One Last Hope

Twenty-Seven

Jasmine has been living in her new foster home for three weeks now. It took a few days, but she's used to the routine. Each day consists of scrubbing the entire house, top to bottom. It's not really a new concept to Jasmine since back when she lived in North Carolina, all she did was clean all day long for years.

"The bathrooms and bedrooms are squeaky clean." Jasmine said, checking off her chores on the whiteboard in the garage.

"The kitchen, dining room, and living room area are neatly organized." Angela came running in. Jasmine checked the chores under Angela's name too.

"The laundry and 3 cars are smelling fresh!" Mable chimed in from the other room.

"Wow.. That's a whole new record. We finished nearly 3 hours early." Jasmine pressed stop on the stop watch.

"Do you guys know what this means? We can watch TV now!"

"No way. The mistress strictly forbids us to touch her television system."

"The mistress isn't here." Angela crossed her arms and turned to Jasmine. "Do you vote watching TV or going to our room and staring at the wall?"

"Do not put me in the middle of one of your silly fights." Jasmine put her hands up.

"I'll take that as a vote for TV." Angela grabbed the remote control sitting on the counter and pressed the power button. She sat on the couch, put her feet up on the coffee table, and browsed through the 100's of channel choices. "Yes, Family Guy is on!"

"Quit channel surfing and come with us." Jasmine invited her, opening the door to their bedroom/basement.

"You guys go, this is my favorite episode." Angela tried saying through her giggling.

Mable and Jasmine both left Angela behind and went down into the basement, also known as their bedroom. Mable cheerfully ran over with sparkly crayons and blank paper in her hands and invited Jasmine to color. Jasmine nodded, picked up a crayon, and started to draw with her. The two probably spent an hour laying on the floor drawing each other pictures before deciding it was time to get started on dinner.

They had to be extra careful with dinner tonight since the mistress was having visitors over. She left a note on the counter of what she wanted the girls to have prepared before she got home. The menu consisted of Chicken Casserole, Shrimp Cactus Salad, and Crème brûlée.

"What the heck is a shrimp cactus salad?" Jasmine asked.

"I don't know, just make a salad and throw some shrimp with cactus into the mix." Angela grunted, already getting started on the chicken casserole.

****

"Waitress!" A dirty blonde drunk rung a little bell. "Another margarita over here."

Mable went over to the blender and added the ingredients for margaritas. The blonde woman snapped her fingers, trying to hurry her. Mable quickly grabbed the bottle of vodka and accidentally dropped it onto the floor, causing the glass bottle to shatter.

"You little.." The Mistress pushed her seat out and got up.

"It was an accident, Miss. I'm so sorry." Mable kneeled down to pick up the pieces of glass.

The mistress advanced over and smacked Mable across the face.

"Mom.. You hit me.." Mable whispered, holding her freshly smacked cheek. She watched as the Mistress grabbed the key to the time out closet. "Oh no. Please, no!" 

The Mistress ignored her, dragged her by the hair into the closet as she screamed, locked her in, and then yelled at Jasmine to clean up the mess while the blonde woman laughed about it all.

"That was a $400 bottle of vodka." The Mistress rolled her eyes. "She's lucky all I did was smack her."

"I would've beat the shit outta of her." The blonde with a New Jersey accent spoke up.

"So would I but the social worker comes by once a week to check up on them. I'd get caught right away." She sipped her wine. Before she could sit back down, a knock came at the door so she went to go see who it was. "Speak of the devil."

"Hello, Tess. I need to take Jasmine down to the police station for a questioning." The social worker tried to ignore the stench of alcohol that clouded the house.

Jasmine didn't even wait for the Mistress to respond. She grabbed her jacket and quickly made her way to the front door.

"Hold on a second, Jasmine. Do you mind if I take a look inside and check up on the girls?" 

"Come on in." Tess fake smiled, opening her arms open. 

"Why does it stink of alcohol in here?" She noticed that the stench was worse the closer you got to the kitchen.

"My girlfriends and I were just having some margaritas." Tess followed the social worker upstairs. 

"Okay." She checked the bedrooms. "Where's little Mable?"

"Oh. She's at a friends house."

"At this hour? Tess, she's 10 years old. She shouldn't be out past 9 PM." She thought it was outrageous  that she'd be so irresponsible.

"I know, I know. I'm going to go pick her up once this alcohol wares off." 

"I'll pick her up. What's the address?" She took out a mini notebook and a pen from her back pocket. 

"Oh, no, no, no. That's perfectly alright. You've obviously got a lot on your plate right now. You should take Jasmine to the sheriffs office for her questioning." Tess tried to convince the social worker.

"Yeah. I guess your right."

"Don't worry about Mable. She's in good hands." Tess gritted her teeth, trying to keep her act together.

"I'm glad to hear that." The social worker smiled. 

Tess gave them both a dirty look as they got into the cop car. She sucked it up and smiled, waving at them as they drove off.

When they arrived at the police station, Jasmine was questioned about Cody concerning his drug dealing shenanigans. She said as little as she possibly could in order to protect him. Apparently he's already sentenced to half a year of prison. If they were to find more dirt on him, he'd be serving so much more.

"One month down of foster care, two more to go. How are you feeling? Is your caregiver doing a good job?" A child services lady asked as she stirred sugar into a coffee cup.

"Everything is fine." Jasmine half smiled. Everything was sure as hell not fine but she didn't want to leave Mable and Angela behind.

"If you ever experience any problems, you let us know and we'll transfer you. Okay?" She handed Jasmine the cup of hot coffee.

"Okay." Jasmine accepted the coffee while avoiding eye contact.

"Oh, before I forget, you have a request for a visitor." She pulled out a binder filled with lists of names and looked under Jasmines name. "Mikaylee has requested to see you."

"Oh." Jasmine was a little surprised at first but then relieved. She was still very angry with Kaylee but a visit from her sounded comforting. "When can I see her?"

"If you want I can schedule it a week from now."

Jasmine nodded in agreement and heavily sighed.