"I'm going outside for a ciggieand a think," she said as she left the room.I busied myself in the kitchen making something for Melissa through thewind...w I could see Mum pacing up and down her coffee in one hand and acigarette in the other. I walked over to feed Melissa and await herreturn. A few minutes later she came in, "You know I would never haverecognised you if you had not said Mum when I came in, Debbie's donequite a job on you#." How do you feel about it?" I said."Well I can't say I'm. The rusted stove we used to cook what little food we had. Our sheets were thrown down on the floor. These were bagged up and taken from a near by Motel 6 where my mother used to work hours upon hours sweeping and cleaning up other peoples messes.Her excuse at home was, "Why bother. It's just going to be like that the next time. You kids clean it up yourself if you want something clean."None of us ever bothered cleaning it up because we were too young to know how. Our father, God bless his soul,. . You didn'thave to do this.", he started to complain."Ben, just hush okay... I appreciate that you took care of this yourself,and made sure everything was done as perfectly as possible. You could haveeasily waited till Monday, but you didn't. Just take them, I know thegirls are wanting to go. Thank you for what you've done.", she told himfirmly."Look Sarah...", he started to say before she scolded him."Say thank you Ben..."Seeing the determination on her face, he just sighed, "Thank. I wandered down the promenade, looking in the windows. I saw a clothing store that looked to have regular clothes and went in. I was there for a few minutes when I saw Larissa enter. As she walked past, I spoke, "Hey, you following me?"She looked startled, then recognized me, and saw my smile. Realizing she was being teased she said, "Yeah. I'm keeping an eye on you, just in case."I laughed. "Good. Somebody needs to."Larissa smiled, before starting to comb through the racks of clothing. I found.