by Laikyn Meng
It isn’t loud, and there are no alarms.
I can hear the birds chirping in our apple tree, the one I carved my name in, hoping to live forever. I see my girl shocked at me lying in the road. In the last efforts, I bring a smile to my face, knowing it may be the last one I give her.
“Luna! Oh my fucking God, Luna! Moon, if you leave me, I swear to Christ, please don’t leave me.” Asher runs, and he assesses my wounds while I keep Olallie from panicking. I wink at her, making her small smile appear. I make the crazy sign and point towards Asher.
Still my hands tremble, and she notices a shift that something is wrong.
I try to make it simple, but I can’t seem to hold my breath, and I cough, and blood exits my mouth, and she knows something is wrong.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? She’s going to die, I swear I will murder you if you killed her!” His voice is aimed at the driver who's on the phone with 911.
I panda promise, I panda promise, I panda promise.
The chant continues, but I keep signing panda-promise to her. Olallie lays flat on her stomach to reach out her hand to mine.
Promise mommy.
“Olallie, get back on the sidewalk.” He turns back to yelling at the guy, knowing I’m a lost cause, I appreciate him letting me have this moment with her. What a wonderfully beautiful daughter I created.
At that thought, knowing as her mother, I finally served my purpose, and she was my only vocation. I slipped away into the silence that has been her lifelong companion.
Together there, we are at each other's fingertips, holding our bond of generations. Halo laid down beside me, and the last vision God gave me was her blue eyes as I faded from breath and life.
Chapter 22
ASHER
“Dumbass.” I scuffed at the truck zooming down our street, walking home from the grocery store. I hoped I would beat the girls back to surprise them with sweets.
As I got closer to the house, the asshole truck driver honked, and I heard Luna scream for Olallie, that’s when I moved. I dropped the eggs, the milk, stupid crackers with plant-based ingredients. I ran like my family was in danger, because they were.
The smack was the next noise I heard clearly, the scent of burnt tires braking. I rounded my parked car, and I hit an invisible wall as I saw Olallie on the curb, Luna laying on her side a few feet away.
“Luna…” I saw the truck and made a declaration of murdering the son of a bitch. But as I got closer and looked her over, there was no rescue to the dark beauty I fell in love with. Safety could not come from my arms, and I tried to find any patience for the arrogant asshole who did this to her.
I screamed profanities as her fingers spelled secret messages to Olallie.
Luna was dying before my eyes, and I wanted to lay down and die with her. She couldn’t be taken from me, not this fast, not ever. Please, God, let me love her longer.
“Luna, I’m sorry I wasn’t here. I don’t know how to fix this, your body baby, it’s broken beyond repair. Tell me how to take the pain away. What do I do, please how can I help you? Where does it hurt, don’t go, please, help is on the way.” Tears were fucking cyclones down my face, pounding mercilessly onto my chest, Olallie laid with her arm outstretched holding her mother’s hand.
We were going to lose the most important woman that has ever been in our lives.
“I…we—please Moon, I don’t know what to do without you. I need you Luna…” Her eyes stayed open too long, and I crouched down and held her head in my lap. I told her I loved her in all the moments I resisted, I told her I loved her in every reality, or fictional world. I admitted I was hers, and she was mine. We were meant for each other and always.
I told her I would never say goodbye.
~
Cops arrive to get statements from witnesses, one of the EMT’s checks twice, three times for a pulse, she covers her body in a white sheet. I recognize her as someone Luna went to high school with, a teenage mother too. She looks up and finds Olallie hugging my knee, tears form in her eyes as she knows the tragedy has begun.
Or maybe for Olallie it continues.
“I can sit with her while you talk to the detectives.” I think her name was Zoe.
“She should stay with me, I don’t think she would go with you, she isn’t good with new people.”
“It must be hard for her to have seen. I’ll be over there if you guys need anything.” She walks over to the first aid kit and breaks down at the sight of losing a childhood friend. I turn away because it isn’t her time to grieve or suffer she doesn’t know what we’ve lost, and I hate everyone here witnessing our pain. Because it’s public and I can’t hide her dead body, to reserve last efforts of self-respect because she is just a corpse in the middle of a street. Because of the unlucky bastard is going to regret this the rest of his short life.
I pick Olallie up, and she lays her head on my shoulder, her fingers play on my back, and I try not to cry as I explain the details of her mother’s death. While the limbs are still warm and her brown hair probably smells like fresh rain from the shower this morning.
