As children we were all taught not to talk to strangers, not to cross the road without looking both ways, and to never disobey your elders.  We didn’t always like it, but when we grew up we saw the reasoning and applied the same laws to our own children’s lives.  When I was ten years old, however, these rules and others all seemed overbearing, unnecessary, and prudish.  My dad, a man in his late thirties with a permanent scowl on his face, tried his best to keep me interested in school, eating only healthy snacks, and appreciative of my small weekly allowance.  I thought he was a tyrant.
    My mother was in my life much less frequently, but she made just as much impact on me as my dad did in the few times I saw her.  My first memories of her are dull and feel more like imaginings than solid memories; our meetings were tense and supervised, I didn’t fully understand why at the time.  My dad’s response to my questioning would always be the same:  “When you’re older.”
    The most distinct memory I have of my mother was from my last day of fifth grade.  As I was walking home from school I heard a car slow behind me and a voice call out my name.  Instead of feeling worried, as I had been taught to feel when an unknown car beckoned me, I was just curious.  The car stopped next to me and my mother was inside.
    “How’s it going, kid?” she asked.  She was lovely; her brown hair was neatly straitened and her eyes were smoky and smiling down at me.  “Hop in; we’re going on a road trip.”  
    “What about dad?” I asked.
    “Oh, he can’t come.  He has to work.  He wishes he could though.  Now jump in, don’t want to hold up traffic.”  Her voice was perky and reassuring.  I had longed to see more of my mom, and here she was, offering to take me on a road trip.  
    “Where are we going?” I asked as I got into the passenger seat.  
    “Don’t know yet.  We’ll figure it out, that’s half the fun.”  She winked at me and pulled away from the curb.  
    We drove several hours, and she listened to my idle chatter about school and classmates and the summer camp I was attended last year.  Finally she cut in, “That’s nice, Emily.”  She glanced over at me with a troubled frown on her face.  “I’ve never like that name, Emily.  That’s not what I wanted to call you.  What do you think of Aarika?”
    I shrugged.  “It’s alright I guess.”
    She smiled, very pleased at my response.  “Ok then!  Aarika it is.  And Aarika, honey, why are you hiding your beautiful face behind those awful glasses?”
    “I need them to see the board in school.”
    “Well, school’s out now.  Put those away, your eyes will be just fine without them.”  I did as she said, folding them neatly into their case and storing them in my school bag.
    “Mom,” the name felt foreign on my tongue, “I don’t have anything else to wear.”  
    “Oh, that’s fine.  I’ll buy you a new wardrobe.”
    Finally we came to an old, run down looking motel.  She left me in the car while she checked in, then led me to our room and told me to wait there.
    “I’ll be back in an hour or so.  Why don’t you go ahead and take a nap?”  I was feeling rather worn out from the long hours on the road, so I crawled into the bed and slept.  When she returned, several hours later, I was so deep in sleep she had to jostle me awake.  
    “I’ve bought you some new clothes, and a toothbrush.  And I have a project for us tonight.”
    “Can we do it in the morning?  I’m tired.”
    “Oh, come on.  I brought you some McDonald’s too.”  Dad had hardly ever let me eat something as health-diminishing as McDonald’s, so I took the bait.  As I gorged on salty french fries and a cold hamburger she eyed my hair.  Taking its long, blonde strands in her fingers she sighed.  “Yes, yes; this is no good.”
    “What’s no good?”
    “This hair of yours.  What was your father thinking, letting it stay such a trashy color?”
    “I like my hair.”
    “Well, that may be; but don’t you care about what other people think of you?  Don’t you want to seem intelligent and mature?”  Of course I did; I nodded.  “Well, everyone knows that blondes are only good for their looks.  I want the world to cherish you for your brain too.  That’s why I bought you some hair dye, so people can see the real you.”
    I’d never thought of my hair color as holding me back from anything, but then again I’d never thought of my hair much at all.  Her hair, however, was a deep, rich brown and she looked so lovely I imagined myself to be nothing more than a pale shadow next to her.  
    We dyed my hair that evening, and then she cut it.  It fell now just above my shoulders, and she cut me wispy bangs that she insisted would bring out my eyes.  The clothes she brought me were pinks and purples and other girly shades, and for the most part full of unnecessary frills and bows.  
