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Knuckles playfully launched a lawn chair at Tom. Tom could tell it was done playfully because it had missed him by inches, an intentional miscalculation by the echidna to ensure Tom would remain in one piece.
Unfortunately, the same could not be said of the chair itself, which splintered violently against the house’s siding.
“I am liking this game very much!” Knuckles bellowed, now turning his attention to Sonic. “What name does it answer to?”
“King of the hill!” Sonic shouted back, arms loaded with water balloons. “How’s our invasion looking, Tails?”
Tails flashed a mischievous grin – the kind that made Tom’s stomach flip because it usually preceded an explosion. “We’re at optimal conditions for victory! At this rate, we might not have to deploy the whipped cream.”
“Guys, I keep telling you, this isn’t a game! I need you all out of the house because Maddie and Amy need some alone ti-”
A water balloon clocked Tom’s jaw, sending him staggering backwards. It was Sonic who went in for the kill - before Tom could protest, Sonic had playfully poked him square in the chest, completing his graceless fall into the grass. He lay supine, all three boys entering his peripheral vision with too much pride in their expressions for Tom’s liking.
Knuckles grabbed him by one arm and pulled him to his feet, chuckling. “Ha! It was a mighty show, but now WE reign supreme as the new sovereigns! Now it is you who answer to us!”
“Sovereigns or not,” Tom said, trying but failing to free himself Knuckle’s grip, “I’m still not letting you into the house.”
Knuckles dropped him just as quickly as he had picked him up. “OUTRAGEOUS!” he bellowed. “A warrior with any ounce of honor stands by his stakes, win or lose!”
“There were no stakes!” Tom yelled back, pulling himself up. “You all just decided that beating me up meant you’d be able to get into the house.”
Tails flashed a shy smile. “Admittedly, I did let myself get a little swept up in the excitement.”
Sonic wrapped his arm around the fox. “A little? There’s a broken garden gnome with your name on it, buddy. Anyway, c’mooon, Tom! Aren’t you the one who told us we needed to spend more time together as a family?”
“And we will! Just when Amy is a little more settled.”
“How long will that take?” asked Tails.
“As long as it takes, and no sooner,” Tom replied, exasperated.
“Ah,” Knuckles pondered, “a riddle of some kind. This must be our final test. Tails, I believe you are uniquely equipped for this task.”
“Boys,” Tom said sternly. “Listen to me. I know you’re excited to get to know her better. But it’s...really important to Maddie that she knows Amy first. Okay?”
“No fair”, Sonic pouted. “Why does Maddie get to know a girl and we don’t?”
“What? You do know a girl. You know Maddie.”
“Maddie is no girl, Tom,” Knuckles said, matter-of-factly. “She is a mom.”
“...are you sure we shouldn’t check on your friend?” Amy asked. “That looked like it hurt.”
Maddie unclenched her jaw into a smile. “Oh, no. Don’t worry about him. He’s, uh, tough.”
“I meant to ask – is this pattern some kind of Earth design?” Amy wiggled her fingers, wet globs of polish rolling down them everywhere but her nails. “I like it.”
“Oh, shoot.” The two had been so engrossed in watching the boys through the patio window that Maddie had completely forgotten herself. Instead of delicately applying tiny roses to Amy’s nails as she had requested, Maddie had instead suspended the brush above the girl’s hand, leaving a paint job more Pollock than polished. “I’ll grab the remover.”
“Oh, don’t bother!” Amy said. “I still like it.”
Maddie tilted her head as she studied Amy, who wore the day’s efforts on her like a toddler’s smock during fingerpainting.
Originally, the two were meant to have a home spa day. That was until Tails found his way into Maddie’s supplies – the clay powders, the gel masks, the toe-spreaders – and took it upon himself to “study” the “alien technology” he assumed had accompanied Amy on her trip to earth. By the time she and Tom found him, he was about two-thirds on his way to a makeshift bomb (a firework, he insisted, but ever since the Fourth of July incident, they couldn’t trust his definition of the word), and the supplies were drained. So it became a makeover day, and Tom was instructed to spend the day keeping Tails out of the house.
The neon orange eyeshadow, used once for a Halloween some years ago, was more a stain on Amy’s fur than the gradient Maddie intended to impart. It was not nearly as nice as the one Maddie had originally wanted to use; the one she spent at least an hour in the store color matching. Earlier that morning, Knuckles had scraped the palette into water, made paste, and smeared it all over himself, yelling about how “a warrior’s facepaint is their spirit incarnate” and that he and Amy “would get to know one another in this manner as brothers”. Once Tom had hauled him outside to be hosed down like Ozzy, there wasn’t enough time to replace it. And so, Maddie dipped into her own supply, still confident she’d find a way to make things work.
