Five Sentence Fiction - Delicate

 Lillie McFerrin's Weekly Flash Fiction Prompt - 'Delicate'

 

This is where this week's prompt took me:

Arlene had to be very careful how she handled this, otherwise he’d take it the wrong way and then they’d all be in trouble. She couldn’t just deal with this in her usual way; she had to be far more tentative - more delicate, the delivery had to be just right.

If she said it wrong, and he snapped, they’d all lose out, and little Johnny most of all; he needed this home more than anyone; he need to be warm and dry, his health could not withstand them returning to the streets, his life depended on it. But Max was a hard man, and as he reminded her often enough that they weren’t his kids, so she had to do this subtly.

She looked at Arlette’s pretty face, with the tears running down it, and went over the words in her mind again, hoping she could get across to him that sexually abusing and raping her daughter was not on, and that there were other ways she was prepared to repay him for putting a roof over their heads, however degrading they were.