The bad dream she was having was an old, ugly memory from her past that kept her hanging in the twilight between fantasy and reality while she cried along with the pain. You can’t make me cry. You’ll never make me cry. Long black braids had whipped across Lucky’s baby cheeks, stinging her lips and sending tears to her eyes as she bent down and angrily hurled a handful of rocks at the boys who had followed her home from school. As a first-grader, trying to adjust to her second school in a single year had taught her much. Being a gambler’s daughter in a poverty-stricken town like Cradle Creek was something of which to be ashamed. Every day was a fight for survival. Your daddy is a joker. Your daddy is a joker. The old, childhood taunt unconsciously puddled real tears beneath her eyelids as she slept. Crying was a thing her conscious self would never have allowed. But the boys’ foolish rhymes had coincided with her shame and her father’s passion—a deck of cards and a wager yet to be made.