That’s what the dusty-pink lipstick was for, in theory. Even though it had been picked with the original makeup in mind, with enough blending, she figured they could go for some kind of sunset look. It had been a great plan until Sonic had snatched it clean from Maddie’s hand mid-application. Before she could so much as blink, he had flattened the fine tip to an unusable point in order to write “HI AMY, COME PLAY WITH US” on the living room mirror (and in much smaller font, “RED RUM”). Just as quickly as Tom had re-entered the house, he was leaving with Sonic in tow.
And the girls were finally left to their own devices.
That had been the plan all along, Maddie reasoned. An opportunity for the girls to get to know one another better, removed from the well-intentioned onslaught of the boys. It should have been fine. Easier, even.
But the empty house seemed to only emphasize the distance between them.
“Let’s...get you cleaned up, okay?” Maddie said. “You can wash your face.”
Amy’s eyes fluttered softly, their expression of polite disappointment quickly transferring to a tight smile. “Um, sure.”
Maddie directed Amy to their upstairs bathroom, letting the hedgehog trail behind her. She had an inclination to take Amy’s hand into her own, but that felt like a right she had failed to earn.
“Here,” Maddie said as they entered the bathroom, pulling out a stool. “Just let me know if you need any help. I’ll be, uh, right outside.”
“You’re leaving?” Amy asked gently. “I was actually hoping you could give me a hand.”
“Oh, right. Sure, absolutely. Let me just, ah”—Maddie awkwardly shuffled her way back into the bathroom—“Here. I’ll grab something to keep your quills back while we wash you off.”
“Okay.” Amy hopped onto the stool, looking herself over in the bathroom mirror. Maddie watched the girl out of the corner of her eye, trying to not be obvious as she checked a nearby cabinet for hair bands. Amy’s face was soft but clinical, the hedgehog slowly bringing a hand to her cheek. When she pulled it away, a trail of poorly-applied foundation powder followed.
“Here,” Maddie finally said, offering her a box. It was pink and wrinkled, a cardboard victim of the bathroom’s lack of ventilation. “Take one.”
Amy took the box, considering her options carefully. As quickly as it had fallen, the hedgehog’s still composure gave way to joy.
“This one!” she said, pulling it out of the box as swift as a magic trick. “It’s even got a rose.”
Maddie’s heart was a ball of lead hooked against her ribs. “Oh—I didn’t remember I had that one in there. You can use it if you want.”
Amy lowered the band, her grip noticeably slackened. “Should I not?”
“No,” Maddie spluttered, trying to catch her words. “Wait, not ‘no’ as in ‘no, you can’t’, ‘no’ as in ‘you can’—“
“Did I chose wrong again?” Amy suddenly said, her eyes now wide with panic. “I’m sorry! I really thought this was the right one this time—“
“Right what?”
Small tears formed at the corners of Amy’s eyes, and she sunk into herself, collapsing in a neat pile at the foot of the stool. Unburdened from the task of overthinking things, Maddie met her on the floor at nearly the same speed. The box flipped from Amy’s hands upside-down onto the floor, the instigating hairband trapped beneath it.
“Amy?” Maddie asked again.
“It’s just...all day, you’ve been doing all this nice stuff for me,” Amy sniffed, rubbing a particularly fat tear away with the back of her hand. “And I keep trying to show you that I really appreciate it, but I know it’s not enough.”
“Amy, I’m not measuring your appreciation. I just wanted to spend the day with you.”
“Really?” Amy asked. There was a genuine sincerity in her voice that let Maddie know her next question was not an accusation. “Then why have you been so disappointed in me all day?”
“I haven’t been, honest! I’ve been…” Maddie took a deep breath. “Truth be told, I’ve been disappointed in myself.”
“Hm.” Amy looked at Maddie for a few quick seconds, then shuffled closer to her. The two now sat with their backs against the sink cabinet, knees scarcely touching. “What do you have to be disappointed about?”
“Are you kidding me? Everything I’ve tried to do for you today has been a complete disaster. I just really wanted to show you a genuine Earth spa day. Or makeover day.” She sighed, leaning her back. “See, I couldn’t even get the event right.”
