Page 34 of Receiving His Mercy
Come to your school show? Really, Caren, don’t you think that is beneath us? We don’t have time for that. You don’t even have the lead role.
Yet another reason to be ashamed of you, really.
“Caren?Are you all right? Caren? Do you need to sit down?”
She blinked the world back into focus, staring at the woman standing in front of her. What was her name? Brenna. Brenna had a firm hold on Caren’s hand. Caren glanced down in surprise to see blood on her arms from long scratches.
“You hurt yourself,” Brenna said kindly.
Right. Sure.
“Oh, don’t waste time with her, Eliza,” her mother said, waving a hand. “Waste of space, that child. Not sure why we even kept her. I said to my husband once she reached two and still couldn’t read or write that we should just give her away. But he said that sort of thing wasn’t done and could ruin our careers if anyone found out. But, really, me having a child who couldn’t read or write at two? Ridiculous.”
“My name is Brenna,” Brenna told her firmly.
Caren hated the sympathy in the other woman’s face. And yet she couldn’t look away, couldn’t look at the loathsome woman who might have given birth to her but certainly didn’t raise her.
“Eliza was her assistant. One of them, they never lasted long,” Caren told her. “Eliza was kind, though. She was probably the only one I met. Mother didn’t want other people knowing about me. Especially people from her professional life.”
“And, Eliza, I gave away that Christmas gift you bought her. Don’t worry, it went to a charity shop so it wasn’t wasted on someone like my daughter.”
God. How could someone be this awful and evil?
“You need to leave,” Brenna told her.
Caren jolted. “What? I just got here, though.”
“This isn’t healthy for you, Caren.” Brenna glanced down at Caren’s arms.
Shit.
She hadn’t done something like this in a long time. Sure, when she was stressed, she bought too much food. And this week, she’d slept every night in the kitchen with the cupboard doors open so she could stare at the food in the pantry.
But she was A-okay.
Uh-huh. Yep.
And maybe if you tell yourself that enough you might actually start to believe it.
Maybe.
“I’m here now. If I leave, I might not come back.”
“And that might be a good thing,” Brenna told her quietly. “We’re here with her. We’ll take care of her. But you might need to take care of you.”
Those words hit her so hard. She really did need to take care of herself. But she also didn’t think that she’d feel good about herself if she left now. It had taken a lot to get her here and to just leave felt like a failure.
What are you gaining from staying?
She didn’t know. She just knew she had to stay. At least for a while.
Shit. She should have waited until Lacey got back from her honeymoon and brought her with her. She hadn’t even told her best friend she was coming here.
Lacey wasn’t going to be happy if she found out. But Caren hadn’t wanted to subject her to her mother’s poison.
“Thanks for your concern. I appreciate it more than you can know,” she told the other woman. “But I can’t leave just yet.”
Brenna looked torn, but nodded. “I’m going to get someone to bring me some stuff to take care of those cuts.”
