An excerpt from Scream Out Loud

Maggie sat down on the floor at her mother's feet watching the yarn unravel in small circles from the knitting bag as the needles click clacked together in a rhythm of their own. She always seemed to know when Maggie entered a room- as if they shared a magnetic charge that pulled them together over and over.

"Feeling better?" Her mother's eyes remained fixed on the sky blue yarn.

"Yeah."

"Hungry?"

"No. Maybe later."

"Okay." Click clack. Click clack. "Maggie?"

"Yes, mama."

Click clack. Click clack. Silence. Maggie looked up as the yarn stopped unwinding. Her mother's weather beaten face was drawn taut like leather and tiny wrinkle lines showed around her eyes and lips. A single tear escaped quickly from her eyelashes and rolled off her chin leaving a tell tale line of clarity in the path it had traveled.

"You know I love you." She said.

Maggie nodded, wishing she could hate this woman but knowing that she was tied to her forever...knowing that she was just like her.

"Because I really do." Her mother reached down to run a hand through Maggie's poker straight locks. It flowed through her fingers like a sheet of satin...soft and elegant.

Behind them the screen opened in the kitchen and Wayde's bare feet padded across the linoleum floor toward the TV room where his mother and sister sat enmeshed in wordless conversation. The click clack resumed with a renewed fervor and in its wake the yarn began to unwind again - just as it did every evening in the little farmhouse on her father's ranch.