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Touch of Innocence

By Robin Patchen

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LILY HAS TO GET HER CAST OFF, OR I HAVE TO SHOW THAT IT’S STILL ON.

I NEED TO PUT IN AT LEAST ONE MENTION OF REGIS’S DOG COLLAR AND UNUSUAL TAG.

MUST HAVE ANDREW TALK AT SOME POINT ABOUT HOW SOMEBODY’D TRIED TO BLACKMAIL HIM. HIS BROTHER? ONE OF HIS BROTHER’S CRONIES, WHO WANTS HIM GONE FROM NH AND DAD’S LIFE?

MUST BUILD DOG INTO MORE SCENES—DOG IS TRUSTWORTHY WITH LILY. AT THE END, IT’S THE DOG WHO LEADS GRACE TO LILY.

CHANGE THE PERSON WHO TELLS DAD ABOUT THE COP IN FRONT OF THE OFFICE TO DAD’S RIGHT HAND MAN/CFO, SOMETHING LIKE THAT. HE’S THE ONE REALLY BEHIND THE SKIMMING. HE WOULD HAVE BEEN IN CHARGE ALREADY IF NOT FOR THE SONS. HE’S BITTER, WANTS WHAT’S COMING TO HIM.

I’LL HAVE TO BUILD HIM INTO THE BIRTHDAY PARTY AS WELL, ANIMOSITY BETWEEN HIM AND CHET, THOUGH HE’S OVERLY KIND TO GRACE. MAYBE GRACE EVEN PICKS UP SOMETHING FROM HIM—THOUGH WOULD THAT GIVE IT AWAY? AND ALSO BUILD HIM INTO THE SCENE AT THE OFFICE. HE GREETS ANDREW, IS KIND, TALKS ABOUT SOMETHING THAT SEEMS INNOCUOUS BUT, IN RETROSPECT, WE SEE THAT HE WAS AMBITIOUS, BITTER.

