Crossing Over

Chapter 17

Andra cleared the dirty breakfast plates from the table depositing them on the counter with her mother's last words still ringing in her ears. Where better to hide than in a place where people don't talk.

That had certainly been true for whoever might have hurt Savannah she thought refilling her cup. She did understand what her mother meant though. After the divorce, neither Denise nor Andra wanted anything to do with Andra's father. A hideout had been exactly what they needed. Lifting the coffee pot she waved it in her mother's direction.

"I don't think so." Her mom replied amicably. "But save me some I may change my mind before this is over."

Andra nodded and without saying a word returned it to its place and took her seat. She didn't need to say anything she just waited. She had seen her mother like this often.

Denise Morris had never been a woman of few words. She was opinionated and strong-willed and had no trouble speaking her mind. She did however make it a point to choose the words she used carefully. Andra knew that she was doing that very thing now. There was a familiar wrinkle in the center of her forehead as she sat picking at the edge of her coffee cup. It was a dead giveaway that she was lost in her head. The silence seemed to stretch out between them for an eternity when in reality it was no more than a few seconds. Then with a little sigh, her mother began to speak.

"You already know that my parents died in a car accident when I was ten," she said. It was a statement not a question and Andra could see that she was steeling herself to get through this. Her childhood was obviously not something her mother was comfortable discussing. 

"What you might not know is that when they passed I had no family to speak of. Neither one of my parents had siblings and my grandparents had been gone for over a decade. I went into foster care for a short time afterward until I was adopted by a young couple, Paul and Tara Benson. They were unable to have children of their own and Tara wanted a daughter more than anything. They doted on me as if I were theirs. I missed my parents dearly but I did come to love the Bensons too. Not in the same way but close enough to make things bearable."

"When I was thirteen Paul got a promotion. He had been running a large chain store for several years and had done well. So well in fact that the higher-ups decided they wanted to hire him to train the staff in underperforming stores. The job was well suited to him and the raise was too much to turn down. The only drawback was that it required us to move from time to time."

She paused here to take a sip of water and Andra watched her from across the table suddenly seeing her mother in a new light. She couldn't imagine what her life must have been like. Losing her parents at such a young age would have been traumatic enough but to then be bounced around from one place to the next never quite feeling settled must have been terrible. Andra's heart ached for her.

"We relocated three times over the next four years finally ending up in Inglewood. We had no way of knowing it at the time but this was our last stop. I was seventeen when we moved here. I spent my junior and senior year at the high school."

"I don't understand how you knew Savannah," Andra said. "She would have been several grades below you."

"She was. I met her the first time when I was a senior and she was in eighth grade. I played volleyball. Every year the coaches would hold a camp for the kids that were trying out for the junior varsity and varsity teams. The outgoing seniors would attend and help with training."

"So Savannah was at camp that year?"

Denise nodded. "The coaches would assign us a rookie to work with and by the luck of the draw, I got Savannah. She was a good kid. Popular, bright, bubbly, and more determination than she knew what to do with. It didn't matter what we were working on she would go at it until it was perfect. She was always the first newbie there in the mornings and the last to leave in the afternoon. Everyone adored her. I adored her. My friends and I kind of adopted her so to speak and she would hang out with us from time to time."