Molly grins. “Right.”
I leave a tip for the woman and steer Molly toward the exit.
The woman with the phone leaves the store ahead of us, glancing to her side to track us in her periphery. Her soft-soled feet can’t move quick enough once she makes it past the security guard.
“What you say we get you some shoes now, huh?”
Molly nods enthusiastically, and so begins the middle of my day, touring stores I’ve never been to until now, fulfilling my kid’s every need. I tally the bags when we’re finished, a shred of guilt festering low in my gut.
“You do realize we won’t do this all the time, yeah?”
Molly nods, petting the rabbit’s soft ears. “I know.”
“I’ll always get you what you need, but it ain’t always going to be a ton like this.”
“That’s okay.” She tucks the bunny beneath her arm, then hooks her left hand around my fingers, tangled in the bag handles. “Can we get another stuffie next time? I want to give this one to Anna.”
“Anna?” I frown. “That one of your school friends?”
She giggles. “No, silly. It’s my friend at the clubhouse.”
My next step falters. I recover before my daughter notices.I’ll be damned.“That the girl you watched cartoons with?”
“Yeah. She doesn’t have any toys of her own. Not anymore.”
“They’re probably all at her home, huh?” I say, gently probing for more information.
“Her house burned down.”
“Oh, that’s not good.” Is that why she got picked up? Were her family homeless?
“She said her daddy blamed her mommy. But she said it was her fault.”
This kid… I swear. “Why?”
“She knocked the heater over, and it burned her blanket.”
Damn.“Did she say where she lives now?”
Molly shakes her head, squinting a little as we step out into the glaring daylight. “She said she doesn’t know how to get home. Only her sister knew how.”
“And where’s her sister?”
“Dead.” My daughter skips up to the passenger side of the club truck without so much as flinching at what she just said.
Chaos was right—it would do The Kid a favor to have someone her own age around. Maybe her silence isn’t trauma related so much as it’s a child who doesn’t trust adults anymore? I get Molly settled in her seat with her haul of goods and then shoot a quick text to Chaos.
The Kid’s name is Anna. Don’t know where she came from, but she has a dead older sister and her family home burned down.
I manage to get settled behind the wheel before his reply comes through.
How’d you find that out?
Molly.
I study my daughter as she talks to the rabbit, balancing it on her knees and facing it like an old friend. She bops it on the nose and instructs in a stern voice that it must take care of Anna.
There’s nothing morally right about what I need to do, but I justify what I say next as necessary for the welfare of The Kid. “Molly. Do you think you could talk to Anna again and see if shecan tell you her sister’s name?” Kids that age are lucky if they know their parents’ names, but we can start somewhere with the sister’s details. “Maybe what her house was like?”
