Girl in the Shadows (Shadows 2)

He turned slowly to us. "The door's been opened. It wasn't closed completely." he said.

"Good grief. we're being burglarized!" Mrs. Westington cried, and pulled Echo to her. "Stay back, girl," she told me. and I retreated a few steps.

Trevor went to the corner of the house and got a thick-handled rake he had there.

"Be careful," Mrs. Westington said. "Maybe we should just drive down to the nearest phone."

"I'm fine," he said. "Stay back."

He walked up the stairs slowly and then carefully opened the door and peered in. listening. When he turned back to us, he looked confused.

"Whoever's in there has the television on," he said in a loud whisper.

"Make themselves at home, why don't they?" Mrs. Westington said.

Trevor held his arm out to remind us to keep back and then he entered the house. We waited, listening, but my thumping heart was so loud in my ears. I didn't think I'd hear a thing. It seemed like minutes but was only seconds.

"Who the hell are you?" we heard him shout. I stepped back. terrified. Mrs. Westington embraced Echo tighter. She was totally confused and as frightened as I was. We heard a man's voice and then Trevor cried. "Well, I'll be damned!"

A few moments later, he appeared in the doorway. Before he could say a word, a woman wearing a red, white, and blue bandanna came out from behind him. There was a tattoo of a blue dahlia on her right cheek and a string, of what looked like small seashells around her neck, falling down the valley between her ample breasts. She wore what looked like an Arab woman's black robe. She was barefoot. Her hair was long and stringy, the strands raining down limply over her ears to her neck.

Before she even spoke, I knew who she was. "Hi. Mom," she said.

I guess it's a day for disappointments and nightmares. I thought. Now Mrs. Westington was about to have one of her own.

6 Mama Comes Home

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"Well, ain't this a pretty kettle of fish," Mrs. Westington said. She glanced at Echo and then relaxed her embrace. "You probably don't remember who that is. Echo. It almost takes a divining rod for me to determine her identity, but that there is your mother or what passes for her," she said.

"Now let's not start out on the wrong foot. Mom," Rhona said.

"We've been on the wrong foot for some time, Rhona. Too late to get off that." Mrs. Westington said.

"Hi, Echo." Rhona said. "I wouldn't have recognized you. You've grown so. Don't you want to give me a kiss and a hug?" She held out her arms.

Echo stared up at her, unmoving, her hand tightly clasping Mrs. Westighton's. Did her own mother forget her daughter was deaf?

A tall, thin man with a grubby beard stepped up beside Rhona. He was wearing a white button down shirt that looked like it had last been washed ten years ago and a pair of torn, ragged jeans with black sandals. His toes were so dirty, it was hard to tell where they were and where the straps of the sandals were. The strands of his dull brown hair resembled broken springs shooting off in every direction. When he smiled, his thin lips practically disappeared, producing a dull slice above his slightly protruding cleft chin. His neck looked like it needed a good scrubbing.

"This is Skeeter." Rhona said, lowering her arms.

"Hi there," he said, saluting quickly at Mrs. Westington. I glanced at her. She looked like she had just swallowed some sour milk. "You have a very nice house and great property. Love this old door. Oak, isn't it?"

"Skeeter? Didn't your parents give you a real name?" she asked.

I laughed to myself. Mrs. Westington wasn't one to hold back her thoughts and criticisms, even when she faced a complete stranger.

"Well, my real name is Sanford Bickers. but I never saw myself as a Sanford."

"Everyone knows him as Skeeter. Mom. No one knows him as Sanford."

"Then you two have something in common. You're both running away from yourselves," Mrs.

"I never knew you to be inhospitable. Ma," Rhona said.

Mrs. Westington looked at her askance.