more than a whisper, laced with the same distress Scarlett saw in her expression.
“What did you mean then?” You’re nothing, nothing at all, Ruth had reported Haddie saying to the disabled child. Scarlett still couldn’t even imagine her pure-hearted daughter saying something like that.
Haddie paused, her brow knitting. “I don’t know,” she finally said.
Scarlett exhaled a frustrated breath. “How can you not know what you meant? It came out of your mouth.”
“I know but . . .” Her words faded away and again, she looked out the window. Scarlett gripped the steering wheel, tears threatening. She felt so damn upset . . . with Haddie, but mostly, mostly with herself. She felt incompetent . . . alone.
She saw the sign for the hardware store Deputy West had mentioned and pulled into the lot. The rain was dwindling now, white rays emerging from behind the heavy clouds that had recently shed their weight.
She turned off the car and turned to her daughter. “Haddie, did you think less of that boy because he has braces on his legs?”
Haddie shook her head, her expression so earnest. “No, Mommy.”
“Did he . . . scare you? Were you frightened of him because he’s different?”
Haddie paused but then shook her head. “No, Mommy.”
Scarlett watched her little girl, so much going on behind those sea-glass eyes, so many things she longed to know, to understand. She released a slow breath. Be patient. She’s just a child. “Haddie . . . sometimes I talk to myself when I’m trying to work through a problem or . . . even just my own tangled thoughts. Sometimes it helps to speak things out loud. They sort of . . . sound different than when they’re just bouncing around in my own head. Was that what you were doing back at the church?”
Haddie seemed to mull that over and then nodded. “Yes, Mommy.”
“So you weren’t speaking to that boy so much as you were talking aloud. You didn’t mean to hurt him or say something cruel.”
Haddie nodded her head vigorously. “Yes, Mommy. Yes, that’s it.”
Scarlett nodded slowly. “I understand that. I bet if someone heard me speaking my thoughts aloud, they’d question me too. Those thoughts are . . . well, they’re unfiltered.” She looked off to the side, trying to put these ideas into childlike terms so she knew they were on the same page. “They’re really just for you so you don’t stop to consider how they’ll sound to others.”
Haddie nodded again, her eyes filling with relieved tears. “Yes,” she said, the word emerging on a choked whisper.
“Oh, Haddie.” Scarlett’s heart gave another painful squeeze and she grabbed her purse, opened her door, and went around to the back where she pulled her daughter into her arms. For a few minutes they stood just like that by the side of the car, both squeezing each other tight. When Scarlett pulled back, Haddie gave her a sweet, tremulous smile. “It’s important to be mindful about what you say out loud, and what you work through in your own head, okay? You don’t ever want to accidentally hurt someone’s feelings, right? Especially someone who might already feel self-conscious about the things that make them different?”
Haddie nodded, hugging her mother again. Scarlett gripped her tight and then set her down, giving her a smile as she grasped her hand. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” Haddie said, but her smile slipped. “They won’t let me go back to that church now.”
“Well,” Scarlett said, giving her daughter’s hand a squeeze as they approached the door to the store. “We don’t need people who don’t believe in second chances, now do we?”
Scarlett squatted in front of Haddie and held her pinkie up and Haddie released a gust of breath that turned into a small grateful smile, looping their fingers together. “No, Mommy. We don’t,” she said. Scarlett nodded, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek before standing.
A bell over the door jingled when Scarlett pulled it open and they both stepped into the dim interior of the relatively small store, a stand of paint samples directly to their left and a front desk to their right. A woman, who had been bent over something to the side of the counter, straightened, offering them a smile. “Good afternoon. Welcome to Grady’s”
“Thanks,” Scarlett said, stepping forward and catching sight of what was in the box. “Oh my goodness,” she practically squealed. “How old?”
“Six weeks,” the woman said. She looked at Haddie. “You wanna hold one?”