Saving Cicadas by Nicole Seitz Read Free Book Online

“down,” and this being a former cop car, the doors and the windows wouldn’t work from the backseat. Better to keep the prisoners in, I guessed. Mama flicked the switch and Rainey’s window went down with a slow whoosh . She stuck her head out as far as she could with the seat belt holding her back. I craned my neck, watching her face light up in the wind, her shoulder-length hair blowing furiously around her. Rainey’s eyes were tightly closed as if she was thinking hard, as if she was listening to God out there in the wind. I watched her and wondered, what in the world is he saying to her now?
    â€œClose your lips, Rain. You’re gonna get bugs in your teeth.”
    She closed her mouth and slipped back inside, her hair crazed. Her eyes were smiling, and she moved her tongue around, checking for bugs, just in case.
    Mama was still nibbling on her biscuit, and Grandma Mona said, “Let me know if you start feeling sick or anything, Priscilla. We’ll have to put you in the backseat with the rubber floor.” I looked at my mother and suddenly wished I was in the backseat and out of her range.
    She signaled right, and we pulled onto the ramp for I-26 West. We were going to the mountains. The last time we went to the mountains, it was right after my daddy left. Mama said he was headed for the hills, so off we went, chasing after him. Never did find him. I wondered what we’re doing now, how long we were going to stay up in the mountains. Were we going to find Daddy? No. I pushed the thought out of my head. Maybe Mama’d get tired and miss our house. Maybe we’d run out of money and she’d head back to the egg salad nesting in the freezer. We’d probably be home in our own beds tonight.
    â€œI know you’re not going where I think you’re going,” said Grandma Mona.
    I heard the wheels humming below us and watched the trees getting taller.
    â€œWe don’t have to go anywhere, you know,” I told Mama.
    â€œYes we do,” said Grandma Mona. “Priscilla does. Don’t you, Priscilla? Like when she was pregnant with Rainey, she just took off. Isn’t that what you do, Priscilla? Tell your daughters. They’re old enough to know.”
    Mama hadn’t mentioned this before. She’d never really talked about her giving birth to Rainey. But something about the movement of the car allowed her to start talking. Maybe it was that she didn’t have to look us in the eye.
    â€œI was almost your age when I found out I was having you, Rainey. My mother was not nearly as understanding as yours. She told me what she expected me to do. She would have forced me if I’d stayed.” “To do what?” asked Rainey.
    â€œYeah, what did she want you to do?” I asked.
    â€œThat is quite enough, Priscilla,” said Grandma Mona. “Why don’t you tell her the truth? How you wouldn’t stop running around with that Johnson boy. Now there’s a good story.”
    â€œWe were living in Yuma, Arizona, at the time,” Mama said, ignoring my question and Grandma Mona’s meanness. “Daddy’s job had moved us there. ‘We’ve only been here a year, Priscilla! Now what will everybody think?!’ ” Mama did an impression of Grandma Mona that I thought sounded a lot like her. Grandma Mona didn’t think it was so funny though.
    â€œWell truly. Everybody did think it. They did. You know I was right, Priscilla. We were living in different times.”
    Mama sniffed and wiped her face with the back of her right hand, and I wished I could open the door, jump, and roll right out of this pressure cooker. But I couldn’t. Mama needed me.
    â€œSo you left home,” I said. “You drove to Cypresswood, South Carolina, by yourself?”
    â€œI hitched a ride to California, thinking I’d like it out there. But it was too close to home. So I waited tables for a week and took a bus all