So she kept walking, looking, checking it all out. Buying a Pepsi at the Stop along with a Payday bar, just to keep fueled; those peanuts were good energy.

Not asking anyone if they'd seen him, just looking, because she didn't want anyone to think she was that bad of a mother.

Not telling the sheriff, for sure, because he might get suspicious, go through the trailer, find the stash.

That night, she told Motor, and he said, Big deal. It was just a fucking runaway situation, happened all the time, hell, he'd run away when he was fifteen after beating the shit out of his old man, and hadn't she done it, too? Everyone ran. Finally the little shit had developed some balls.

But Billy, only twelve, looking younger, so small- that wasn't the same thing as her running or a big hog like Motor, no way.

The day she looked everywhere, no one asked what she was doing, where Billy was. Not the first day, the second, the third, never. Not once.

Four months now, still no questions. Not the school, the neighbors- for sure no friends, because Billy never had friends, probably her fault, because when he was little she was living all by herself out in that even worse trailer with some people she was still trying to forget about. Man, she'd been wasted; she didn't think anyone had hurt Billy.

He'd always been a quiet kid, even as a baby, so quiet, you'd never know he was even there…

Tears flowed from deep inside her head, flooding her closed eyelids, swelling them, and she had to open them a little to let the water out.

When she did, she was almost surprised to find herself back in the trailer, nothing changed, seeing the dim outlines of the kitchenette, Motor sitting there stuffing his face, dirty dishes, sour, more sour, everything sour.

Where was her little man?

The day after he disappeared, she had a nightmare of it being some dark, damp place, a torture chamber, some crazy person finding him walking in the groves, one of those guys you hear about, cruising near schools, other places, snatching kids, doing what they want with 'em, cutting 'em. She woke up shaking and sweating, her stomach burning like she'd swallowed fire.

Motor snored as she watched the sun lighten the cloth over the trailer window. Too afraid to move. Or think. Then thinking about the torture chamber and getting sick to her stomach.

Rushing to the john and throwing up, trying to do it quietly so as not to wake Motor.

Every night for a week she woke up sweating from the dreams, careful not to move or say anything to wake up Motor.

Sick with guilt and fear, the horrible person she was, the worst mother in the world, never shoulda been a mother, never shoulda been born herself, all she caused in the world was misery and sin, she deserved to be pronged from the back by a hog…

The nightmares went away when she found the Tampax money missing and knew what had happened.

Escape. A plan.

She'd saved that money for a long time, keeping it from Motor and all the others before him, her own stash.

For what?

Just in case.

In case what?

Nothing.

Better Billy should have it; let's face it, she'd never use it, didn't deserve to use it, the worst mother in the whole world.

Maybe not the worst- that crazy girl who drove those two babies into a lake, that was worse. And she'd seen on TV about some girl jumping off a building holding her baby. That was worse.

Some people burned their kids or beat 'em- she sure knew about that- but it didn't say much for her that the only worse thing she could compare herself to was stuff like that, did it?

The truth was, she was bad enough.

No wonder Billy'd had to escape.

No escape for her, she wasn't smart enough, good enough, just like Daddy had said: Something missing, tapping his head with one hand.

Trying to say she was stupid or crazy.

She wasn't, but…

She could think fine when she wasn't stoned.

Okay, reading was hard for her, so were numbers, but she could think, she knew she could think. She herself didn't understand the things she did sometimes, but she wasn't crazy. No way.

Better not to think… but where would Billy escape to?

So small and skinny.

No surprise there. Look where he'd come from.

Weird the way it had happened. Because she usually liked the big ones. Big like Daddy. Hogs, like Motor and others. Names and faces she'd forgotten- all those high school football players and wrestlers doing to her just what Daddy suspected they were doing, Daddy beating her ass even though he could never prove it.

She'd wanted to explain it to Daddy: It ain't hotpants; it's the only chance to get close to people with goals.

You didn't explain to Daddy.

Goals… it had been a long time since she'd thought about the future.

Too many years of sour notes.

Mixed in with one solitary sweet night, the prettiest little baby; those nuns had been grumpy but pretty good to her. She appreciated that, even though she knew they wanted her to give Billy up.

No way; what was hers, was hers.

She fed herself a little gumdrop memory of Billy's fat baby face- she deserved a little sugar, didn't she?

That night, the night of-

She'd been so much younger, prettier, skinnier, lying alone in the grove after midnight. Her choice to be alone- maybe that's where Billy got it from!

So maybe they were the same in at least one way!

She found herself smiling, remembering that night, how she'd actually felt something.

The warmth between her legs, all over her, the hard dirt didn't even hurt her back.

The orange trees green as bottle glass in the moonlight, snowy with flowers, because this was the blossom season, the whole grove smelling so creamy and sweet, a beautiful sky, dark with a halo of nice light overhead because the moon was big and fat and gold and dripping with light, like a butter-soaked pancake.

Lying there after he kissed her and said sorry, have to go, her skirt still up, floating.

Then a vibration- loud, close, as fast-moving clouds blocked out the moon.

Cicadas, millions of them, swarming through the grove.

She'd heard stories about them but had never seen them.

Never seen them since, either.

A onetime thing.

Maybe it had been a dream, that whole night a dream…

Huge bugs like that, should have been scary.

Twice as huge as the shiny black wood bees that freaked the hell out of her when they zoomed out of nowhere.

The cicadas were even noisier, so many of them, she should have been all froze up with fear.

But she wasn't. Just lay flat on her back, feeling sweet and female, one big package of pollen and honey, watching as the cicadas settled on row after row of orange tree, covering the entire grove, like bunches of gray-brown blanket.

What were they doing? Eating the flowers? Chewing away at the tiny green oranges, bitter and hard as wood?

But no, all at once they were all gone, zipping up into the sky and disappearing like some cartoon tornado, and the trees looked exactly the same.

Night of the cicadas.

Magic, almost like it had never happened.

But it had. She sure had the proof.

Where was Billy?