The other two boys who lived in the house were no trouble at all, Roz had told her. Andy, who was fourteen and had Down’s syndrome, was a sweetheart and loved everyone. And while fifteen-year-old Marcus had cerebral palsy, was confined to a wheelchair and needed help with dressing, bathing, and eating, he was very bright and cheerful and never complained. Each of the boys had their own bedroom on the other side of the house, so Scarlett would at least have a bit of privacy, even if the small, cramped office/storage space was less than ideal.
“Here we go. Grilled cheese sandwich, some apple wedges, and a glass of milk,” enthused Margie as she carried a tray in. “Oh, and a couple of chocolate chip cookies. Eat up.”
Scarlett stared at the laden tray that Margie carefully placed over her lap, and once again fought off the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes. No one had ever brought her a meal in bed - well, except for the times she had spent in the hospital, and that didn’t really count, she thought. Nor had any hospital meal ever looked quite as yummy as this.
Despite the fact that she could hardly keep her eyes open, she managed to eat most of the meal, leaving just a few crusts of bread, an apple wedge, and one of the cookies.
Margie smiled in satisfaction. “Good girl. We’ll get you fattened up in no time. I’ll wrap the cookie in a napkin and leave it on the desk for you. Maybe when you wake up from your nap you’ll feel like having it. Now, you get some sleep, okay? I’m going to run a couple of quick errands before the boys start arriving home from school and things get crazy. Sleep tight, sweetie.”
Scarlett closed her eyes as Margie actually tucked her into bed, something no one had ever done, not even her mother or grandmother when she’d been a toddler. Not, of course, that she could really remember much of anything about her mother.
Even before Nikki Strohman had died when Scarlett was barely five years old, she’d had little to do with the daughter she had been ill prepared to raise, thinking nothing of leaving her in the care of Nikki’s alcoholic mother Gloria for hours or even days at a time, and all without a word of warning. And since Gloria had more often than not been passed out drunk, Scarlett had learned from a very young age to fend for herself. She had also begun acting out as a way of getting attention, though most of the time all that had gained her was a spanking or getting locked in her room.
Money had always been in short supply, since Nikki tended to spend whatever she earned as a cocktail waitress just as fast as she earned it. She liked pretty clothes, makeup, going out to bars and clubs, and, most of all, booze and drugs. Unsurprisingly, she’d been both drunk and high when she had crashed her car in the wee hours of the morning after heading home from a night of partying, breaking her neck and dying on impact.
Scarlett hadn’t really mourned her mother, a woman who’d been more or less a stranger who’d flitted in and out of her life as the whim had taken her. Neither had Gloria been distraught over losing her only child, though she’d been plenty angry and upset upon realizing that she was now solely responsible for raising her unwanted grandchild. Scarcely a day went by when she didn’t grumble and gripe about being stuck with a brat to raise, or complain about how much it cost to feed and clothe Scarlett, or how her life had been ruined by Nikki’s actions. She paid scant attention to her granddaughter, not even noticing when the child developed pneumonia. It had only been when Scarlett had fainted at school that the seriousness of her illness had been determined, and she’d had to spend nearly a week in the hospital. Or the time when Scarlett had been pushed to the ground by a bully in the neighborhood and broken her arm, and Gloria had snapped at her to stop whining about the pain. A teacher had noticed how swollen and bruised Scarlett’s arm was and once again alerted the school nurse. The break had been bad enough to warrant surgery, and another stay in the hospital. On neither of her hospital stays had Gloria ever bothered to visit Scarlett, except to grudgingly pick her up when she’d been discharged.
The only thing that pleased Gloria even a little about being responsible for Scarlett was the fact that she was now eligible to receive support checks from the state for the child’s care. However, Scarlett was pretty sure that little to none of that money had ever been spent on her. She’d had very few clothes and even fewer toys as a child, the cupboards and refrigerator had held the bare minimum of food, and the small, cramped house she had lived in with Gloria had been what she would later think of as a real shithole, with stained carpets, ancient furniture, and a pervasive odor of mildew in every room.
Instead, Gloria had spent the majority of both her welfare and child support checks on booze and gambling. She’d been a frequent patron of a local gaming parlor where she mostly played slots or Keno, and could drink cheap booze for free as long as she kept gambling.
She had died with a glass of bourbon in one hand with the other wrapped around the handle of a slot machine, suffering a sudden and fatal brain aneurysm. Scarlett, who was ten years old by then, had arrived home from school to an empty house, but had thought nothing of it since her grandmother was frequently absent. It had only been the arrival of two police officers at the front door shortly afterwards when she had learned about her grandmother’s sudden death. When the officers had realized there was a child in the house, and learned there were no other family members to care for her, Child Protective Services had been summoned. By dinnertime Scarlett had been whisked away, barely having time to pack the few clothes and other belongings she owned, and installed in a temporary foster home. No one had bothered to explain things to her, nor had her new foster parents been particularly welcoming or reassuring. She’d been rather unceremoniously shown to the bedroom she would be sharing with two other girls, both of them older and bigger than she was, and had been more or less left to fend for herself.
Over the next few years she’d been moved from one foster home to another, rarely staying in any one place more than a few months. Admittedly, she had been a handful, regularly getting into trouble at school for fighting with other kids or getting mouthy with her teacher. Even though she tested at very high levels, and her teachers recognized she was one of the smartest kids in class, she rarely did her homework and thus received poor marks in most of her subjects. The schools she attended were some of the worst performing in the Las Vegas school system, with teachers who were overworked and grossly underpaid, and who simply didn’t have the time or the energy to pay extra attention to an obviously needy child like Scarlett.
By the time she turned twelve, she’d begun cutting school, which had resulted in even more calls home from the principal to whatever foster parent she was living with. And that would result in the foster parents calling Scarlett’s case manager to complain that they just weren’t cut out to deal with a child like her, one who clearly had behavioral issues and who needed counseling. So she would get moved yet again, and it seemed that each time the living conditions were just a little worse, with foster parents who were clearly in this only for the money and who couldn’t care less about her.
By the time Scarlett turned thirteen, her case manager was unable to find a single family home who would take in a rebellious, difficult teenager, and thus Scarlett was moved to a group home. She had been terrified the first time she’d set foot in the place, but had learned a long time ago never to show fear unless she wanted to get picked on or worse. And while she was savvy enough not to go looking for trouble among a group of kids who were all bigger, stronger, and more dangerous than she was, at the same time she didn’t hesitate to stick up for herself.