MINDER: Olallie's Offering (Mum's the Word Series Book 2) Read online

  MINDER

  OLALLIE’S OFFERING

  LAIKYN MENG

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product(s) of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental or meant to lend credibility and authenticity to the story. The use of brand names and locations should not be read as an endorsement of this author’s work. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  18+ Mature content explicit language and sexual content. Sensitivity warnings. Abuse and violence, alcohol and drug use.

  COPYRIGHT © 2020 LAIKYN MENG

  THE ORANGE 9 PUBLISHING COMPANY LLC

  COVER PHOTO

  Photographer: Tanja Heffner

  Model: Antonella Kinder

  ISBN: 9798669139384

  MINDER: noun. a person whose job it is to look after someone or something.

  PROLOGUE

  Who's there? I opened the door and found myself staring at Lawson.

  I see him first, but like good things in life, I feel him early also. He is in mid-conversation and stops. Knowing something unique is happening.

  He looks up and around, passing over me once twice, and then he locks eyes with my aqua jewels, and there you have it. He starts feeling it too.

  We are in a zone alone from different atmospheres for 30 seconds, and that's all it takes to take our breaths away.

  Today I woke up and thought I'd fall in love with the day. Maybe with artwork or a good book but not with an actual person. See people don't notice me like you would assume they would. I was the odd one out in my family. Yet the occurrence was primarily based on avoiding differences.

  Lawson is here, though.

  We don't necessarily smile at each other. Because here on out we know we'll be in each other's life. Committed to one another.

  He strides up to me, never breaking eye contact. If I were a nervous person, this would be the point where I would blush and turn away. But I do the opposite and stand my ground.

  The teenage boy stands in front of me. No gulp down his throat making his Adam apple signal for help.

  He cups my face in one hand and kisses me with the electric pull. Intuitive, that's what they tell me I am. If it is correct then I am in the right place.

  "Lawson." I know.

  "Olallie." He knows.

  "I'll see you later."

  "You will." Thus begins our journey into a land of broken promises, all based on wishful thinking and unchanged behaviors.

  My mother once signed me a series of complicated phrases. As if I was rehearsing a speech, and she was the voice in my head to speak freely.

  She would practice every day in a subtle way that showed me her expression. Sometimes I caught her fingers spelling out words and gesturing to terms I wasn’t allowed to say or repeat.

  Luna Lovett had one love, and it wasn’t herself. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t my real father, Lennox. It was him; Asher Rainer.

  Have you ever met someone so out of place in the world that you can tell by looking at them they were born in the wrong universe?

  Asher was like that. Luna alongside him, they were precisely that description.

  He went against rules of regulations. Disobeyed the land of the law. While flat out ignoring the hints of social interaction.

  And he was partially deaf, a common bond between yours truly.

  My mother and father were of the hearing specimens. Her parents, however, passed their genetics down to me. There was a struggle in my mother, Luna’s life. She was uncomfortably sane. Easygoing with a spark for spontaneity, bold with bluntness in every verb.

  It was times like this when I stared down at her faded headstone that I wondered what her purpose in life really was. What any of our true potentials are?

  It is a sweet irony that she fell in love with a man who could not fully hear her. Seemingly because of her whole life, she tried to avoid those individuals. Her parents, her daughter. Yet, she was an interpreter for the hearing impaired.

  The first memory I have of my mother is one I cherish always. I was a waddling toddler, and she hadn’t yet seen me walk again. She burst through the door, and at first, I was frightened. But then I stared at her and something in me connected with the glow around her.

  Luna fell to her knees and held her arms open. Smiling while tears blessed and cleansed her cheeks. I swayed my arms back and forth, making my steps count as I walked to her. And she held so firm on to me, I thought she would never have the ability to let go.

  Time with my mother was a short glimpse in the span of my memory. I only had her for 2 ½ years. That was all we were allocated to belong as mother and daughter. Before her, the sheer purpose was resolved, and I became another child passed to another family.

  An orphan left to wander.

  Chapter 1

  OLALLIE

  I try to numb my skin to the screams echoing through my tamed skull. I tell myself it isn’t me. I would never give myself the privilege of acting out in such conditions.

  To be so exposed, with no refrain. Shaking, startled with no door to hide behind. It’s a stream of witnesses that rush in; nurses, doctors, other patients come to see the deaf girl make noise for the first time. They hear a catatonic holler, not the sweet southern belle I was trained to be.

  Flashbacks to my young mother, and I shudder against the panda promises she condemned me not to break. Be kind, she would whisper with her fingers. But in those 3 minutes and 15 seconds, I couldn’t find solitude, I couldn’t find a good bone in my body.

  Failing her came at a price. Inhale a long breath, blink Lord Jesus, help me blink through this awful pain. I exhale out to the sound of her voice calling my watery name.

