Chapter 6

Hazel jerked awake when Roxie stirred in her lap, not too long, she heard the front door slammed shut. Her mother was home.

Groggy from the short nap, Hazel combed her hair with her fingers, tightened the velvet bow at the back of her head, she readied herself for what she knew would probably be an unpleasant encounter with her mother.

She waited at the top of the steps to see if her mother would call her name, acknowledge her presence in some way, such a silly thought.

Evidently, Roxie was of the same opinion as she hissed and snarled, cycling Hazel’s ankle. She bent down to pick up the unhappy cat and descended the steps calling her mother’s name twice before she entered the kitchen.

Laura Myers waved airily as she babbled into the cell phone clutched between her ear and her cheek. She was opening a container of yogurt and sprinkling something that looked like gravel over the top. A bottle of mineral water was clutched under one arm as she jugg