44 Charles Street by Danielle Steel

Author:Danielle Steel
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: Romance, Sagas, Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780593063040
Publisher: Random House Inc.
Published: 2011-03-14T10:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

THE RESIDENTS OF 44 Charles Street were less sympathetic to Eileen this time. Marya gave her a motherly lecture, after bringing her soup and soft foods for five days. This time Brad had not only blackened her eyes, and made mincemeat of her face, he had loosened her teeth. She had to see the dentist twice in three days. Marya told her that she couldn’t allow herself to see him again. Francesca was being firm with her and begging her to get help. And Chris wanted nothing to do with her.

“I’m tired of lunatics and addicts and self-destructive people,” he said harshly to Francesca. “She’s addicted to the guy, and even if you chain her to the wall in her room, she’ll sneak out to see him, and he’ll beat her up again. She’s too sick. I went through the same thing with Kim and drugs. You can’t fight people’s addictions, and I’ve gotten smart enough not to try. She’ll do anything to protect her addiction. It’s no different than drugs. You can’t fix them, or stop them, and you’ll break your heart trying.”

“I can’t just sit there and not say anything to her about it,” Francesca insisted. She thought Chris sounded very cold.

“You’re wasting your time. She has to want to get help, and until she does, nothing you do or say will have any effect on her.”

It was heartbreaking to watch, and Francesca hated to see the condition she was in. She was such a sweet girl, with no self-esteem whatsoever. That was clear now. Her father had pummeled it out of her. Abuse was what she expected and thought she deserved.

Her employers were equally fed up with her. She had to take a week off, until she could cover the bruises with makeup. And when she went back to work, they fired her. She came back to the house in shock that afternoon. She was out of a job. Brad was no longer speaking to her and had told her he wanted nothing more to do with her. He had shut her out, and she kept asking Francesca if she thought he would ever call again. It was sick.

“I hope not” was all Francesca would say to her, but she was beginning to realize that Chris was right, and the abuse was an addiction. She was having withdrawal from not seeing Brad even if he abused her. And she refused to get help. Francesca just hoped he would stay away long enough for Eileen to come to her senses and to detox from him.

And Ian’s mother was demanding to see her son in jail. Chris flatly refused, and claimed it would destroy him. Two psychiatrists who spoke to Ian agreed. He was happy with his father and leading a normal life with him. He and Chris were doing healthy, normal things.

Charles-Edouard was spending a lot of time at the house these days to see Marya, and do the preliminary work on their book together, and Ian was his shadow whenever he was there.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.