  Always has the rush of waves in the distance as it mumbled. It’s almost close, and I could practically feel it. Almost alive if I believed enough, the more I edged closer to the imaginary sound. I realized what an awful trick my mind made me a victim. She never spoke to ears that could hear her. No, Luna Lovett only translated through signed gestures and long hugs.

  Blink once, leaving them closed. I stop the shouting, which halts the pain traveling up my spine. I don’t feel the needle they jab in my thigh, but I sense I’ve gone too far to be seen again.

  When I wake, there are some nightmares worth living through. Mine was an extraordinary kiss with time.

  “Where did you go, pretty angel?” My cellmate lingers near, but not too close. Probably heard the rage that broke last night and knows I am a lunatic.

  There’s pressure behind my ears, where Knox politely improved my odds of hearing. It itches from the stitches, since I ripped out the cochlear implant, again.

  Something he wanted, something he needed. Not understanding me, was going to be a struggle for him. But Knox Krause eliminated roadblocks, no matter how many casualties.

  I didn’t want to hear a world in which he demanded simple behavior. I tried to remain muted from the outside. Because if I couldn’t listen, maybe it wouldn’t hurt as bad.

  “I’m here.” Zailey, I think her name is, sits with me for hours. Not making a noise, just focusing out the same window. Blurred with our privacy.

  Maybe she says it for comfort, or to get good points with the staff
. Who knows, but she remains next to me. Not making me believe in compromise or insanity, just regular breath.

  I’m here. I point to myself, my hands go to my sides round in circles. I’m here. Repeating the signs over and over again, wondering what the hell that even means anymore.

  Nothing but shame filters through their compliments. They can keep them, I have enough guilt.

  ~

  Two days later, I am allowed to leave my room, and if my skin shade had a name, it would be a pale promise. After breakfast, I spent two hours passing back and forth on the 8 feet of the fenced-in lawn we shared with the children patients.

  I had made one friend since I was here, she was the epitome of a rebel if I ever did see one. Zailey Jensen, did things her way, until the ways she did things turned against her. She had lightning striking hair, tattoos, and pierced dimples. I hope your mind didn’t go to the gutter and thought I said nipples instead of dimples, she is a lady after all.

  In the few short weeks after I came here, she came up to me and never left my side. We didn’t talk, and she didn’t try to communicate with me like a daft idiot with a speech impediment.

  No, sir, Zailey sat there like we were both sharing a similar hurt and didn’t know how to express it other than a gentle nod in either’s direction.

  To tell you the truth, ain’t nobody really knows my facts, I hardly do myself. Or at least I try to avoid them. Which is why my biological father thought it might be a good idea, if I stay here for a while. He didn’t give much choice, when I thought I was coming home for break, he held out a duffel bag and told me not to die.

  Lennox (Knox) Krause was like that, and I assure you nobody expected him to be tender toward any one of his four kids; except Leonie. I may have been the only one without matching last names to theirs—all different sharing mothers except the twins who, of course, were cohabiters of the same uterus.

  First, there was Rebecca, his high school sweetheart, 15 and dreaming of forever. After she had Leonie, something changed in her, a dark substance came to surface and took her life before I was in the presence of the Krause’s. Luna always talked soft words about her, I remembered she often cried when she went to visit her deceased friend. I think Rebecca was the role model you could never cast any shame on. They are infinite and indestructible in your mind.

  How would you recover from a loss that monumental? Is there an instruction manual I could pick up at the local bookstore? Something that describes the process of healing from such heavy grief, you wouldn’t think to fail?

  I didn’t know those answers, I couldn’t pretend all the time that I did. I only absorbed so much silence, before one noise set it exploding and I would combust.

  Seeing Luna’s face flat against the pavement. Pools of blood coughing out of her mouth as she wheezed, trying to stay calm for me. While Asher screamed at the top of his lungs, I felt it in the tips of my sandals. He shook the earth with his terror, the phone not even by his ear, calling out commands to emergency response. His lips running faster than my 9-year-old eyes could keep up.

  So I didn’t try harder, I shifted my gaze back down to her, when I went to stand up and go to her, he shoved out a hand telling me to sit on the curb. I sat back down, reaching out my hand. I put one toe on the sidewalk while I laid on my stomach to touch her outstretched hand.

  Her blinks were coming slower, and I hesitated to count them. But when the last one continued more than a minute, her grip limp. I crawled closer to her and curled myself underneath the only mother I ever wanted. The only one that mattered to me. Everyone that dies young or old is always gone too soon.

  But my mother and I, our relationship was over too soon. A lot happened in those two years we were together. Luna took over custody of me after my grandparents passed away. She was always there in the backgrounds of dance recitals, piano concerts. My mother was still my hero, my spectrum of intense was based on the levels of Luna’s heart and spirit.

  Now at 16, I can’t say I’m anything like her. Because weaknesses weren’t in her description. And there is so much suffering I could never understand by the way she held her head high through all of it. It wasn’t until the police arrived, the flashing lights of the ambulance that Asher took me from her warm arms.

