Saving Cicadas by Nicole Seitz Read Free Book Online Page A

the way across country. I’d get off at each stop and look around, but I never felt like staying anywhere. The ground was too dry and dusty—hard like my home had been.”
    â€œIt wasn’t so hard,” said Grandma Mona. “Your mother’s exaggerating, girls. Isn’t she, Grayson?”
    â€œI was sixteen and pregnant and not an ounce of sense in me. I decided to stay wherever it was raining, and three days later, I’m in Cypresswood in a big thunder-boomer. I was a little disappointed I didn’t make it all the way to the ocean.”
    â€œIf you want the ocean, why you got off the bus?” asked Rainey. It was a very smart question.
    â€œI told you. I loved the rain. I’d made a deal with myself.”
    â€œThe clouds should have held out at least till Forest Pines,” said Grandma Mona. “If it hadn’t rained in Cypresswood, you might never have had Harlan in your lives.”
    Hmm. Well, that shut Mama up. Harlan was my daddy. He rode a Harley-Davidson named Marilyn after Marilyn Monroe, a dead movie star. I hardly remembered Daddy, seeing as he left when I was four. I did remember his brown hair was long in the back. And it was going gray down the sides too, so when the wind had caught it just right, it looked like he had two white wings coming out the back of him. I also had this memory of him and me riding to the Dairy Queen in Fervor, me holding on for dear life. Sometime after he left, my memory of my father started to fade. It’s a terrible thing to forget your father’s face, but it happens. At times, all I remembered of my father was an angel on a motorcycle.
    Mama really loved him, and she cried a whole long while when he left. Some for her, but mostly for Rainey and me. We cried too. Rainey practically lived in the hollow tree for a month. I remember she’d even take her meals out there.
    Driving down the road, every time a motorcycle would zoom past us, I’d check to see if it was him. Just an old habit. Mama said my daddy had a wild hair up his rear, and he finally ran off with Marilyn. I hoped they were happy, wherever they were.
    Mama looked up at the clouds and said, “I loved the rain so much, I named you Rainey, honey.”
    â€œI like my name.”
    â€œYeah, me too,” said Mama. “Fits you better than Thunder or Boomer, don’t you think?”
    Mama smiled for the first time in days and set her head back on the rest, and Rainey pressed hers on the window. Poppy was already snoring in the backseat, and Grandma Mona had pickled herself quiet.
    For the rest of the morning, we drove in near silence through the state of South Carolina, Rainey having finally fallen asleep, and none of us wanting to disturb her. I felt like a little window had opened between my mother and the rest of us, and I didn’t want to close it. I looked up at the clear blue sky when we crossed the state line into North Carolina. Secretly, I was praying for rain and that Mama could finally stop running.

Chapter Eight

THANK GOD FOR GROCERY STORES
    Mama had this thing about not wanting to press her opinions on Rainey and me. She wanted us to express our “own self.” I guess it all went back to her mother, Grandma Mona. Mama was just the opposite of her. I wondered what kind of mother I’d be when I grew up, the overbearing kind or the have-it-your-own-way kind? If we always do the opposite of how we were raised, I feared I might be cruel. I guessed it all depended on what you believed in. I wondered what Mama believed when it came to her having this new baby. All I really knew about Mama’s beliefs were, you always tip a waitress no matter what, and you always pack an umbrella. Just in case. I patted my list of options folded in my pocket, to make sure it was still there. I’d work on it some more when nobody was watching.
    Rainey and Poppy were awake now, but Grandma Mona was still unconscious. It was how I liked