Officer Patch says he has to call a guardian to come to get my Olallie. I tell him I’m her guardian. He says he is doing his job, and I want him to screw his career and just let me hold her forever.
Just the boyfriend, gets repeated of the radio. Lennox Krause is called and I try to not unleash a wild beast that is ready to tear off heads.
The road is blocked off, and they need to start moving things along and cleaning up the crime scene. The EMT’s start to put her on the stretcher and that’s about the time I become unglued. I set Olallie to sit on the edge of the sidewalk, nod at Zoe, who comes over and gives her a sucker.
I reach for her, grab her, not wanting to lose Luna.
“Where are you taking her? Here I can carry her, let me do it, don’t touch her! Get your hands off of her!” Two cops hold me back as they roll her into the ambulance, and she leaves my presence. It seems final, it seems destructive, like nothing will be the same.
I keep screaming, I keep shouting, and the only thing that makes me go silent is Officer Patch approaching Lennox Krauss.
No. Fucking. Way.
Not today, mother fucker.
Fuck you.
“Come here, Olallie.” My arms are full as she stands and hangs on to them.
“Mr. Arnold is her legal guardian as of right now. For the time being, we can sort other legal issues tomorrow, but Mr. Krauss is here to take her home.”
“She has never met him before, except once. She has been traumatized enough for one day. You can’t do this to her. I’ll take care of her. I live here with her.”
“I’m just doing my job.” Patch needs a few good knocks to his skull right about now.
“Don’t, for once, be better than your badge, the procedures. For the love of your mother, think of her. Don’t give her to a stranger.”
“Asher.” Lennox makes his mark in the conversation; I close my eyes and squeeze tight. When I open them, there are waves of uncontrollable frustration and other emotions I don’t have the specific training to deal with. Nobody likes to see a grown man cry, but no one questions a solider with tears.
“Please…” It is the last beg and plea I have in me. I clutch Olallie’s body like we are being attacked by enemy on all sides. The only way to survive is to plead with our approach to safety.
“Patch, let them stay, we’ll figure it out in the coming days.” When did this asshole become so mature? Lennox’s structure wasn’t intimidating me. But how the officer nodded in agreement had me questioning who worked for who in this town.
Later that night, I tucked Olallie into our bed, and she laid her head on Luna’s pillow and inhaled the remnants of her mother.
Mommy goodbye, she waved.
Mommy goodbye, I repeated.
I kissed her forehead and held her tight.
“I’m so sorry,” I repeated it, like a lullaby until she fell asleep, and I sta
red at the ceiling, wondering who I was telling it to.
There was nothing like Luna’s love, and we both lost it in the shine of the afternoon.
Chapter 23
ASHER
“Hello?” Denver huffs and sighs into the phone. I know the tone of his voice, it’s the same I’ve had for the past couple weeks. No sleep, no need, what was the purpose of surviving war if we can’t save the ones we love at home.
“She’s gone. Both of them, they're gone, and there isn’t anything I can do anymore.” I say it as wet tears fall down my face, not out of sadness but out of frustration. There isn’t an ounce of muscle that isn’t exhausted and given up.
I’ve given up this life and living.
“Who Ash, man?” A serious tone is added on with the end.
“I shouldn’t have fallen in love with a woman like her. She is one you don’t get over. One you can’t rip out of your soul, I’ve tried, and all I keep seeing are her dead eyes.”
“Asher, where’s Luna?”
“In heaven, I hope, but since she was caught loving me, probably burning in hell. I can feel the heat now. Or the chill down my spine. Either way, she’s alone, and I left her to deal with any demons she carried on to another world.”
“Ash, is Olallie okay? Where’s her kid? How did this happen, who is responsible?”
“Lennox Krauss took her from me. Legally I don’t have any guardianship or ownership. Denver, I called Serg, I leave next week. Calling to say goodbye.”
“Asher you can’t go on that tour, it’s not like the regular jobs we’ve done, it’s suicide…” he finishes the word, and with each sound, he knows that’s my plan. He has connected the dots, he identifies as I do that time is up.
“Truck hit her, her daughter laid next to her, holding her hand as tears dried from her face, and I was getting groceries like a damn errand boy. I forgot my place, my purpose, I shouldn’t have come home.”