  He tried sitting me down beside him while he talked to the officers, but I wouldn’t have it. Must have been the Krause in me, but it was the first time Asher was compassionate and held me tighter. Maybe he realized that we both lost our other half. Or perhaps he realized her broken arm with the word metanoia tattooed was still outreached toward me.

  Tears didn’t wash down my face. I wish someone would have been there to slap my virgin cheeks and tell me to shed some pity to respect thy mother. Yet, it didn’t occur to me what was happening, why my mother was frozen in time, and the crimson red turned a dried maroon around her lips. The way they tucked her in so she wouldn’t be cold, she was just taking a nap with shining eyes still glistening in our direction.

  At 9 years old, I couldn’t hold back my first word, and though she was couldn’t hear my voice anymore, I looked down at the woman who gave up worlds for me, and I said, “bye, momma.”

  Chapter 2

  LAWSON

  My first memory is sound.

  An echo probably is more appropriate.

  I’m 3, maybe 4 years old. The noise comes from behind me. After hearing the boom, I looked down at my toy in my chubby toddler hands. Then another sound came; her scream.

  I wasn’t supposed to turn around, but momma Angel’s cry made my bellyache. His mouth was moving, later I learned it was words you weren’t supposed to say to someone you claimed to love.

  My papa loved her, he told her all the time. He would shout it in her face, yell it to the back of her head. So much that I believed it to be true.

  I didn’t ever want to be loved like daddy loved my mother. The love made her weak, it crippled her protection. Each time he said those words, she would back herself in a corner, defenseless. Waiting for the proclamation to be over.

  Announcements and grand gestures were warning signs that chaos was about to run hasty in our house. It was small, and my little sister Crimsyn and I shared a bed in one of the rooms.

  Daddy always said mommy thought she was better than us. Angel’s skin was the color of fuzzy peach. It was just as soft when she held us close. Clutching us away from the danger and we would fall asleep in her arms.

  Listening to an unsettled pulse, worried about the strength on the lock of the bathroom door.

  “Why is daddy, upset, mommy?” Crimsyn tucked to the side with her brown-skinned dolly. Her tiny fingers, braiding the long mane.

  “He can’t find what he wants.” Angel doesn’t turn to look at the fear in our hearts. Her own terror conquering any courage we might have been lucky to discover. She isolates her focus at the scratched door.

  All I can do is stare at her, waiting for a reaction other than this.

  “Should we go help him find it?” Crimsyn has cooled her tears and has gone back to find a solution to our problem.

  “No, sweetie. It’s gone, what he wants is gone. There isn’t anymore, and we don’t have the money to buy more.” She whispers the last part, eyeing me carefully. But rests her sight back on the door, making sure the pounding on the other side hasn’t broken through.

  I’m 6 years old and wonder if we’ll be hiding in here for my birthday that is next month. I’m in first grade, and I start counting the seconds until we can breathe out loud.

  I’m the older brother, trying to protect a wounded mother and sister blinded by the experience.

  My 24-year-old mother is memorizing the pattern in which her lover beats the hollow wood door. She begins tapping the tops of her knees. Trying to sing away the scares that are too familiar to ignore.

  “What song are you singing, momma?” Crimsyn breaks a smile, for the first time since being sealed near the bathtub. “I want to sing too!”

  She starts clapping, ignoring the f
ists that keep flying against the drywall outside. A piece of furniture is thrown, and we all stop and inhale, hoping it wasn’t something that creates sharp points.

  “It—um, it goes. Don’t worry about the thunder that crackles from the skies…” Angel’s voice starts to move in a rhythm that creates a safe haven for her daughter.

  I stare at them, confused how a song or words are going to save us this time from the mad man.

  He shouts some dirty slur about my mother being white trash. My eyes move to her, curious if the accusations are true and I’ve never known before.

  Angel still doesn’t cry, she keeps singing make-believe to Crimsyn.

  “The storm outside will grow quiet into the night. Empty sky, can you close your eyes. Leave me alone until the morning light.” Her arms squeeze us tighter and notice the jiggle of the doorknob getting loose.

  “Move away from the clouds and dry up all your tears. It’s okay, we’ll get through this timeline.” Crimsyn latches onto the words, mouthing along to a pretend song.

  All at once, the banging stops, and we are all shocked that the song worked. Magic has happened, Verse’s dad does small card tricks, but I knew there was something good in the world. Everything can’t all be bad.

  Minutes go by, and we all look relieved, there isn’t a crazed father waiting hungrily to abuse his family.

  “Keep singing, Angel. I love your voice. It always soothes me when I’m coming down.” The doorframe creaks, as Issy leans against it.

  Angel listens to this order like she does the rest, without hesitation. She points to the window and opens it wide enough. Both my sister and I have the opportunity to escape.

  “Go to Villatoro’s house, I’ll come to get you when it’s safe to come home again.” She waves us on, her light brown hair shoved back out of her sight. Not wanting to miss us fleeing for our lives.

  Safe to come home again. Maybe next time it will be.