The Mothers on Halloween: Thea Katina

Teal blue, sky blue, turquoise, royal blue, indigo--she pulled them carefully from her box of 100, sharpened their edges. At the library, she thumbed through dictionaries in a dozen languages, carefully wrote the word "blue" on strips of white paper, alternating colors. She safety pinned each strip to her blue blouse and blue skirt, threading the pins with shiny blue beads.

When the day came, as night fell, she pulled on blue tights she found at a ballet store. They sagged a little at the ankles, but they would do. She pulled the blouse on carefully, lifted the skirt and pinned it tight around her meager waist--it, too, was too big, but who cared? Blue eyeshadow, bracelets, earrings, brooches, ribbons, and then the best part: blue glitter sprinkled into her hair. She let it fall all over, sticking to her face and arms, laughing at herself in the mirror. 

And when her husband asked her what in the devil she was doing in there, she cackled (her regular laugh was a cackle). Τίποτα, Βαγγέλη. Είναι για τα παιδιά. Before that, she'd made dozens of cookies and brownies, stocked the freezer with ice cream, because she knew we would arrive at the end of the night to feast with our friends. 

"I'm the color blue," she announced when we came to the door, opening before we knocked. She swirled around and around, cackling (because her regular laugh was a cackle), her arms outstretched like a bluebird lost in a storm, like the whole sky unfurling. She wrapped me in her arms and I was blue, too, and glittery and laughing, floating in the indigo wind, the teal blue river, the turquoise sea of our ancestors, the royal blue fierceness of a love no one else could match.