“With money too tight even for dollar-store art supplies, why was Aunt Belinda buying me things all of a sudden? Did she want me to do some more blind-date babysitting?”

Cricket does not trust Aunt Belinda’s motives. There is little Familial Love and Devotion between them, and Cricket is suspicious that Belinda wants something from her.

“The cricket turned her warm brown eyes on me and cocked her head. I swear she saw inside me and asked the same exact question I’d been asking myself for days: Just how far will you go to get your mama back?”

Cricket frequently anthropomorphizes Charlene. Often, Charlene seems to be talking to Cricket, giving her messages or telling her things that she needs to hear. In this way, Charlene offers Cricket the maternal or guiding voice she seeks.

“I couldn’t stop Mama from leaving, and I couldn’t stop Daddy from dying, but I could sure do something now.”

Cricket feels helpless in the face of things outside of her control, like her father’s death and her mother’s abandonment. She focuses on something she feels like she can control when she tries to find a way to make her mother come home and stay for good.