Angel Burn (Book 1 Of Angel Trilogy)

Chapter 4| Angels Are Real?!

Chapter 4| Angels Are Real?!

Lucy's POV

Sinking back into the chair, I looked dully at the velvet painting of a sad clown that hung over the sideboard. He was holding a drooping daffodil and had a big glistening tear on one cheek. Aunt Michelle had bought it at a garage sale a few years ago. "Can you believe this bargain?" she'd said as she hung it proudly on the wall. "It was only twenty dollars!"

Twenty dollars. My eyes went to the bill under the sugar bowl. I pulled it out and gazed at it, and then I gently slipped it back under the bowl and put my head in my hands.

"Look, Layla, isn't that pretty?" demanded Aunt Michelle, pointing to the TV.

It was later that same night, after dinner—which I had cooked, because I don't like plastic food, and as far as Aunt Michelle's concerned, if it doesn't say Hamburger Helper or Chef Boyardee on the label, then it's not one of the basic food groups. So I had made a big pot of spaghetti for the three of us, because it's something I can do without really thinking about it. Besides, there's something very soothing about chopping vegetables and stirring a bubbling sauce, and I really needed to be soothed just then. I couldn't stop thinking about Lisanna.

Aunt Michelle had gone on and on during dinner, talking about this woman at her office who she doesn't like. Big surprise; she doesn't like anyone very much. I kept my head down while we ate, letting the torrent of words wash over me and saying, "Mm-hmm," at intervals. Mom had just ignored her, of course. She sat stirring the food around dreamily on her plate and occasionally took an absentminded bite. Sometimes I envied her. She didn't even have to pretend to listen to Aunt Michelle.

Now we were all in the living room, and Aunt Michelle was trying determinedly to get Mom to "engage with her," as the therapist puts it. That means actually getting her to pay attention to you, as if she's still part of the real world instead of off on her own personal planet. To be honest, I'm not really sure why any of us bother. I think Mom's probably happier where she is.

"Layla!" said Aunt Michelle again, leaning across and tapping Mom sharply on the arm. "Are you listening to me? Look at the TV. Isn't that tropical beach pretty?"

She spoke a little more loudly and slowly than usual, as if she were talking to a three-year-old. Mom didn't respond. She was sitting in her favorite easy chair, staring off into the distance. The two of us look a lot alike, I guess. She has the same wavy blond hair that I do, except that hers is cut into a bob so that it's easy to take care of. And she's short like me, though she's not slim anymore. Too many years of sitting lost in her own thoughts have left her pale and doughy, soft around the edges.

She's still beautiful, though. She always is. I glanced over at Mom's wide green eyes, so like my own. Peas in a pod, she used to say.

Because she wasn't always like this; she used to talk—to me, at least. When I was little, we'd play games together and she'd laugh. Yet even back then, she was so strange and shy around other people that by the time I was five or six I felt protective of her, knowing that she couldn't cope with the world the way I could. And then there was the cloud that would drift over her at times, carrying her far away from me. She'd just sit there, the way she was sitting now, and no amount of crying or yelling would bring her back until she was ready. I had to learn to cook my own meals, brush my own hair—and somehow I knew that I could never, ever tell anyone, or else they might take her away from me altogether.

But then as the years passed, what I'd feared so much had happened anyway. My mother had just sort of . . . slipped away, retreating further and further into her dreams until finally she hardly ever came back from her other world at all.