“Amber said they couldn’t do big birthdays every year after they went to the water park for Toby,” she explained.
She told me that she would have chosen a strawberry cake if she had been given the choice.
I made a note of that detail because small facts are the architecture of true repair.
After lunch, we went to a store and I told her to pick out anything she wanted.
She moved through the aisles with caution and only chose a few small items like nail polish and gummy bears.
“You are allowed to want things, Daisy, and I am not going to run out of money,” I told her with a smile.
She eventually added some colored pens and a plush turtle to her small collection.
I called Mrs. Gable later that afternoon while Daisy was busy with a word search book.
The neighbor told me that she had tried to tell Patrick that leaving the girl alone was wrong.
“They asked me to just keep an ear out, but they never gave me medical authority or emergency info,” she said.
She admitted that she had seen a pattern of neglect for a long time and felt guilty for not calling me sooner.
“Daisy does not ask for much because she has learned that asking leads to disappointment,” Mrs. Gable noted.