This was supposed to be her safe place.
Grace Mansion wasn’t complaining. Ever since she’d met eight-year-old Lily during a walk in the woods a few weeks earlier, the girl had been Grace’s shadow, showing up at Grace’s secluded cabin every afternoon when she finished her schooling. Grace had taken to hurrying through her work in the mornings so they’d have time to visit. Not that Lily ever had much to say. She was a quiet child.
Some might say too quiet.
There’d been a time when Grace would have sought to draw her out, to discover what had put the pensive look on her beautiful little face. But that time was long past.
No, she wasn’t complaining about her new friend. She didn’t even mind Lily’s support dog, a Cavalier King Charles spaniel named Regis, though the animal had left his hair all over her cottage’s hardwood floors. It was just that, ever since Lily had started coming around, things had gone missing.
Okay, not missing exactly. Grace had found her slippers the night before, but not in her closet where she kept them. They’d been under the bed.
Strange.
Now, after she set the kettle on the stove to boil, she searched for her favorite mug. It wasn’t in the cabinet where she kept it or anywhere else in the small kitchen of the cozy home she’d rented a year before.
A glance into the breakfast room revealed no mug. On the other side of the bay windows, clouds were gathering. In the eastern part of Washington state, one learned to enjoy the sun when it shined. As spring turned to summer, the sun would peek out more and more. It had been a dreary winter, though Lily’s presence the last few weeks had brightened it even more than the occasional sunshine.
On the back porch, the girl was coloring in one of the books Grace had bought her, little legs swinging beneath the cafe table. She was a gorgeous child with thick brown hair and the biggest, greenest eyes Grace had ever seen, so unlike Grace’s blond hair and bland grayish-blue eyes.
Regis was asleep on the boards only inches away. The dog was perfectly trained and never left her side. Even when Lily came in to use the bathroom, Regis accompanied her.
Lily had to know what was keeping Grace so long. Why hide her mug?
Why hide her slippers?
Grace had no idea.
She searched the small living area and the guest room. No mug.
When she stepped into her bedroom, Oliver, her light gray cat, blinked his blue eyes at her from his spot on her bed. He stood, adjusted his position, and settled himself again. She scratched him behind his ears, then got down on her knees and checked under the bed.
No mug.
Her house wasn’t that big, and she’d hardly brought anything to fill it. Where could the child…?
She checked in the closet. There on the floor, beside her slippers, lay her favorite mug. Emblazoned with the words Freedom Home for Girls and Women, it was the only souvenir she’d kept from her time there.
Grace snatched it and headed back to the kitchen. She hadn’t talked to Lily about moving her things before, but it was time to mention it. She liked the child, but she didn’t like the idea of her poking around in the bedroom when Grace wasn’t looking.
By the time she returned to the kitchen, her kettle was whistling. She poured hot water over a tea bag, then added a little honey and some milk. The perfect afternoon treat. With a glass of lemonade for Lily, she returned to the back porch.
The little girl looked up, her emerald eyes bright. She tapped the princess drawing on her coloring book.
“Look at that,” Grace said. “I love the colors you chose.”
The girl beamed, taking the offered glass.
“Sweetie, would you do me a favor?”
Lily’s eyes widened, and she couldn’t hold eye contact.
Grace squashed her curiosity and concern. She was just a neighbor. Not a counselor. Not a mentor. Just a neighbor.
“Would you please not move my things without asking me?”
The girl blinked a couple of times, then nodded.
“Thank you.”
Lily returned to her coloring as Grace settled beside her.
“How was your schoolwork today?”
She shrugged.
The day they’d first met, it had taken Grace a solid ten minutes to get a word out of Lily.
“What was the most interesting thing you learned?”
Lily set down her crayon and looked up. “Did you know flowers have boy parts and girl parts, just like people?”
“Is that right? What are they called?”
She tilted her head to the side. “The boy part is the stamen, and the girl part is the pistil. They’re not like people parts, though, because every flower has both, and people only have one or the other.”
“What a good memory you have.” She was trying to think of a follow-up question, but Lily wasn’t finished.
“They don’t look the same as boy and girl parts, either. And they don’t work the same way.”
Before Grace could fully internalize what the child had said, her stomach filled with acid. Did most eight-year-olds know that much about the human reproductive system?
Maybe.
Grace’s worry was probably unfounded. Lily was home schooled and clearly intelligent. Perhaps she was more advanced than normal eight-year-olds. And anyway, what did Grace know about normal eight-year-olds? She’d never been one herself. Normal, that was.
Lily’s gaze stayed on Grace’s face, and the light in her eyes dimmed. She returned her focus to her coloring book.
“That’s so interesting,” Grace said. “What else did you learn?”
Lily shrugged, but eventually, she shared other things she’d studied that day while Grace nodded and smiled and tried to ignore the worry whooshing through her insides like a river that had overflowed its banks.
It was probably perfectly normal that Lily understood human anatomy. That was not a red flag. Grace had a bad habit of assuming trouble where none existed. She’d spent too much time among broken and damaged girls that she could hardly differentiate between those and the healthy ones. Another reason her decision to leave Seattle had been wise.
Besides, whatever was going on, Lily was not Grace’s responsibility.
Her cell phone rang, and she snatched it up, eager to think about something else. But a glance at the screen had her groaning. She wanted to think about something else, but not that.
She rejected the call, but it rang again seconds later. When she rejected the second call, it rang a third time.
Lily giggled. “I don’t think they’re gonna stop.”
“You’re not wrong, little one. I’ll be right back.”
Grace swiped to connect and stepped back into the house. “Mama Luce.”
“Thank God you answered.” The older woman sounded genuinely distressed. “Allison was in a car accident. She’s in the hospital.”
Grace barely knew the woman the girls home had hired to replace her. “Is she going to be okay?”
“Yes, but she broke a number of bones. It’s going to be months before she can come back to work. I was hoping—”
“I’m sorry, but no.”
Mama Luce sighed, and Grace could imagine the disappointed look on the face of the white-haired woman who’d loved her so well. “Sweet daughter.”
Grace’s heart warmed at the words. Mama Luce had called her that from the first day they’d met. It didn’t matter that she called all the girls in her care the same. To be called daughter… It had meant something. It still did.
“You are needed here,” Mama Luce said. “You have a home here. You are loved here.”
“I can’t do it anymore. I’m sorry.”
“These girls… Nobody connects with them like you do.”
Grace didn’t doubt that was true. Hers was a unique ability, no question. But to connect and to heal—those were different gifts. She’d only been given the first. And without the second…
“I can’t help them.” Grace leaned against the counter and crossed one arm across her middle. “You know it and I know it.”
“You can help them,” Mama Luce said. “You’ve helped many of them. Your insights are invaluable.”
“My insights are useless. I’ve proved that.”
“What happened with Celia—”
“No.” She couldn’t go there. Couldn’t stand to hear the girl’s name. “Don’t talk about her. I can’t talk about her.”
“It wasn’t your fault.” Mama Luce’s words, delivered so many times before, held only compassion. “You can’t save everyone.”
“I can’t save anyone. I can barely save myself. I’m sorry. I can’t. You’ll have to find somebody else.”
Before her old friend and mentor could respond, Grace hung up, hating herself for her rudeness but knowing she had no other choice. Mama Luce wouldn’t stop trying to change her mind, but Grace wouldn’t be convinced. What happened with Celia…
She wouldn’t survive that again.

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