Page 14 of Hearing her Cries

But only when Grandfather was gone. Cartoon movies rotted kids’ brains and werenotallowed.

Ever.

Except when he was gone, anyway.

Nanny was kind ofbad,too. Nanny was really willful.

Sometimes, Oakley would make copies of the new pictures. She’d hide them in her room. So she could show her little brother, too.

Orion really wanted a mommy. Lots and lots.

So did Oakley. More than anything.

Oakley had told Orion lots of stories about their mommy.

Oakleyknewshe was out there. Looking for them.

Their mommy had to be looking for them. She just had to be.

Oakley looked just like her mommy.

The same dark hair and dark eyes. And the smile. It made Grandfather happy that she looked like her mommy that way. He’d said so.

Not a lot of other things Oakley did ever made him happy. It was because she was flawed and stuff. Not perfect like he wanted.

They hadn’t had their mommy before, but their mommy was probably around when Orion was a baby. She didn’t really know.

Or maybe bad guys, even more badder than their grandfather, had taken their mommy away from them. And she was trying to get back to them now.

Maybe Mean Vaughn had taken her mommy away.

Or Mommy was staying away to protect them from the bad guys or something.

Mommies didn’t just leave their kids.

She’d heard her grandfather and the mean lady who visited sometimes arguing again two days ago. He left the next day.

Grandfather hadn’t been back.

He’d told the mean lady he would make her pay. Grandfather would kill her and bury her in the ground like he had the other ladies who had made him mad before.

The mean lady had just laughed and said he would never scare her. She just knew too much about him. It sounded really cold and mean when that lady laughed that way.

The mean lady wasn’t very nice at all. Most of the time the lady was there, Oakley and Orion hid.

Nanny had told Oakley she had to take a nap according to the schedule again. Oakley wasn’t sleepy. Nanny would be busy for a really long time, watching TV and drinking the stinky stuff like she always did.

Grandfather was gone again.

Oakley wanted to look at the pictures.

The pictures of her mommy and of her aunt, who was named like the mermaid from the movie.

Grandfather had lots of pictures of Oakley’s aunt, too. Oakley’s aunt was just as pretty as Oakley’s mommy.

Oakley wanted her mommy to just come and save her and make things better more than anything else in the world.

Especially for Orion. He was really little. And Grandfather didn’t like him very much. He said Orion wastooflawed.