Set Me Free Read Online Free PDF

true. Lara’s mother had had a history of drug addiction, and it was unclear if she’d overdosed or if she’d decided she couldn’t keep on living.
    â€œI know she did.”
    â€œHow do you know?”
    â€œMy dad told me. He said she left us because she didn’t care and she didn’t love me. That’s why he burnt her photographs.”
    â€œThat is not true. Your dad was talking nonsense. Your mum was a vulnerable person, Lara, but I am so sure she loved you. Really, I am.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œBecause it’s impossible not to love you. But she was ill, and it all got too much for her . . .” I felt compassion for that strange woman who’d had so much darkness inside her that she had ended her own life, though she had unleashed a chain of consequences that had damaged her daughter so much.
    â€œShe left me. What mother does that? I mean, you wouldn’t leave Leo, would you?”
    â€œNo. And I wouldn’t leave you.”
    â€œBut she did.”
    â€œWe don’t know what went through her mind. You should forgive—”
    â€œI can’t forgive my mother,” she interrupted, her words sharp and cold, and I was silenced by her rage. “I don’t want to.”
    I reached out for her, but she’d taken a step back.
    â€œIf I keep being angry at her, I won’t miss her as much,” she explained, her mouth in a hard line, her eyes steely.
    What else was there to say?
    After that, she became very withdrawn again, just like she was when she’d arrived. She was so quiet we hardly ever heard her voice. What worried me the most was that the portions on her plate became smaller and smaller, and so did she. She was like a fawn, all long, slim limbs and huge eyes, beautiful and fragile. I took to mixing cream into her mashed potatoes, breaking an egg into her soup, baking brownies with extra butter, anything to give her some extra calories.
    All throughout, Ash had no words for her, no time to help her.
    He took her shopping a couple of times and she came back laden with bags of clothes, which she barely looked at. I tried to explain to Ash that she didn’t need money spent on her, she needed tenderness. But it was like he didn’t hear me.
    I was at a loss. An American friend of mine, Sheridan, was a child counsellor. She agreed to see Lara privately. After a few months of sessions, Lara was speaking more, eating more and smiling again. Sheridan had a final chat with me. She said that Lara had been grieving, not so much for her father but for her mother. It had been the picture that triggered her distress more than the news of her father’s death. And that was understandable, with all Lara had been through. With the way her dad used to be with her.
    With the violence.
    With each of Sheridan’s words I felt I was sinker deeper into an icy pool. Ash and I didn’t know about any violence; nobody had told us about it, not Lara herself, not the social workers. There was nothing in her dossier.
    I phoned Kirsty and told her what Lara had confessed to Sheridan. Kirsty was silent for a moment.
    â€œWe knew that Lara had been terribly neglected by her father, but we never saw signs of violence, and that is why this wasn’t in her dossier.”
    â€œHow could you not know, Kirsty?”
    â€œIt happens more often than you think: that nobody knows, not other members of the family, social workers, teachers. Violence can be very, very hard to spot; often bruises are hidden and there are no evident injuries.”
    At that point, I cried.
    Bruises and injuries.
    On my child’s body. That little body I had nourished, looked after, washed and dressed with such love and devotion, somebody else had hurt . I was full of rage, a rage I could have never imagined I had the potential to feel.
    I could not imagine anyone raising their hand to my daughter. I could not bear to think how she must have felt. A helpless,