The Secret Hum of a Daisy Read Free Page B

heaven’s name . . . ,” Grandma called from somewhere behind me.
    Her words faded as the sound of water got louder. I moved through the thick trees, ankle deep in pine needles, their sharp points biting through my tights. There was a clearing. Then the river.
    It moved fast, sticks and torn branches rushing by. As I edged closer to the slippery rocks, I saw blond hair floating. Mermaid hair. Then gone. I sat down in a heap on the sand, trying to force the pictures out of my mind, but they played like a movie.
    A policeman putting a wool blanket around my shoulders, trying to take Mama’s hand from mine. How it took two of them to get me away from her. My hair dripping onto the scratchy wool of the blanket as I finally slumped against the policeman, resting my head on his shoulder. The edge of his badge in my ribs. How they asked me so many questions about what happened, and I couldn’t answer. Then I wouldn’t. I would never talk about that day.
    Grandma crouched beside me. Words tumbled around my mind, and I itched for my notebook and pencil, but they were in the duffel in the bed of Grandma’s truck.
    â€œIt must have been . . . awful.”
    â€œIs this the Sacramento River?” I said.
    â€œIt’s called the Bear up here.”
    There was nothing else to do but stand up on wobbly legs and get away from the river, wet branches slapping me in the face and neck as I ran back through the woods.
    Eventually, Grandma came around the house behind me, white mist puffing from her nose and mouth. She reached out a leather-gloved hand, but settled it on the rusted edge of the truck bed for support. She touched the cross at her neck.
    Mama had spent my lifetime staying away from this person. She’d gotten herself off a bus in a place she didn’t know and trusted a world of strangers could take better care of her than her own mother. I wasn’t about to do anything different.
    I paced beside the truck. “Mama said you sent her away, that you turned your back on us a long time ago.”
    Silence.
    â€œI know it’s true. I want to hear you say it.”
    Grandma took forever to answer. “Yes. I sent her away.”
    I stopped pacing. “Just like that?”
    â€œNothing is just like that.”
    I went to work untying the rope holding down the tarp. I took one last look at the house, picked up the closest box, and headed toward Grandpa’s workshop.

4
    Getting Stuck
    That Way
    Later that night, Grandma made threats about my staying in Grandpa’s shed, but we didn’t know each other well enough for them to have teeth. Short of slapping a padlock on the door, there wasn’t a thing she could do. She must have figured it out, too, because after getting rid of a few old containers of paint thinner, a saw blade, and two rat traps, she took her tall self out the door and left me alone.
    The workshop wasn’t a bad place to stay. There was a wood stove in the corner to keep me warm. Sort of. But at least I knew how to keep it running from the six months I’d had in King City with the Girl Scouts. A bucket took care of the drip from the ceiling. There were glass jars lined along the back wall that held nuts and bolts and other metal doodads in case I needed to fix something. It smelled like wood chips and oiled hinges. I didn’t care, though. As long as I had Mama’s quilt and sofa, I could stay out here forever.
    Best of all, I couldn’t hear the river.
    Trying to ignore the blasts of rain against the tin roof, I dug a flashlight out of one of the boxes and laid my sleeping bag and pillow on our flower-garden sofa. I took my latest notebook out of my duffel and climbed into the sleeping bag.
    I hadn’t written anything in the six days since Mama died, and the words were scratching at me in the way they always did. I hoped to find the end of that string inside myself—the string that tended to work itself into