Page 100 of The Chief
She silently shook her head.
“What happened to your ma?” I asked because there was always a reason that us kids got put in foster care.
“She died,” she whispered.
Shit. “I’m sorry. My ma is still alive, but would rather do drugs than raise me.” I grimaced. Saying it out loud still hurt.
“My ma died of a drug overdose,” she offered, her eyes lingering on me for a long second before they returned to her sandwich.
“What about your da?”
She shook her head, her strawberry blonde hair sliding over her slender shoulders. “I don’t know who he is.”
“Mine died when I was two,” I told her. “He was in the Garda Síochána.”
“My aunt said she come and get me,” she whispered. “That it would just take a bit of time, but she’d come.”
I nodded, knowing it probably wouldn’t happen, but I wasn’t in the habit of crushing dreams.
“Well, in the meantime, you’ll like it here. Simone is always trying new recipes that never work out. Her husband James says she could burn water.”
“How many other kids are here?”
“Just me and Lily, but she left at the start of the year.”
“Did she find a family?”
I shook my head. “She turned eighteen and wanted to leave. She went to Cork, I think.”
“So now it’s only you?”
I took a bite of my apple. “And you now.”
She chewed on her bottom lip. “My name’s Catherine Walsh,” she replied in a soft voice. “But you can call me Kitty.”
