sweet tea. -tkam

mothers.

(So you don't get confused. This is directly after her flashback in "innocent", she is now sitting my scout).

     A small tear slipped down her sunkissed cheek as daisy swallowed hard around the knot in her throat. Scout removed herself from the world she put herself in, where she only knew her own emotions.
      For a moment, she remembered Atticus's advice to her about understanding others as she looked at the teary-eyed adult beside her. Though she didn't know what might make an adult cry, she had a want to understand for daisy's sake.
      She looked at daisy, her nose initially scrunched in a judgemental sort of way, began to relax into a sympathetically curious look.

"Why are YOU cryin'?"

-scouts pov-

She sniffled a little, wiping the tear away with her hand. She did something adults do, she tried to fake a weak smile at me.
     I don't think adults know that us kids don't believe those fake looks for half a second longer than anyone else would, so I wished she would just be honest. Adults always lie for "the sake of kids".

"Oh...I.."

She made a pitifully frantic sort of laugh.

"...its....nothin'..."

She paused for long times between her words, as if she was still deciding what to say.

"Well if it's nothin' then why're you cryin?"

"Well its...its not...nothin, its just...nothin you need to be knowin..."

"Why? Atticus tells me things all the time even if I'm too little he still tells me with words that ain't bad." I reasoned.

"It's a sad thing, honey... it's nothing exciting."

I sighed.

"Well you're cryin' next to me I think I deserve to know"

She smiled a bit and looked off at nothing in particular, something I had observed her often doing. Daisy mae didn't seem like one for eye contact, so I guessed her daddy didn't teach her manners.

-3rd pov-

"Well...you know...your mama...?"

"My mama dead a long time ago, I never knowed her, jem remembers her though, but I wouldn't ask him about it, he gets all tore up about it sometimes."

Daisy looked down at scout, both sympathy and pain clashing in her eyes.

"Well... I...im sorry I said anything."

Scout shook her head.

"That's alright. I don't remember her anyway"

Daisy sighed and pulled scout closer, rubbing her back.

"Then I think you understand some of where I'm coming from."

"My mama died..well...when I was 5."

Scout shifted into a more comfortable position, looking up at the young woman.

"Why?"

"Consumption...she...just got real sick"

"She didn't get better?"

"Well she...she did go to heaven..."

Daisy's voice quivered.

"She died." scout said in a whisper

Daisy nodded

"She did..."

It was quiet for a moment, the pair watching as the sun began to set. It was a moment of peaceful hurting; scout felt deeply the sense of unknown about her mother, and daisy grieved the loss of someone she briefly knew, but always loved.

"Do you miss her?"

"Of course, I miss her every day. I didn't know her long, but I never loved anyone longer"

"I think I miss my mama too." said scout

"But I don't really miss her, I just miss having a mama, but I don't really remember havin' a mama anyway."

Daisy didn't speak, she simply pulled scout into her lap, her eyes still fixated on the horizon. She softly rocked the girl in her arms, enveloping her in a motherly love neither of them had ever known.
      Daisy knew the socially acceptable thing was not to cradle a child she was only acquainted with, but her empathy tugged at her heart until she didn't care anymore. She felt it was never too soon to show love to those who need it.
      Scout felt an odd sense of belonging in daisy's arms, so unbothered by the embrace, so tame. So the mother without a child and the child without a mother sat on the porch's edge as the sun sunk further into the hills of farm, as maycombs humble skyline was briefly illuminated in orange.
       The two, though still so new in each other's lives, seemed to make a perfectly mismatched pair. like two pieces from different puzzles that fit together.
     Daisy looked out at the land, marveling at its indescribable beauty. The simple land, the small town, was a masterpiece in her endearing eyes.
      The same world that so ravenously hurt her, an earth that heard her cries yet turned their backs. A world that left her so painfully fragile, so mortally afraid. She looked upon the fields of that very same world, but with nothing in her gentle eyes but adoration.
       All too soon she had forgiven the world for her scars, letting the sunlight dance on wounds that would forever mark her. She welcomed the world with open arms, open arms blemished from the past that world had created for her.
     So ready to be hurt again was daisy mae, so relentlessly naive that despite the horrors of her past, she saw good in it all, even if there was no good to be found. But daisy mae wasn't capable of such a hatred, those guileless sapphire eyes could not hold malice.
      She was like a doe, innocent, with undeniable beauty. Fragile, yet so durable. Scared, but never timid. A unique being as she might have been, like a doe, she was prey.