AN: Not dead, just busy. This is a new in-progress fic I started to facilitate some ideas I had that aren't really long enough to warrant their own fics. Also, chapter two of Pancakes is in the works, but that's not saying much since it's been in the works for... um... eleven months. Anyway, enjoy the show.
ex·trem·i·ty \ik-ˈstre-mə-tē\ n, pl -ties 1: the most remote part or point 2: a limb of the body; esp: a human hand or foot 3: the greatest need or danger 4: the utmost degree; also: a drastic or desperate measure.
Fingers
It was little things. Things no one would notice. Spare change, receipts and Bic pens, apples and granola bars from the kitchen, a penknife. Things no one would think twice about when they disappeared.
Unless they were accustomed to the sticky fingers of children who came from too little.
Jack was bored, a nervous mind tied into nervous fingers that had nothing else to do. She saw it at the dinner table, where he would twist his fingers into his napkin again and again. Doing his homework at night was a never ending series of tapping fingers and spinning pencils, papers shuffling as they were shifted for the hundredth time. Four months it had been the soundtrack of the evening, accompanying bubbling pots and the clock counting down dinner.
She thought that the stealing was just another way to keep his hands busy.
But the toothbrush was another thing entirely. A child didn't hide away what they already owned unless there was a fear that it would be taken away. Evelyn Mercer had seen it all in twenty five years of foster care, but it didn't stop the ache in her chest that every new child brought.