K Randis: Spilled Milk

My hands trembled as I dialed the number for social services and slipped a piece of paper out of my pocket. I knew I would forget something, so I wrote down what I needed to say in a paragraph. An operator picked up and I smoothed the paper out in front of me.

When I finished rattling off what I needed to say, she asked for my name and to explain how I knew what I knew.

“I can’t tell you my name. But you have to believe me. Listen to my voice, I’m a child, and I’m terrified. You need to help these kids.”

Based on a true story, Brooke Nolan is a battered child who makes an anonymous phone call about the escalating brutality in her home. When social services jeopardize her safety condemning her to keep her father’s secret, it’s a glass of spilled milk at the dinner table that forces her to speak about the cruelty she’s been hiding. In her pursuit for safety and justice Brooke battles a broken system that pushes to keep her father in the home.

When jury members and a love interest congregate to inspire her to fight, she risks losing the support of family and comes to the realization that some people simply do not want to be saved.