Read Online Mother's Milk by Charles Atkins - Free Book Online

in.’ He met her gaze, enjoying the effect he had on her. ‘How’s your month been?’ he asked, motioning her toward a chair on the other side of his desk.
    â€˜You have no idea,’ she said dramatically as she flopped down, her left leg hooked over the seat’s padded arm, her midriff exposed. ‘Everything sucks! My life sucks! I wish I were dead. I can’t believe I have to stay at that place for three years. You got to get me out of there.’
    â€˜OK,’ he said, ‘let’s get the details. I take it that you’re not loving the new group home.’
    â€˜Yeah, right, that place is for retards, Chase. They don’t let me do anything; it’s like being a prisoner. The food sucks, there’s a nine o’clock curfew, they don’t have TVs in the bedrooms, and they won’t let us have cell phones; they don’t even have Internet! My roommate’s on medication and I don’t mean to be a total bitch, but she stinks, like shit, the whole place stinks.’
    â€˜How long have you been in there?’ he asked, not caring, but finding that the words just came.
    â€˜Two weeks. I can’t take it. Please get me back into a foster family.’
    Chase looked at the top folder on his desk; they were all thick and Morgan’s was no exception. She’d been a ward of the system since she was two. Failed out of a dozen foster homes, and was now in her fourth or fifth group-home placement. ‘OK,’ he said, looking at the little piece of trash as she slathered on a fresh layer of pink lipgloss, ‘I think your last foster family was the final nail in that particular coffin.’
    â€˜What are you saying?’ she asked, not liking it when he criticized her. ‘It wasn’t my fault. He’s the one who came on to me. Aren’t you supposed to keep shit like that from happening? Don’t you even screen those creeps?’
    â€˜Of course we do,’ he said, having had to handle a few horny creeps of his own as a child and teenager. Though his tactics had been different from Morgan’s, who viewed herself as a victim of everything and everyone. The first time he’d been molested was when he was nine, by his foster mother’s boyfriend. It didn’t go far, but the man begged Chase to tell no one, and promised it would never happen again. Chase could still see the raw fear in Jack Harrigan’s eyes and smell the whiskey on his breath. More importantly, he knew that Jack’s fear gave him power. He’d stayed in that placement for another year, when he’d left, it was with fifteen hundred dollars in cash and a gold pocket watch that had belonged to Jack’s father. ‘But human nature,’ Chase said, looking at Morgan, ‘stuff happens. You’re a pretty girl, Morgan. I don’t think we’ll be able to get you back into a foster family. They want them younger, so you’re left with either a group home or one of the bigger facilities. Which if you think it feels like a prison now, those places have ten times more rules. And frankly, we’re running out of group homes. This is your fourth?’
    â€˜Fifth,’ she said. ‘Chase, you’ve got to help me. I’m not kidding. I can’t stay there. I’ll do something crazy. You know I will. You’ve got to get me out of there. I spoke to my mom … she said I could stay there.’
    Chase looked at her. He had more important things to do now, but he was struck by her monumental stupidity, that despite all the horrible things her crack-addicted prostitute of a mother had done to her, she still wanted to go back to her. ‘Morgan, first there’s no way the department would ever let you return to your mother while you’re a minor; she has no parental rights, they were terminated when you were eight. Second, the five or six times that reunification was tried ended up with either you running away or