Page 12 of Tangled Memories
“Okay. Are we going to get our own house like we had before?”
“We sure are. That’s tops on my agenda.”
“Then, can my best friend spend the night?”
“Absolutely. Anytime, sweetie. You don’t even have to wait for us to get our own place.”
“Yes, I do. Aunt Nina says it’s selfish of me to want my friends to myself. She says I have to share them with Davie and Tommy. And Uncle Tully doesn’t like other kids in the house. He says we make too much noise.”
“I see,” Stormy said, understanding more than she wanted to. Remorse overwhelmed her. In her absence, her daughter had been treated like an unwanted stepchild—and on her own money, to boot. Stormy had more than one bone to pick with Nina and Tully.
“Red light!” Liane cried.
Stormy hit the brakes. “Thanks, sweetie. I guess I was daydreaming. Tell me about your best friend. Is she as smart as you?”
“She’s like me. She doesn’t have a daddy because her mom’s divorced, and her mother once went to jail for writing bad checks. But it wasn’t Mrs. Byers’s fault because Janelle’s daddy took all their money out of the bank without telling anybody.”
It took Stormy until they were parked in the drive at the beach house to compose a reply, and once she did, she had no idea whether Liane would understand it. She brushed stray wisps of hair off her daughter’s brow. “I’m going to make it up to you, Liane. Somehow. I’m beginning to see that living with Aunt Nina and Uncle Tully was as much a prison for you as a real one was for me. Will you remember that I love you more than life itself?”
Liane seemed to think that over. “Does that mean you won’t fuss at me—ever?”
Stormy laughed. “Not quite, but I might be able to hold off until you get to be a snooty teenager.”
“Oh, I don’t want to be a teenager. Then I might have to have a period. Yuck!”
Alarmed, motherhood flared in Stormy. “Who told you about that?” she asked with what she hoped was a semblance of calm.
“Janelle. She has a sister who’s almost fifteen, and she’s the one with the period, and she has to get itev-er-ymonth. Mrs. Byers is always making sure that she does, so they fuss about it a lot. Janelle and I made a pact. We’re not going to get periods, even if they’re cheap.”
“Periods…cheap?” Stormy repeated, beginning to worry about what other misguided ideas Liane might have acquired in her absence.
Liane shrugged. “I guess. Janelle says her mother is always telling her sister that periods are cheaper than alter-natives.”
“Alter…natives? Oh,” Stormy said, grasping the child’s mispronunciation. “Alternatives.”
Liane looked at her mother. “You’re not mad, are you?”
Stormy was lost. “About what?”
“Me and Janelle making a pact.”
“Oh, no. I think it’s a wonderful idea.”
Liane beamed. “I knew you would. I told Janelle you wouldn’t get me a period if I didn’t want one, even if it was on sale at Walmart.”
“That’s true, sweetheart.” Stormy didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“Mom?”
Stormy stopped.
“Did anything really, really awful happen to you while you were in jail?”
Standing naked before the guards during strip searches flashed through Stormy’s mind. “No, nothing really awful. Why?”
“Aunt Nina said you’d be different when you came home because terrible things had happened to you.”
“Aunt Nina is wrong. The only truly awful thing was being away from you.”