Last Breath (The Good Daughter 0.5)(25)

Charlie could not argue the point. Being lost in the Pikeville foster system was tantamount to being lost in a black hole. Things could be especially bad for teenagers like Flora. There were already hundreds of older kids warehoused in substandard living conditions all over the county because no one else was willing or able to take them in.



Still, she told Flora, “We can take this one step at a time. I can talk to—”

Flora said nothing, but two tears rolled down her cheeks.

“It’s not a lost cause,” Charlie tried, but if she wasn’t willing to go after her grandparents for fraud, there weren’t many remaining options. “It’s only two more years. Maybe I could talk to them, and explain—”

“No.” The tears were coming in earnest now. “It’s okay, Miss Quinn. I put up with it this long. I can take it for a couple’a more years.”

Charlie felt like she had swallowed a rock. As usual, there was something she was missing. She was used to being lied to; helping criminals was not its own reward. But Charlie had lived with the distinct feeling all day that there was an important detail, or perhaps many details, that Flora was holding back.

She asked the girl point-blank. “What do you mean? You can take what for two more years?”

Flora wiped her eyes. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Flora.” Charlie stood in front of her. She gripped the girl’s narrow shoulders. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“It’s nothing.” She shook her head so hard that her tears flew from her eyes.

“Flora—”

She sniffed. She kept her gaze on the floor. “Do you remember with your mama, the way you’d have a really bad day, or something awful would happen, or you would just be really sad, and you’d put your head in her lap and she’d stroke your hair and everything, no matter how bad it was, just got better?”

Charlie could not swallow past the lump in her throat.

“You just kind of feel it in your body, every muscle letting go, because you know that when you got your head in her lap, you’re safe.” Flora wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Aint’ nobody can do that for you except your mama, you know?”



Charlie could only nod.

“I miss that so much sometimes. More than her smell. More than her singing. Just that feeling of being safe.”

“I know.” Charlie also knew if she followed the girl down that sad, lonely road, she would end up sobbing on the floor.

She stroked back Flora’s hair. “Baby, tell me what’s really going on between you and your grandparents.”

“I’m okay.”

“You’re clearly not okay.” Charlie smoothed back another strand of hair. Flora’s skin felt hot. Her face was red and splotchy. “Tell me what’s going on.” She waited, but Flora said nothing. Charlie asked the same question she had asked this morning, the same question that had troubled her from that moment on. “Is Paw hurting you, Flora?”

Her throat worked. She looked away.

“Flora, I can help you, but—”

“It’s Meemaw.” Flora blinked, trying to clear her eyes. “It’s nothing I can’t take.”

Charlie was momentarily too stunned to speak. Never in a million years had she suspected Maude of abusing her granddaughter.

She finally asked Flora, “What’s she doing to you?”

Flora’s throat worked again. She was clearly reluctant, but she eventually gave in. She untucked her shirt and rolled up the hem. She pulled down the waist of her jeans. There was a black bruise on her hip, roughly the shape of a small fist.

Charlie wanted to put her hand over the bruise and somehow magically absorb the pain into her own body. Instead, she asked, “Maude did this to you?”

Flora rolled up the short sleeve of her shirt. There were oval bruises on her bicep where someone had dug in their fingers.



“Oh, Flora,” Charlie breathed.

“I just want to get away.” Her voice was small, quiet in the tiny room. “I don’t want anybody mad at me. All I want is to be safe.”

Charlie thought about all the things that she should say—that as an officer of the court, she had an obligation to report the abuse, that they would go to the police station this minute and file a restraining order, that she would move heaven and earth to get Flora out of that shitty, cinder-block apartment—but every single solution had one horrible, underlying problem: where would Flora go?

Not to the Pattersons. They would probably slam the door in her face.

Not into the system. Someone as gentle and na?ve as Flora would likely disappear into the miasma of neglect—or worse.

Especially if the other kids found out about her trust fund.

“Flora—”

The door opened. Nancy poked her head into the bathroom.

Flora straightened quickly, putting a smile on her face, pretending like everything was okay, probably the same way she pretended every day of her life when someone asked her about her godawful grandparents. “What’s up?”

Nancy told Flora, “Oliver’s leaving, if you want to say goodbye.”

Flora started to go. Charlie grabbed her arm, then winced at the perceived pain because how many times had Flora been grabbed by Maude? Thrown around the room? Punched in the stomach?