a problem with eye contact as many children on the spectrum did, in fact she seemed to seek it out. Sometimes Scarlett was sure the little girl was looking straight into her soul. Haddie was . . . unique, but Scarlett didn’t think her uniqueness could be tested or quantified. Haddie was just . . . Haddie.
She’d like to ask Haddie’s father about the things that made their daughter special, to find out if it might be something genetic, but of course, that ship had sailed. She’d promised never to contact him again and signed her name on the dotted line.
Very literally.
“Maybe from now on just . . . keep to the edge of the woods, okay? I want you to be able to hear me if I call.”
“All right, Mommy.” The pencil sounded on the page again, this time with less intensity. Without looking up from her drawing, Haddie asked, “How long did your friend Kandace live here, Mommy?”
Surprised by the question, Scarlett paused. Had she told Haddie that? Well, obviously, she must have. Or once again, maybe she’d overheard her talking to Merrilee about Kandace. Haddie could be so quiet it was easy to forget little ears were always listening. Kandi. “Only a short time. Less than a year.”
“When this was a . . . school?” The pencil continued to scratch softly on the paper, a lulling sound now that Haddie moved it more slowly, more steadily, and with less fervor.
“Hmm-hmm.” She glanced out the window behind Haddie where the forest met the sky, thinking of her childhood friend. Her first real confidante. When Scarlett’s father had passed away suddenly and unexpectedly, Scarlett’s—mostly unskilled—mother had had to go back to work. She’d taken a housekeeping position at the Thompson family estate, and Scarlett, often trailing along behind her, had befriended Kandace, the only Thompson child, who was three years Scarlett’s senior. Scarlett had been grieving her father, and with his passing, had been thrust into what felt like an entirely different life. Kandi had taken her under her wing and offered the healing gift of friendship. While Scarlett’s mother cleaned, Scarlett and Kandace would play make-believe and dress up in the expansive attic, usually donning one of the five wedding dresses Kandace’s mother had gotten married in over the past thirteen years of Kandace’s life.
Despite Kandace’s older age, and her often seemingly indifferent attitude, Scarlett knew that deep down, Kandace was tender and kind. She’d been desperately looking for validation—attention and affection—and never receiving it from the one person who should have given it naturally: her mother.
It was no wonder she’d made the choices she had. It was no wonder she’d sought “love” in all the wrong places. It was no wonder she’d ended up at Lilith House, a reform school for wayward girls.
Even after Scarlett’s mother took a new position with a different family, she and Kandace kept in touch—even if months would pass between phone calls—until right before Kandace left for Lilith House. Lilith House where Kandace had eventually run away from, never to be seen again. Scarlett had known that Kandace had headed down a dangerous path, she’d known that Kandace was skating the razor’s edge of decisions that had consequences she’d never come back from. She’d hoped . . . along with Kandace’s mother, she was sure, that Lilith House would help put her back on the straight and narrow. Instead . . .
Scarlett’s eyes again went to the edge of the vast forest beyond. Where did you go? she wondered. Where are you now? They’d searched the woods. She wasn’t there. But being here made Scarlett feel somehow closer to the troubled girl who’d shared her heart with her, and few others.
“Tell me about Ruby Sugar.”
Scarlett smiled. Haddie knew about Ruby Sugar, the name Scarlett had chosen for her business, but like all of Haddie’s favorite stories, she liked to hear it being retold. “Kandace and I played a game where we were wedding designers. We used our names to create the company name. Ruby is another word for Scarlett, and sugar is the main ingredient in candy.” Or . . . Kandi.
Haddie smiled. “I like that, Mommy.”
Scarlett smiled back. She did too. Especially because when she’d seen the ad for Lilith House and recognized it as the school Kandace had been banished to, and then run away from, she’d gotten a feeling that was so strong, so absolute, that she’d picked up the phone before she even made a conscious decision to