for now I liked linking colors to emotions and situations Purple I realized was also the color of patience Sitting at my desk I imagined breathing out a calm plume of purple air Since I was still developing my color theories I was in the observation stage collecting and sifting through the facts that would form my hypothesis The beginning of anything was always bright and shiny like a brand-new copper penny Copper the color of hope The computer screen flickered Butterflies flapped in my stomach brushing their fiery wings inside my body I practically practically felt them crawling up my throat Suddenly Mom’s face popped up on the screen Her nose was peeling from the relentless South American sun Her hair was a long tangle of chestnut waves that caressed her bare shoulders She was wearing a filthy sweat-stained tank top Mom Maya It’s so good to see you My heart raced I inched closer to the screen and rested my hand on the monitor This was our window Mom once read me a bedtime story all the way from Brazil She called it our midnight read Past explorers never experienced the instant thrill of an Internet connection Their families back home had to wait months to receive letters scribbled in pencil Graphite was the color of loneliness You look great How’s the dig going
I could hear strange insects screeching from the darkness over Mom’s shoulders Soooo much better than I expected But how are you How’s school Her smile widened the whites of her eyes shining in the darkness Good I guess I tapped my pen on the page Studying hard She arched an eyebrow Especially science science My assistants must love all the sciences Yes Mom We’re studying the ecosystem of the bay and I did my report on mollusks Dad and I dug for clams I sighed Can I hear about the expedition now I suppose digging is a family trait she said with a giggle As a respected anthropologist Mom saved giddiness for special occasions usually when a shard of bone or bit of broken clay pot had been extracted from the dirt Exhumation Exhumation was the scientific term a splinter pulled out of the past Tell me I begged You found something didn’t you I quickly wrote Mom found something in the rain forest across my notebook page I can never fool you Are you going to tell me or what I’ve heard that keeping a kid in suspense stunts her growth She stood and now only her tanned arms and muddy cargo cargo pants were visible One second she said And then she stepped out of the camera’s view
All I could see from the glow of the solar-powered light was a wooden platform and ropes tied to the tree trunks But a bit of the jungle peeked through and my heart leaped when I realized that she was in a tree house The dark night pressed into the lens I imagined at any second a jaguar would leap from the treetops Dozens of animal eyes were watching my mother from their perches in the canopy I scribbled jungle tree house vines and nighttime This was her bedroom The ropy hammock was her bed My face was pressed so close to the computer screen my eyes hurt and I was getting fingerprints all over the monitor It felt like our window was closing up Or that it was too small for me to climb through I wanted Mom to hurry back to show me her special find It could be our secret She was there to research the indigenous people of the rain forest Really I knew she was looking for links evidence that proved a certain behavior A rock was just a rock until some scientist found a rock that had an edge chipped away and formed what looked like a knife the evidence of a cutting tool like a prehistoric Swiss Army knife dug out of a junk drawer Links are big in the sciences of the past They prove stuff See I’m right they say Or Whoa I’m wrong Mom’s face peered back through our window At first all I saw was the red earthy color of dirt and some kind of bundle bundle It wasn’t a piece of broken pottery or a stony knife In her arms she cradled a tattered cloth that might have been a dress once a thousand years ago She loosened the swaddled
fabric and held her hands out palms up cupping the thing toward the camera It looked like she was holding a dehydrated dehydrated mango that had a puckered nose and sunken cheeks But from the way she cradled that ugly shriveled thing I realized it was precious The butterflies took flight again flying flying up into the sky of my stomach I swallowed and breathed hard through my nose What is it But I had a bad feeling that I already knew You tell me What do you see Her eyes glowed Mom was taking necessary scientific precautions holding the thing gingerly and looking at it with warm adoring eyes My face flushed hot but I shrugged the feeling away Don’t be immature Think it out You’ve got to have at least one good guess The light flickered in the background Mom curled her legs up in her chair like a cat waiting for me to move She tilted the shriveled mango thing toward the camera so I could get a better look Is it a baby I asked my mouth dry as dust The mango looked like a person a tiny clay-caked body Maybe Mom had found an ancient tomb with the remains of a dead baby buried in the ground and now she was holding it up like a present for me to gawk at She smiled triumphantly No it’s not a real baby It’s a doll Oh The more I looked at the thing the more foolish I felt It didn’t look like a real baby but rather one made of
