Unconditional Love

"I can't believe Jackson left me here in this house and skipped off to Biloxi," Paticia muttered as she placed her plump toddler in her crib. She caressed little Angela's flushed cheeks, brushing away strands of her wispy brown hair as she felt her forehead. "Angie has been fighting off this cold for days, and now he decides to go to the cattle fair with the boys!" Patricia sucked her teeth and headed for the kitchen to the awaiting breakfast dishes. She glanced up just in time to see Marcus Calloway, her son Edward's best friend shoot around the side of her house. "G'Mornin, Mrs. Egerton!" Marcus shouted as he reappeared at the screened back door. "Eddie's out by the garden, Marcus. Be sure to keep your voices down, or you'll wake up Angela." The lanky schoolboy nodded his reply and took off. Patricia then placed the last dish in the rack to dry and walked outside to turn on the lawn sprinklers.

Shading her emerald green eyes to help them adjust to the daylight, Patricia scanned the charcoal skies. Looks like rain, she thought. Maybe now I can finish that afghan. Patricia noticed a dog's bark growing louder. "Funny, that sound closer than normal, almost as if it's right in my back-" Her verbal thoughts were severed by the sound of excruciating, fearful screams. "Eddie! Marcus!" Patricia shrieked as she leapt over a lawn cherub whose face and left wing had long since crumbled. House shoes forgotten, she rounded the side of the house and ran dead into two stark-white children.