I entered the kitchen. My old body—Mom in my skin—was standing in front of the open fridge, bathed in the yellowy light. She was wearing my favorite ratty pajama pants and an old gray t-shirt.
She seemed completely at ease, reveling in the lack of responsibility."
Say 'Good morning,'" the Inner Mom prompted, her voice suddenly warm and encouraging.
"Ask him if he's hungry. You're the mother. You're the host. Take charge."
"Good morning," I managed.
"Ask him if he's hungry. You're the mother."
"Are you hungry?"
Mom-James laughed, "Starving! Wanna make us pancakes, Mommy?"
The batter swirled in the bowl, thick and yellow. My hand, her hand, moved in a perfect, practiced rhythm, the wire whisk barely making a sound.
"That's it, my love," the Inner Mom purred, her voice like warm honey, "Fold the batter, don't beat it. You want them to be light. You always loved them light."
I stopped. My arm froze mid-stir. I can do this myself. Just stop talking.
The presence in my head went quiet. Not an angry quiet, but a... patient one. A waiting quiet.
"So," Mom-James said, as we sat down, "This has been... wild. Seriously. But I was thinking, maybe we should swap back soon? Like... right after breakfast?
For a second, I could almost taste the relief, the promise of escape, but the voice inside me seized up, tense and cold.
“No, James,” Inner Mom snapped, “Not yet.”
"What? What do you mean, 'no'?"
"How can she be me, when I'm me?" Inner Mom sounded scared, "If you swap back, what happens to me? I’m not just a copy, James. I’m me. I’m a person. I’m your mother."
“James,” Mom-in-James said, her tone softening with concern, “you okay? You look kind of pale.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Inner Mom warned, a note of real desperation creeping in, “You have to believe me. I’m not just a voice.”
“I won’t let you kill me, James,” Inner Mom whispered, and the voice was so small, so defeated, that I nearly dropped the coffee mug, “I won’t let you erase me. I have a right to exist. I have a right to be… me.”
I tried to laugh, but it came out wrong, like a bark, “Yeah, just tired. Didn’t sleep great.”
“Yeah, same,” she said, pushing the rest of the pancakes around with her fork, “Weird dreams. Let’s swap back now, okay?”
I nodded, eyes locked on my own teenage face, “Yeah. I’ll go get it.”
But then something happened. The pressure of Inner Mom, which had always been a faint hum, a background track of my thoughts, suddenly amplified as I stepped away from the kitchen and into the silent, carpeted corridor. Inside my skull was a tornado of Mom’s wants, Mom’s fears, Mom’s bottomless, obsessive hunger to survive.
I tried to slow my breathing, to focus on the task: get the thing, the artifact, the whatever-it-was that started all this, and finish it.
"Sweetheart, I'm offering you a gift," she whispered, "This body knows how to move through the world. It's already broken in for you."
Her presence seemed to stroke my hair, the way she used to when I was small, "Every morning, you'd wake up and your skin would feel like home. Your hands would know exactly where to rest. The blue robe would slip over your shoulders like an embrace."
"I've spent decades making this body into a sanctuary. Let me give it to you. Let me see you bloom in it."
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