The Code Word
When I was a little girl, my mother taught me how to use a code word if I was in trouble and couldn’t speak up.
She made it sound like a game at first. We sat in the kitchen, her hands warm against mine, the smell of cinnamon and sugar from freshly baked cookies filling the air. “If you ever feel scared,” she told me, “and you can’t say why, just use the word. I’ll know.”
The word was bluebird. I don’t know why she chose it. Maybe because it sounded harmless, like something that wouldn’t raise suspicion. Maybe because she loved the idea of something small and free. Either way, I tucked it away in the back of my mind, never thinking I’d need it.
Until I did.
I was ten the first time I used it. My mother had a friend over—one of those people who smiled too much, who laughed at things that weren’t funny. He put his hand on my shoulder, squeezed just a little too hard. My stomach twisted. I didn’t know what to say, but I knew what to do.
I walked into the kitchen where my mother stood at the sink. “Mom, have you seen my bluebird?”
She didn’t hesitate. She turned, wiped her hands on a dish towel, and smiled in that way only I understood. “No, sweetheart, but why don’t you come help me find it?”
She took me into her room, closed the door, and asked me what happened. I told her. She never invited him back.
As I grew older, bluebird became more than just a word. It was a lifeline. I used it once in high school when a date wouldn’t take no for an answer. I texted it to my mom, and she was there in minutes, her headlights slicing through the dark like a beacon.
Even as an adult, the word never left me.
Then one night, years later, it was my mother who used it.
She called me, her voice steady but off, like someone trying too hard to sound normal. “I was just thinking about that old bluebird story,” she said.
I felt it immediately—the weight of it, the warning. I didn’t ask questions. I grabbed my keys and drove straight to her house.
She was standing in the living room when I arrived, her hands trembling. Behind her, my stepfather loomed, his face red with anger, the kind of anger that had been building for years.
I didn’t think. I just acted. I got her out of there, drove until we were far enough away that she could breathe again.
She left him that night.
I realized then that my mother hadn’t just given me a code word—she had given me a way to protect myself, a way to protect her.
And in the end, bluebird didn’t just save me.
It saved us both.
