"We're going to take care of you," Patrick agreed. "Sweetheart, have they done anything else? Have they hurt you?" He knew Mairead said her parents fought a lot and now he worried it went deeper than that.
Mairead flushed bright red, which was in stark contrast to her usual pallor. "Yeah," she admitted quietly. "Not my mam but me da. He hits me sometimes. Says his life is so stressful and he loses it and then he says he's sorry but he doesn't look sorry!"