It’s encouraging to see the girl smile, however fleeting the expression may be, and true to her word Rhadra focuses her gaze on the water burbling merrily along beside them. She keeps the pale girl in view, however, and observes her from the corner of her eye to glean whatever else she can from the other’s body language and all the things that aren’t being said.
The girl eats like she’s been denied grass for days. And when she speaks, it’s like she’s weighing her words based on an absent audience, and what that Somebody might think of what she’s saying. Rhadra would bet her front teeth that “Mamapapa” is the one who’s done such a number on the poor thing, and when the girl drops a pronoun Rhadra’s ears tip ever so slightly outward.
So Mamapapa is just a papa.
There’s a cold feeling in her gut, something tight and hard and icy that fades almost without notice behind the fire that floods her heart. Rhadra is glad her eyes are on the creek: she can feel the blaze heating her face, the anger tightening her jaw as her assumptions clamor to be called truths, and she thinks this skittish girl would take such an expression as anger against her.
Rhadra breathes and allows her eyelids to flutter closed.
No girl should be without a mother. Rhadra understands that this might very well not be the case at all, but “Mamapapa” guides her to this conclusion, and it makes her heart feel tight. It is a terrible thing to grow up without that unconditional love, that warm and nurturing presence.
“What sorts of bad things?” she asks with her eyes still closed, her voice quieter now and a little dreamy.
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