“Thank you.” Heather said, accepting the luke warm cup of coffee from Rose. She sipped on it periodically as she weighed her options. Heather had heard Ella’s story from a friend, and her heart had broken for her. Now she began to realize how little she actually knew about her. Sure, Heather had talked to Ella’s case worker on the phone, but the information she had received seemed incomplete now. She had come to collect this girl only knowing a small fraction of her backstory. Her mother was deceased, her father wasn’t in the picture and she had previously had leukemia. That was all she was told.

So why was she only now being told Ella had obviously witnessed some kind of horrific trauma? Had Ella walked in to find her mother’s deceased body in the bathroom? Had she heard the gunshot and come to investigate? Is that why she wouldn’t talk? Heather shuddered as she pictured a young girl coming across her mothers brains splattered across the bathroom. Would Ella ever be the same again?