Chapter 4

Justin had a sudden flash of memory. He’d been fifteen, and Harper must have only been about two. He could remember packing her teddy bears and her dolls into a bag and bringing them down here. Setting them up on the tree stump so they could all have a picnic together. Drinking water out of the cups he’d brought from the kitchen, and calling it a tea party. And Harper’s face lit up with a grin as she babbled away at him.

He’d left not long after that, because he couldn’t take being around Mom anymore. Mom and her string of “boyfriends”, each one worse than the last. He hadn’t run away exactly. He’d stayed in contact. Just, it was better to crash on some friend’s couch than stay in the house when he and Mom were fighting so much back then.

Harper said she couldn’t remember him, and maybe that was true, but Justin remembered those tea parties at the old tree stump with sudden, stinging clarity.

“Harper,” Justin said now. “We have to take Scarlett to the hospital.”