Clouds

One

"Mom..."

"Mom."

"Mom," the one single strand of parental name-calling that was intentionally authorized upon her prominent female blood relative, kept drizzling out of Karrisa's mouth.  "Mom!"

"If you say 'mom' again, I'll show you my mom. It won't be as brilliant as you believe your grandmother to be," Haven Andrews waltzed into the baby blue bedroom that Karissa had somehow splattered black spray paint all over without making the setting depressing.  "What do you need, baby?"

"What is a pubic hair?"  

Haven looked at her daughter directly in her topaz eyes.  Quite flattened by surprise, she took a second to decide the perfect response.  There really wasn't one that would involve answering the question, "Why, Rissa?"

"Well, Henry Tylers told Jenny, Kaitlyn, and me that he already had it all over himself wherever he needed it.  Then, he said it was because he was such a grown-man."

At that moment, Haven suddenly felt a gulp in her throat that wouldn't easily clear, "Who is this Henry kid that you're talking about?"

"He's Jenny's big brother, mom!  Don't you remember, Jennifer Tylers?  That's my best friend's name, mom!  Are you crazy?"  She was laughing now, too.  Too oblivious to see the fearful crimes her mother was imagining, it merely brightened a soul to find innocence within Karissa's charisma.  After-all, Karissa was eight-years old. 

"How old is Henry Tylers?"

"He's seventeen; his birthday was on the same day that Jenny's party was on.  He gave me a lollipop.  It was chocolate flavored, and then he swung me on the swings because I didn't want to play dress-up with the other girls."  Taking in Karissa's ongoing explanations, nearly made Haven want to cry. This all made her question her power of authority and wonder if allowing her children to be free spirits as she did, was the wisest thing.  "Come here, Karissa; I need to go out.  Come with me."

"Where are we going? It's so late, momma.  Won't Daniel wonder where we are?  Can he come with us?"  Daniel was her brother and Haven's step-son.   Actually, that made Haven stop and think.

"Never mind, go back to your room.  Okay?  Listen to me; lock your window and read yourself a story.  To make up for no story-time tonight, tomorrow I'll read three books."

"Three?  Really! Really?"  Karissa hugged her mother tightly.  It was one of those hugs children gave parents when they were too afraid to walk into school alone for the first time in their entire little lives.  

          Haven lifted Karissa up and despite her hurry to talk with Daniel alone, she tucked her in and handed her The Polar Express.  

"I love you."

"I love you more."

"I love you most."

"I love you, french toast."

"I love you, cheese fries."

"Cheese fries?"  Haven laughed, "That's a new one."

"I love you, fry-fry," Haven ended on that note as she kissed her daughter's forehead.

           Daniel was camping in his room as Haven saw it.  He stayed on his XBOX One for the primary existence of his human-form.  Instead of sleeping in his bed, he'd sleep on his floor.  She called it camping because at night he would make a pillow-fort to sleep in with sheets draping over the fort, making all of it look like a tent.  "Danny-boy, can I talk to you?"  His headphones blared heavy-medal; it sounded like something by Seether.  He tended to play Pandora till his eyes looked blood-shot.  It was an everyday sort of thing.  Finally, he slipped his headphones down from his ears; they laid over his shoulders.  

 "You've entered my dome, what is it you wish to speak of, madam?"  He approached Haven with a british accent.  For a white teen in Virginia, he was very good at sounding English.

"This must stay between us, Daniel," his mother was in a British accent now, too.  This was their thing.  

"Especially, madam," he grimaced in a sort of way that made his mother sigh.  His face and body turned away from the flat-screen in his navy-blue and black room.

"Do you know this Henry Tylers, character?"

"I do, I do."

"Is he-"

"A perverted cunt?"

"Language, young man."

"He is, though."

"From what I've heard..." A tear dropped to Haven's knee, "he sure is one."

"What happened?"

"Happened?  I'm not sure anything did, but we have to talk seriously, Danny.  Karissa thinks he's nice...  He taught her the words 'pubic hairs' and even swung her at his birthday party.  Who does that?  He's seventeen and at his own party, he swung an eight-year-old child.  I'd understand it if he was closer to her like you, Danny, but this just isn't-"

"Did you tell dad this?"  

"I'll have to, but I figured you'd know more, maybe, Dan."

Haven was possibly over-thinking this; she couldn't take a chance, though.  This was something more than important to her; her kids were her life.

"I know he dated Zilly Yung.  She's this really smart girl in my AP Anatomy class," he cleared his throat. This girl Zilly Yung went to Taggers Institution for two months after her and Henry dated.  Taggers Institution was a mental hospital.  Daniel knew this, but couldn't breathe a word of this to his mother.  He was holding his lit-up blue XBOX One controller tighter than he'd done since his break-up with Alira Maddison, Zilly's best friend. "Mom, tell dad about it."

"I will."  And she did that night.  Her husband, Carson Andrews was infuriated simply by the thought of his daughter discovering anything about the male body.  He was so protective of anyone he loved; he ran to Daniel around midnight when he couldn't sleep.  It was summer; Daniel would stay up on his XBOX till all hours. 

"We need to talk."

"What is it, dad?  Everything okay?"

"Mom told me about this Henry kid."

"Yeah?"

"Yes, and I need to know one thing."

"Okay," Carson cleared his throat as he rolled his eyes, glaring at his son. "Yes, sir," that's what his dad liked to hear, his version of dominant respect.

"Is this kid capable of, in your honest opinion, of doing anything that will harm Karissa?"

Daniel sat there and thought with no doubt, that he was capable of hurting Karissa, and told his father the same assumption, but it was petrifying for Daniel.  One more strike, and Henry was out of Carnell High and back in Hartz Juvenile Detention Center.  That's where Alira was right now, and he knew the real reason Alira was there, too.  Not the one the county wrote down in some record she had that would ruin her chances of ever getting a good job later on.  Daniel was spacing out as his father intentionally avoided talking about Henry to antagonize him about how XBOX was not a life, and how a summer-job was going to happen whether Daniel liked it or not.  Danny had aced this stare of briefly exhausting fear as he watched his father rage on about college being expensive, life-long debt, and wasting youthful years.  He didn't respond to his father once; his dad got aroused by it for sometime.  Luckily, that finally got old to him.  He slammed the door and Danny continued playing Assassin's Creed.  Comically, while he got back in on the action of the game, Veronica Martinez texted him: his current action.  He picked up his cell-phone after sitting down the controller.  After grabbing his car keys, he fled out his window, and walked off.  He was on the bottom floor on a hill that rose behind his house.  Getting out was easy as hell.