Why, then, could I not stop my thoughts from drifting back to the small, brown object in the kitchen?

The next day, I took my tests and waited nervously at home for the results. I would get an email letting me know if I had passed, and in what percentile I had done so. 

“Skye,” my mother summoned. Drat. My nerves would be fine if I was gently handled, but a call from my mother could mean anything and I braced myself. 

“Do you know the art teaching business I was thinking about making?” my mother asked as she arranged her pencils. “I have decided to do it. And… I have decided to have you be my first student, as a kind of a test run.” She beamed at me and smiled. “Isn’t that wonderful? You will get some real art education now! Why don’t we start right away?” She shoved her pencils at me and picked up a piece of plain paper. “The secret to art is realizing the fact that all objects are made of shapes.” She swept her hand expansively, obviously preparing for the dramatic self she would display to her students. “All of them. And when you have the skill to make those shapes… You can make anything.” 

It was logical. But I still didn’t want to do this. I didn’t like art, I liked working out plans and puzzles. I knew I wasn’t the mother’s daughter my mother wanted me to be. But I picked up the pencil, and I tried to draw the flower in the photograph she set in front of me.

The drawing came out clumsy and misshapen. “No!” my mother said. “Look. Use your eyes. A circle in the middle. Oval petals. A line for the stem, and rounded leaves. What can be so hard?”

“Sorry,” I said. It seemed like I was apologizing for a lot lately.

My mother shook her head in disgust. “I’ll work on another teaching technique. Just—you just go to bed. It’s okay.”

I really don’t want to make her redo her work. “Mom. I will try to get better. You don’t need to.”

“It’s okay. Really. It’s okay.” She turned away, and the excitement went out of her like air from a popped balloon. Her smile disappeared, and she suddenly was the tired Mom that I was so sick of seeing. I hated myself for taking away her happiness, messing up on stuff that made her so happy.

The madness at myself turned into anger at her. It welled up in me until it threatened to come out in a single, unstoppable flood of words. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“The art.” She said, grinning, ignoring my anger. “The art brings happiness. And at a time like this, with your father away and your tests—I just thought that it would be nice. To draw together. Isn’t it?”

“Maybe for you. Maybe it would be nice for you! But not for me!” I felt like I was going to explode. “I’m not your mini-me, Mom! I’m not!” I cried now. The anger within me bubbled and descended with a sickening thump within my being.

“Go to bed. Go now.” Her voice was like ice. I went.

And while I was laying in bed, I thought again of the small brown object.

The next day was Saturday. I got up early and one thing came to mind—the little oval insect thing on the counter two days before. And even though my mother was asleep, I got up and looked to see if it was still there. It was. I examined it, and discovered that it was indeed an insect. A roach. My mother would have flipped, but I bent closer and saw two antennas framing the small brown face. A tiny pair of spectacles on the glassy eyes. A top hat with a red ribbon around the bottom. And a little insect mouth with opened and closed. A little insect voice which made its way to my ears. “Follow me,” it said. And I did, as it scuttled down the hall. Not knowing, not caring, as the event’s of the day before swirled around me. 

It led me down the hall and I passed photographs on the wall. Me, my mother. My father in his uniform. My grandmother. Baby me on the slide at the playground. Child me on the first day of kindergarten. Nerdy me on the last day of fifth grade. Quiet me in front of the middle school. Secretive me at Christmas.

I passed them all and came up to my mother’s bedroom. The roach disappeared under her carpet. I opened the door very softly and entered. Just a little bit.

My mother was facing away from me, hunched over on the bed. Her hair was a mess and her pajamas were crumpled. Her bedsheets sagged to one side. 

“Mom?”

She turned slowly. Like they do in the movies before they pull out their weapons. I think about this and wonder if she is mad.

“Mom, I’m sorry. Yesterday… It was messed up.” 

She turned all the way now. And I can see that she was crying. “I just…” She sniffed. “Just wanted you to be happy. But I know that I was doing it the wrong way. I just thought that maybe—maybe I could somehow make you like the things that I did. So I could understand you better or something. Oh, Skye. I can’t believe I thought that.”

She looked at me and I can’t breathe. 

“You are like your father. Always doing math and science.” She smiled the tiniest bit. 

Double stunned. She doesn’t talk about my father. Ever. And she is telling me that I was like him. I don’t remember him much.

She nods. “You are just like him.”

We don’t go out much. But if anybody saw us after that, she would see us trying to do better. Me, doing the art and talking about plans for her students. Her, praising my pictures and hugging me. Me, showing her the concepts I was learning in school and her, helping me on my English homework. Her brushing out my hair at night and me, leaving presents and notes in her underwear drawer.

I passed the tests with flying colors. I never saw the roach again, but if I could I would thank him for what he did to us. But under my mother’s carpet, there is a small mound of bread and a little thank-you card, just in case.