Grandma’s boyfriend only wore those shoes when he wore one of his costumes. On that day, everyone dressed up like different people, sometimes animals or even monsters. On that day, I got to eat all the candy in the world and actually belonged to my changing world. Everyone looked kind of funny, even me. I could hide behind my mask and the only thing people could see were my green eyes. They did not know who I was and for that night, I didn’t either.

            I remained behind the door, eventually falling asleep in there. When I woke, they were in bed. Grandma asked him if he knew where I was. 

“I don’t know,” he said.

Then, she looked towards the closet where I was hiding. A funny little thing happens to my eyes when I am sad. They change colors from green to blue. But Grandma doesn’t care. Oh, yeah, then I remember, she doesn’t see me in that

way. I’m not really her granddaughter.

            Her mouth opened like a complete yawn. Her eyes narrowed and I thought she saw me. I thought I saw her smile turn into a frown. But she licked her lips

and went back to knitting. Later, when I left the room, I thought I saw one of her eyes open. That one eye of hers always stayed open. It doesn’t go to sleep. Momma has an eye like that but I don’t. I guess you could say that it skipped a generation. There are a lot of things that Momma has that I don’t.  

When Momma came home and found me in the darkened house by myself—she said nothing except, “I’m sorry.” She did not even look at me when she said this. Her face scanned the wall up above my head. A light came on in my bedroom and I saw everything in our room was gone. 

“Where did you put my belongings?”

“In a place—a new home with your very own bedroom,” she said. I did not understand. 

“Momma, why are we moving?”

She had sat down in front of the television and cried. I asked her again. She said that it was because she did not understand the world anymore. She wanted us to move far away—she had already crossed so many other lines but this was the most important. We were moving this time but not with Grandma. It was one thing to leave her alone but it wasn’t right for her to leave me alone. That’s