“Asher, I’m sorry, just let me talk to you, I can be there in a couple hours, and we can figure out what to do next.”
“You know that feeling you got, after our second tour, when we came back? Your mother had passed away from cancer, she lost her fight and we lost our number one supporter. Was it at that moment that you realized everything was lost? There was nothing in your hands except an item of clothing stitched with your last name?”
“Asher, there has to be another way. This isn’t the answer.”
It wasn’t an answer, it wasn’t even a plea. This was a mission. A duty to the ones I loved and wouldn’t leave behind, but soon join them in their demise.
“What about Olallie? Maybe we can go to court and figure out a way for you to get custody? Don’t leave him with her, we both know she will be freaked out without someone being able to understand her.”
Olallie didn’t cry as she shuffled up to the car next to Knox, her father. She looked down at the cement, and I felt every cell of disappointment she radiated towards me, and I was helpless to find a solution.
“Say goodbye to Asher, honey.” She didn’t move, and I wanted to beat the living shit out of him. He forgot once again.
“She can’t hear you.” At my voice, her head snaps to me, long waves of blonde crash onto her cheeks. “Or maybe she chooses not to hear from you.”
“Oh, right! I forgot, duh, that’s how you and Luna met, right? The sign language thing?” Casual, he wanted relaxed and collected, while inside of me, I was chaos that couldn’t be contained.
Promise me, I signed to her.
She shook her head slowly and then squinted her eyes shut.
I knelt down to her, and the rocks poked at my skin, but I wouldn’t have moved if they were spikes.
Knox placed a protective hand on her shoulder, and I glared up at him with more power than he could buy. He let go of her shoulder. Pretty boy.
Promise me, I signed for the last time.
Her tiny fingers signed I panda promise, just like her mother did with her.
Olallie was the reason Luna lived, and Luna was my reason. We each lost our purposes, and our definitions turned blank upon the screen.
I stood to full height and turned away, headed back to my car.
“I’ll have a cleaning crew come put Luna’s stuff in storage.”
“Thank you.”
As I reached the bottom step, thin arms wrapped around my legs, and I whipped around to see Olallie not ready to let go, and I saw the look in her eyes, knowing this was goodbye in our lifetimes.
Promise me she signed, and I shook my head no.
Promises were hers to keep, and my own was broken. But I promise to love you like the angel you are from the distance I am given, I am here always. And you will still be her halo.
“No, Denver. No more fighting, it’s time to give up, give in to the tide.” Lost in my own misery, not bearing to hold Olallie’s I find a few bottles and empty them.
My lips don’t utter the fallen heroine. Memories of her face don’t clog my brain. I sit in silence, waiting for her ghost to come home, hoping this time she can take me with her when she goes.
There is an end to each story, but others continue.
To Luna’s and Asher’s love story, this is the end.
Olallie’s is beginning.
Olallie’s story is just beginning, and aren’t you curious about her half-siblings and her dear old dad Lennox?
Sometimes out of the worst situations we find the most beautiful lessons.
Mum’s the Word Series
Muffle: A Love like Luna’s
Minder: Olallie’s Offering
Metanoia: Calhoun’s Courage
Miffed: Kalonie’s Kalon
Memoriter: Leonie’s Latibule
Morosis: Lennox’s Hard Knocks Lessons
If you enjoyed Laikyn Meng’s books, please leave a review. Click through other books that are currently available, and as always, thank you for reading, words are a way to live and communicate, and I hope they connected with yours.
Author’s Note
In 1st grade, we were taught American Sign Language. It was the first time I became fascinated with communicating with hands instead of noise. When my children were younger, I taught them baby sign language. They were magicians with their toddler hands showing and explaining, and in my heart, it was beautiful to witness our conversations.
The characters in my books suffer, as we all do, each in a unique way. Words have always been my safe haven, my defense, and what I bleed. I hope I did justice to those who interpret their feelings through the movements of hands.
MINDER
Olallie’s Offering
CHAPTER 1
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 circumstances.
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.
Flashback to my young mother, and I shudder against the panda promises she condemned me not to break. Be good, she would whisper. 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 had made me a victim of. She had never spoken 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 up, there are some nightmares worth living through. Mine was an extraordinary kiss with time.
~
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 nipples. 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. 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 the last name 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 came to visit. I think Rebecca was the role model you could never cast any shame on. They are infinite and indestructible in your mind.