MY MOTHER'S DAUGHTER

My Mother's Daughter excerpt #1

     Karen and Cayla sat in front of Mrs. England watching the fifty-something-year-old woman stare into her crystal ball. Against the dingy, dark room, Mrs. England's heavily patterned, multi-colored dress stuck out like a clown's outfit among nuns' habits. The Gypsy woman's equally gaudy bandana hugged her hair so tight only a few blonde strands protruded from beneath it. Her flat nose, pronounced brow, and shaggy eyebrows suggested that the missing link had been found.

     "It is there in my ball," Mrs. England said in what seemed to Karen to be a false East European accent. "I see mother."

     "Who is it?" Karen snapped.

     "Face is blurry, but is woman in this city. She is forty-five. She was thirty when you were born."

     Karen glared. "Yes, I'm fifteen. Fifteen from forty-five is thirty. I can do math too, and for far less than two bits."

     "Karen," Cayla said, "give Mrs. England a chance. Just think, you can find the identity of your real mother. She's right here in Blairswood. We could visit her today."

     "So, Mrs. England," Karen said. "What's the woman's name?"

     Mrs. England hovered her hands over the glass sphere. "Ohhhhh! Glass grow dark."

     Cayla leaned forward gazing into the crystal ball. "What? We almost had the answer. Can you get the images back?"

     Mrs. England thrust out her hand. "Dime, please." Karen stood. "This is nonsense, Cayla. You've already given her two bits. Let's go." She stormed for Mrs. England's door as Cayla lit out after her.

     "Wait, Karen!" Cayla grabbed Karen's skirt. "We are so close."

     Karen tore her skirt from Cayla's grasp. "Do you have another dime?"

     "No, but you do." She pointed at Karen's waist.

     "I won't throw it away. Let's get out of here."

     "No!" Cayla said. "I know this will lead to the truth. I just know it! Now, let me have the dime, and I'll pay you back."

     Karen stared at Cayla, reading her friend's refusal to give up. Reaching into her waist pocket, she extracted the dime, and flipped it up in the air. Cayla caught it and dashed to Mrs. England. She tossed it on the table. Mrs. England scrambled to catch it, but it fell to the floor. "Here." Cayla snatched the dime off the floor and dropped it into Mrs. England's open palm. "You'd better be telling us the truth."

My Mother's Daughter excerpt #2

     At the doctor's office the girls had to wait two hours for Doctor Armistad to finish with his last patients. When he emerged from the back room of his office, he smiled upon seeing them.

     "Did you come to pay me the dollar you owe me for doctoring Lila?"

     Karen offered him a stern expression. "Yes. If you tell me about my birth, I would be more than willing."

     "I've told you it's a matter best laid to rest." Doctor Armistad eased over

     to his desk and set down a small board with papers attached to it.

     Karen followed close behind him, fear of confronting an adult nearly keeping her from speaking. "I already know the mother I'm living with isn't my real mother. A man has come to our house demanding money. My mother said I was adopted from an orphanage of shady practices. You say I was a difficult birth. Did you birth me from my real mother before I went to an orphanage? And if so, how did you know who adopted me? Orphanages don't give out information on where their children come from because they believe the child needs to start over. I know, sir, because I checked at our local orphanage."

     The doctor spun around and sat on the edge of the desk. "My, you do know a lot, and you've thought it out very well too. So, you think I'm involved in a conspiracy?"

     Karen stepped forward clasping her hands in front of her skirt while swallowing the last of her fear. "I know there's something more to the story than even my parents are telling me. Why would my father be worried about losing his law practice and being disgraced if it got out that I came from an orphanage? Is that so bad? Mother's tried to say the orphanage was a bit shady; and I suppose she believes I'll think that's reason enough, but it isn't. There's more, so we came to you for the answers."

     Sucking in his lower lip, the doctor shifted his weight to his right foot. "I think you should take your theories to your parents."

     Karen stepped closer to the doctor. "So you will be spared having to tell me? Doctor Armistad … you were in on it. Did you never think I would find out?"

     "Is Jacob Beranski the man extorting money from your father?"

     "Yes. Now, tell me what you know, sir."

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