It’s filled with her sketches and work notes on different projects she was involved in. Before I leave my room, I grab my mother’s notebook. There’s no point in arguing when her opinions are as deep as the wrinkles on her face, and honestly, it’s hard to tell which she has more of. Grandmother is firm on the fact that if I don’t take care of what I have, I don’t get a replacement. Both have the same tiny stitches as my sheets, covering up the wear and tear over the years, but I sewed these back together myself. My jeans are on the floor where I left them last night, and I manage to find a clean T-shirt in my drawer.
But I won’t have to go back to the Learning Institute again. It’s my curse I have thick hair like my mother, with waves that look more like oddly-placed kinks, unlike the smooth-flowing locks worn by some of the other girls at my school. I run my brush through my long brown hair, although by the time I go outside it will look unruly once again. With any luck, I’ll be assigned my own apartment soon and can finally restart my life, again.
Her rules are sometimes worse than those of the Order, who police the dome. Seriously? It’s been nine years since I moved in with my grandparents, and saying Grandmother and I have differing opinions barely touches the surface. The clock on my dresser reads eight o’clock in the morning. “Natalia!” Grandmother’s piercing voice comes from the other side of my bedroom door. It’s forbidden to hike among the trees, but sometimes rules need to be broken.
My eyes drift to the base of the dome, far away from my window where the Outer Forest lies, my only saving grace. Closer to the Axis are townhouses of the business owners, hidden from the rest of us, but that’s not where I long to be. I crawl out of bed and let my gaze trail down the Axis to the rooftops of the other apartment buildings, row upon row of housing for blue-collar workers. The grid of thick glass and steel arcs far above our apartment, stretching to where the great Axis, a tower of government offices, meets the peak of our home-Dome 1618. It doesn’t matter how many birthday wishes are made I always wake up trapped inside the dome. But when I open them, the same scene shows from my bedroom window that always does-the grid of our dome. I trace the row stitches, squeezing my eyes shut as I make a wish it is my eighteenth birthday, after all. The tiny x’s remind me of her long fingers, moving the needle back and forth with the same care as when she worked with samples in her laboratory.
The stiffness was beaten out of them long ago, but they still carry the memory of my mother carefully stitching the first tear back together when I was seven. I stretch my arms across my bed, running my fingers along the same sheets I’ve had since I was a child.
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