The Knowing Box Set EXTENDED EDITION: Exclusive New Material by Hammon Ninie

Author:Hammon, Ninie [Hammon, Ninie]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2016-08-11T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

2011

Ten-year-old Miranda Burke was sobbing. She lay with her face buried in her pillow on the Princess Bride bedspread Mommy had ordered from that store that had old stuff you couldn’t get anywhere else. She didn’t know Andi was listening and then Andi’d had to pretend to be surprised on Christmas morning.

The first night she’d slept under it, Mommy had pulled it snug up around her neck, kissed her on the nose and said, “Night, night, Buttercup.”

The memory made Andi cry harder, and she let it all out, didn’t try to hold her feelings in like she did when Daddy was around so she wouldn’t make him sad, too. But she bet he was doing the same thing.

She lifted her head and cried out at the ceiling in a tear-clotted voice, “I’m mad at you, God.” And she was, too. So mad it almost was stronger than the hurt deep in her belly that felt like she was about to throw up.

“You let that bad man kill Mommy, and you didn’t do a thing to stop it. And you could have. You could have sent a big white angel with a sword or something. You could have kept Mommy alive, but you let her die. I hate you!”

Ossy hopped up onto the bed beside her. The big calico circled around twice before curling snug up against Andi’s side. He wasn’t supposed to get cat hair on Andi’s bed, but he slept with her every night.

She put one arm around Ossy, buried her face in his fur and fingered the small gold cross she wore—Mommy’s necklace that Daddy said her mother would want her to have. Daddy’s wrist had been in a cast so Uncle Jack had put it around Andi’s neck the day of Mommy’s funeral. She swore she would never take it off, never for her whole life. The thought of her mother’s funeral made her cry harder. She didn’t just miss Mommy, she needed Mommy—to braid her curly brown hair because Daddy’s big fingers couldn’t get it right, to finish teaching her how to iron a shirt and how to make pancakes shaped like rabbits and snowmen.

And now she couldn’t even smell Mommy anymore! At first, her perfume was still in her clothes, and Andi would go into her closet when Daddy wasn’t home and let the skirts and blouses hang down around her and pretend that Mommy was only at the grocery store and would be home any minute.

Now, even the perfume smell was gone.

“Why, God?” she cried out, pleading. “Why did you take my Mommy away?”

Andi finally cried herself out, cried so long and hard that her chest hurt. The sorrow was still there, of course, but crying had made it a little better. Not much, but a little. It was something she could hide when Daddy got home and came upstairs to tuck her in and say her prayers with her. She sat up and took a tissue from the box the housekeeper, Mrs. Beavers, always made sure to leave there for her.

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