Mama Tiger

Chapter 12.

Chapter 12.

"We should do something special for mom," said Mariana. She and Callie were sitting around the kitchen the next afternoon, waiting to hear something while Lena and Sharon were at the hospital.

"We could clean the house," Callie suggested. She'd noticed that morning that the house was messier than usual; everyone had either been too busy or too worried about Stef to think much about the housework. "She'd like that."

Mariana frowned. "No. I meant we should do something special and fun."

Callie rolled her eyes. "We could make her something."

"I know!" said Mariana, suddenly. "Let's bake her a cake. I think we have the ingredients." She hopped up and went to the pantry cupboard.

"Is it okay to use them?" Callie asked, joining her. Her face was creased with concern.

"Of course it is," Mariana replied, as she rummaged through canned goods and food boxes. "Why wouldn't it be?"

"I don't know," she shrugged. "You know how it is sometimes."

Mariana sighed, and turned to face her sister. "Moms aren't going to care if we use any of the food or make a mess, as long as we clean up after ourselves. You know that, Callie."

"I know," she nodded. "I just forget sometimes." She took a box of cake mix from Mariana, and brought it to the counter.

"Great. We don't have any frosting," Mariana grumbled. She brought a bag of M&Ms to where Callie stood, opened it, and popped a few candies in her mouth before offering the bag to her sister.

Callie reached in and took a blue M&M and a red one. "No big deal. We can make our own frosting." She went back to the pantry and found a bag of powdered sugar and a bottle of vanilla. She lined them up on the counter, then went to the refrigerator and found a stick of butter and a carton of milk. "It tastes better than canned, anyway. My mom taught me how to make it."

"You're lucky," said Mariana, wistfully biting into another piece of candy. "You're mom sounded nice. My birth mom didn't teach me anything."

Callie found a mixing bowl in the cupboard and dumped the cake mix into it. "She was nice," she replied, looking down into the bowl. "We didn't have much, but she always made the best of it. And she loved us." She cracked three eggs into the bowl. "Can you preheat the oven to 350?"

Mariana nodded, and turned the knob to the temperature. "Ana never paid much attention to us. She was too busy getting high."

"I think you guys are lucky, too," Callie told her. "I mean, you got to be with moms since you were little. I wish Jude and I could have grown up in this family. It would have saved us a lot of trouble."

"That's true," Mariana agreed, sliding the cake pan in the oven. "Ending up here was like a dream come true for us. But maybe you wouldn't be who you are now if you didn't go through what you did?"

"What do you mean?" she asked, wiping down the counter with a dishcloth.

Shrugging, Mariana explained, "Everything you went through made you strong, because you had to survive."

"Maybe I'm not as strong as everyone thinks?" Callie offered, looking away. "Well," she finally sighed. "The cake is baking, and I'm going to clean the living room. You can help me if you want."

"I'll pass," said Mariana.

Callie went to the closet and took out the vacuum cleaner. She plugged it in and vacuumed the floor, then fluffed the couch cushions, and picked up everyone's stray belongings that had accumulated around the room over the course of the week. Cleaning was mindless; it helped her not to think about how disappointed she would be if Stef didn't come home that night, or how frightened she was that she would lose her. Cleaning had gotten her through some hard times.