“That’s not a big deal,” Amy countered. “It’s not like I have anything to compare it to.”
“That’s all the more reason I wanted it to be perfect.”
“Perfect or not, you still accomplished what you wanted to, right? You got to spend the day with me, and I got to spend the day with you.”
“...can I show you that hairband again?” Maddie suddenly asked. Even without an answer, she leaned forward and picked up the box. Doing so freed every other hairband, sending them tumbling against the cool tile floor. But even in the cascade, the one Amy had chosen stuck out immediately. Maddie would have been able to find it still even in a sea of ten thousand hairbands.
She plucked it out of the pile and held it loosely in her hand, presenting it closely to Amy.
“This hairband was made by my grandmother.”
“Oh my goodness,” Amy breathed. She had already admired it once, but being able to inspect it so intimately gave way to newfound appreciation. “She had remarkable handiwork.”
“Hold it for me, okay?” Maddie cupped Amy’s hands together, and dropped the hairband in them. Amy continued to stare at the piece. It was a bit smaller than the other hairbands, but somewhat elastic, something Amy gently explored by tugging at its edges. It was completely hand-crocheted in a pleasant gradient of baby pinks. Tied against the band was the feature that had originally drawn Amy to the piece – a large crocheted rose, from which tender green yarn leaves poked.
“Before she passed,” Maddie continued, “my grandmother had insisted that me and Tom would have a daughter. She was so confident, one of the last things she ever made was that hairband. But it never happened.”
Maddie drew a deep breath.
“I am so grateful to have the boys in my life. I really, really am. But sometimes, I can’t help but wonder…”
“...what happened to the daughter you were meant to have,” Amy finished, not meeting her gaze. The tension in Maddie’s core struggled against her ribcage, wondering just how honest she should be with the child.
“Yeah. Something like that.”
“And then I came along.”
Child or not, Amy was perceptive. Maddie smiled gently. They had that in common, at least.
“I put the pressure of my own insecurities on you, Amy. I thought I could, y’know, speed things up between us if I kept you to myself for a bit, showed you how much fun we could have together. I didn’t do it for the right reasons.”
“It’s okay, really.”
“No,” Maddie responded firmly. “No, it isn’t. It’s not your job to be responsible for my emotions.”
Amy frowned, turning away from Maddie. “Mrs. Wachowski, I...don’t know what to say.”
“And you shouldn’t!” Maddie took Amy’s unoccupied hand and held it in her own. “You’re a kid, Amy. You and the boys are meant to be having fun, not dealing with adult problems. I think I lost sight of that today.”
She looked over Amy again, who had still not cleaned herself off. “When you told me that you liked your makeover earlier, were you being serious?”
“Absolutely.” Amy smile reached her eyes, giving the orange eye shadow a radiant glow it had lacked before. “This was so much fun.”
“Then that’s all that matters.” Maddie stood up, offering Amy her hand again. “Why don’t we put that hairband on, brush out your hair, and then show the boys your new look?”
Amy smiled. “I would like that.”
“Not a word, Sonic.” Tom strained beneath his breath. “Please.”
“But Tom, I just wanna know why she looks-”
“Not. A. Word.”
“Pink one,” Knuckles asked, “I have been wanting to ask. Could you tell us the meaning of your warrior paint?”
“Hm, I didn’t really think about it,” Amy said. She looked back at Maddie and smiled. “I think it means ‘family’.”
“Are we sure it doesn’t mean a Sephora exploded on her face?” Sonic whisper-yelled to Tails, who stifled a giggle. Tom’s head whipped toward them as he made a slashing motion across his neck – but Amy’s hammer was faster, missing Sonic by inches.
“AH-HA!” Knuckles boomed, clapping his hands together. “I think I like girls!”
“You can tell she’s just being playful with them,” Maddie remarked as she and Tom watched the four play-scuffle among themselves. “Seeing as they’re all still in one piece. But we should probably discourage this in the future.”
“Kind of reminds me of you when we first met. I think you had that can of pepper spray still in your purse until at least the third date. Like mother, like daughter?”
“Only if she wants to be.”
The two watched silently as Amy claimed victory, climbing over the pile she had made of the boys’ bodies. True to their promise, nobody had used weapons or superpowers after Amy initial gauntlet-throw – just good old fashioned rough-housing.
“QUEEN OF THE HILL!” Amy shrieked, sending birds scattering from the surrounding trees.
Maddie smiled. “...although, something tells me she’s going to fit in just fine.”