I watched Amara take a tentative bite of the sandwich, her small shoulders dropping an inch as the food hit her stomach. My fur babies were doing their part, too—Emmy was purring like a chainsaw against the girl’s side, and Smudge was actually allowing her ears to be touched without filing a formal grievance.
“Your mommy must be a hard worker,” I said softly, loading my darks into the industrial washer. “Does she usually do the laundry in the mornings?”
Amara nodded, her mouth full of peanut butter. “Mommy’s job,” she squeaked. “But she sick dis mornin’. Real sick. So I ‘cided to do it. I not want dem mad at her.”
My heart did a slow, painful roll in my chest. Sick. In my experience, “sick” was often code for something much heavier. “And what about your daddy, Mara? Does he help out?”
The girl froze. The half-eaten sandwich hovered in the air as her face went bone-white. “I’s not ‘opossed to talk ‘bout him,” she whispered, her eyes darting to the laundry room door as if a ghost might appear. “Mommy say he bad man. He live in da Red Place.”
I didn’t push. I knew that look. I’d seen it in the mirror when I was younger, and I’d seen it in the eyes of women at truck stops who were running from shadows. Instead, I reached into my bag and pulled out a small grooming brush I kept for the cats.
“Well, tell you what. Since you’re being such a big help, why don’t you give Emmy a good brushing? She’s a princess and she knows it.”
As she focused on the cat, her small hands moving with surprising gentleness, I took over the laundry she’d been struggling with. I worked fast, my mind racing as I tried to bridge the gap with more questions. “What does mommy usually make for dinner, Mara? Do you like pizza nights?”
“We go to ‘da store’ when the papers come,” she said, her voice small. “Mommy buy da bread an da yellow cheese. If she not tired, the lady with blue hair bring sandwiches from here. But mommy yell at her cuz we no need charity.”
Charity. The word tasted like ash. It was made extremely obvious that this baby girl wasn’t just skinnier than the other cubs; she was starving in the middle of a feast. While Stormy and I were feeding each other pancakes and holding hands, Amara was counting the days until the next papers came.
I couldn’t let her leave empty-handed. I moved to the kitchen with a purpose, grabbing a heavy grocery bag and loading it with everything I could find—leftover BBQ wrapped in foil, fresh fruit, bags of chips, more candy, and enough PB&J’s and veggies to fill her belly and then some.
“Mara, listen to me,” I said, crouching down so I was eye-level with her. I pressed the heavy bag into her hands. “I need another favor. I’m going to be very busy tomorrow, and I need someone I trust to come back and help me take care of Smudgie and Emmy. This bag? This is your advance payment. For being a professional cat-sitter.”
She looked at the bag, her eyes wide with a mixture of hope and terror. She wouldn’t let me walk her home—I could see the “no strangers” rule etched into her posture—but as she turned to leave with my bag of goodies, she suddenly dropped it, pivoted and threw her thin arms around my neck.
I leaned into the hug, the Ohio grit in my throat turning into a massive, jagged frog. I held her for a second too long, feeling every rib through her thin shirt. “See you tomorrow, Little,” I whispered.
I was standing there, folding a stranger’s flannel and furiously drafting a grocery list in my head, when Gina walked in. She took one look at my face and the pile of laundry I’d taken over, and her expression softened into something deeply sad.
“You met Amara,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
“Who is she, Gina? And why is she doing laundry while her ribs are poking through her shirt?”
Gina leaned against the dryer, sighing. “Her mother is Rachael. She came here six months ago, begging Stormy for sanctuary. She was running from Jackson—the Alpha of the Red Moon pack. He’s a monster, V. Stormy agreed to keep them safe, gave Rachael a job, a place to stay… but… well Rachael isn’t ‘sick.’ I think she’s on drugs. Maybe the stuff she used to cope with Jackson.”
I slammed a folded towel onto the table. “If she’s on drugs, then that baby needs help! Why accept the help to get away from a monster if you’re just going to let the baby girl starve in the shadows?”
Gina looked away, her voice dropping. “We try, V. I’ve brought them food, Knight’s offered to fix their heater… but Rachael is proud. Or paranoid. She told me to stay away with my ‘charity.’ And Stormy… he’s an Alpha, not a social worker. He provides the walls and the safety from the outside. He expects the families to handle the inside.”
She paused, her eyes meeting mine with a painful honesty. “The truth is, V… even in a pack, we have people who are food insecure. We provide the land, but we can’t always reach the people who refuse to be seen.”
I looked at my grocery list—the one that now included industrial-sized jars of peanut butter and enough protein to feed an army. “Well,” I said, my voice hard and steady. “He might be an Alpha, but I’m an Ohio chick. And I don’t give a damn about pride when there’s a child involved.”