    “Mom, I really don’t dress like this usually.”
    “Well it’s about time you started!  You look just so cute.  Look at yourself, Aarika.”  I looked in the mirror and hardly recognized myself.  It was as if I was still the blonde tomboy and there was some dark-haired, life-sized doll staring back at me from behind a piece of glass.  Not to say I didn’t look adorable; I just didn’t look like me anymore.  
    Later that night my mother chopped all of her own lovely hair off, just below her chin, and colored it a magnificent red.  From that night on we traveled from motel to motel, sometimes staying several nights in-between camping out on the side of the road.  For almost a month we traveled this way, and it was possibly the most fun I had in my childhood.  My mother seemed to know everything about everywhere, and was willing to share her vast knowledge with me.  At night we would play card games and board games, or she would read to me from old books picked up at a thrift store we’d passed that day.  There were times, though, when she’d leave me at the hotel with a movie on and go out for hours, coming back with food and other activities.  Rarely would she let me accompany her into any store; my life was limited to what I saw out the window or on the television, yet I was, for the most part, still content.  On one such night, however, she left me alone with a movie I soon realized I’d already seen, so I began channel surfing.  The news came on and I would have skipped right over it except that my picture was staring back at me.  Not the dark-haired, frilly doll my mother had made me, but the unruly blonde with wild eyes and a crazy smile I had so recently been.  I stared in shock as the newscaster told the world my name, and described my mother as my kidnapper.  The picture they showed of her was not the woman I knew:  she was thinner and looked distant, not like the smiling, happy person she was now.  When the news was over I skipped channels frantically, searching for another sighting of my story on the television saying it was all an elaborate hoax.  After about an hour I gave up and paced the room.
    When my mom finally came back she had more fast food with her, representing a diet I had quickly grown repulsed by.  
    “What’re you doing, sweetie?  Why are you out of bed?”
    I didn’t know how to let her in on the joke.  “I was on the news.  They had my picture, and yours.  Mom, what’s going on?”
    “Aarika, there’s something I need to tell you.”  I let go of my foolish hope that the kidnapping was a practical joke.  “Your father doesn’t know about this trip.  But it’s his own fault, really.”  Her voice started to waver and get louder.  “He never let me see you.  He told me lies about you, and probably told you lies about me!   He could never love you the way I do, Aarika.  You’re my daughter and we shouldn’t be kept apart the way we were!”
    The realization hit me:  this woman was not my mother.  Biologically, perhaps, you could see our genetic similarities; but this woman was a stranger in my life up until recently, and she didn’t know enough about me to love me.  
    “Aarika, don’t you understand?  They’re all lying to you.  You don’t want to go back to him, where he’ll control you.  Don’t you want to stay here and have fun with me?”
    Everything in me boiled, and I felt my little ten-year-old temper rising.  “My name isn’t Aarika!  My name is Emily!” I said loudly.  “And I want to go home!”
    “Honey,” her voice was deceivingly calm and emotionless; “don’t you want to live with your mother?”
    “You’re not my mom.”  When I said those words I had no idea how fragile her psyche was.  
    She just stared at me for a moment, then turned and packed up her bags.  When I tasked where we were going she quietly responded, “I’ve made a mistake.  I’m leaving.”
    “What about me?  Aren’t I coming with you?”
    She stared coldly down at me.  “Why should I bring you?  I’m just a stranger, remember?”  

    A cleaning lady found me the following morning when she came to freshen up the room.  The police were called, and eventually they sorted out who I was and I was reunited with my father.  He hugged me, crying and hysterical, and asked me if I was ok.  He took me home and later informed me that my mother had been caught and sent to prison.  When I asked him if I could visit her he seemed astonished and denied me the right.  
    Years later, when I was sixteen, I snuck away to the prison my mother was held in under the ruse of seeing a movie with some friends.  
    The woman I met with was a shadow of the woman I had known.  The prison personnel had warned me that she refused all psychiatric treatment, including the medications she usually took.  Indeed, I could barely see the beautiful mother I had once imagined I had.  
    “Who’re you?” she asked.
    “It’s me, mom.  I’m Emily.  I’m your daughter?”
    The woman stared at me for a long time, then shook her head.  “No, no, you couldn’t be her.  My daughter’s name was Aarika, and she died a long time ago.”