Blair held the spoonful of Spaghetti-Os to Starr's lips, but the child turned her head away. Since the memorial service the day before, Starr had refused to eat anything and Blair silently cursed herself for allowing her to attend it. It had been a mistake of humongous proportions in her mind.

Her thoughts reeled as she recalled the surprise speaker at the service.

Goddamn that woman, whoever she is, she thought.

She was worried to death over Starr who seemed to be withdrawing more and more each day. She didn't laugh or smile or play and though that wasn't surprising considering her grief, it seemed like there was more to it. She didn't know what to do for her little girl and the realization of that was frightening.

She wondered if she should get some kind of help for her, but she considered that as a last resort. She was missing her daddy, and she was hurting now, but she would be okay, Blair told herself. She just had to be. In the meantime she had to get Starr to eat.

Starr wouldn't pick up the spoon herself so Blair held it for her.

"Please baby. Just a little bit. Please!"

Starr looked at the spoon for a minute, then took it from her mother's hands. Blair had time to feel a moment of triumph before the spoon and its contents were flying across the kitchen, followed by the bowl of Spaghetti-Os. They ran down the wall like little orange rafts in a crimson stream.

"Starr!" Blair was astounded.

"I want Daddy! I want Daddy! I want Daddy!" Starr cried over and over. It was the first words she'd spoken since the memorial service. Blair tried to take the child in her arms, but Starr resisted and tried to pull away. Blair held on to her and caught Starr's tiny fists in her own.

"Oh Starr, sweetie, I would give everything I own to be able to give you your daddy back. But honey, I can't. Oh, I know this hard, believe me, but sweetie, you have to eat. You'll get sick if you don't."

"I want Daddy. He said he wouldn't leave me," Starr huffed between sobs, "Not forever. He said he'd come back. I want him back!"

"Oh Starr," Blair took the little girl in her arms and cried with her. It broke her heart to see her only child suffering so much, and Starr had been fairly calm until the memorial service. Blair had debated whether or not to take her, and decided that she wanted to give her the chance to remember her father one last time in the company of people who loved her. If she had known that someone would come and ruin it, she would have changed her mind in a hurry. But how could she know? She knew Todd had enemies, but she couldn't fathom how anyone could have enough hate in their heart to take it out on his family. On his only daughter.

"I swear to God," Blair thought, in a sudden fit of rage, "I'm going to find that bitch, whoever she is, and I'm going to make her pay for what she did in front of Starr. Nobody hurts my little girl."

Back to Part SEVEN

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