“You get sleepy,” I say. “Dream of big stars and brave warriors, okay?”
“Mmm,” he hums. “And the girl?”
“She’s right here, baby,” I say, pointing at my heart. “Always.”
Later, when he’s asleep, I sit at our little console in the study. Reflector’s projector hums quietly, flickering a light across the wall. My fingers hover over the record button.
“Day 742,” I begin the holo-log. My voice is soft, cracked by years of starring in the public eye and years of silence afterward. “I’m recording this in case you ever see it. Or maybe you don’t. I don’t know. But bear with me.”
Pyramus’s small boots sit by the door. A red-scaled toddler’s jacket hangs on the rack.
“You would have been two today,” I say. “And—well, your mother is a walking wreck of success and solitude. We walked the stage tonight. The world sees us: smile, pose, icon, mother of the year. They don’t see the nights I lie awake waiting for you to come home.” My voice quavers. “I’m sorry I threw you into that pod. I’m sorry I believed you wouldn’t walk into the stars and leave me here clutching the memory of your shadow.”
I pause. The silence is thick, thick like the smoke off old fires. Reflector hums.
“At least he’s here,” I whisper. “Our boy. He giggles, he climbs, he asks a million questions about the sky and the things hiding in it. His golden eyes—your eyes—they hold your fire. I swear I feel your hand in his laugh.”
I flick off the record after ten minutes. The file sits unsent. It’s meant for you. But maybe I’ll never send it.
Because what I want… is you.
But I don’t pray anymore. Not in words.
I drift into his room and brush his hair with nothing but my fingertips. His breath is slow now, safe. I pull the covers up to his chin and place a soft kiss on his head.
“You’re everything,” I whisper. “And then some.”
He murmurs in his sleep and turns, curling deeper. I stay with him for a long time.
The next morning, I walk him to the playground in the enclave near the city ridge. The air is sharp with spring, cherry-blossom pollen drifting in waves, and the city's hum is distant enough to fade. He runs ahead, laughing like a comet, chasing a little holoball, its lights blinking pastel.
Sometimes other kids stop and watch him. They stare at the red-tinged scales on his cheeks or the shine of his eyes. Not with fear, yet. More like wonder.
“Your son,” a mother says with a polite nod. “He’s… different.”
“Yeah,” I say, smiling tight. “He’s amazing.”
She smiles back, but curious, like she’s trying to calculate what the difference means.
I stand at the bench and I breathe it all in—the spring air, his laughter, the way his hair flops when he stops running and points at the sky again.
“Mom, mommy!”
He crosses the grass, boots clumping the blades, hair messy. He slings his arm around me.
“Star like daddy again!” he shouts.
I laugh, heart lighter. “Yes, baby. Big star.”
He bounces and giggles and I catch the smell of grass and sweat and growth.
The world sees me as the benevolent mother now. The mother who slowly re-emerges. The brand. The image.
But I am more than the image.
I am the guardian.
And I am waiting.
