Vanessa felt her eyes sting and she had to force herself not to cry. She was haunted by the fact that she had been safely with her grandmother while Scotty had needed her, while he was trying to figure out where to live. She bitterly cursed the death of her mother once again, but this time not for her own loss but for the loss of what could have been.
Scotty looked out into the distance as if he was reliving the events of the past. "She didn't believe that I could do it." He met her eyes and they were unflinching. "But the next week I brought her enough money so that she couldn't say no."
Vanessa wanted to shake her head in denial at what he was insinuating. "Scotty are you saying-"
He looked at her and his expression was hollow. "I became a drug dealer so that I could give it to her to take the kids." He shrugged. "She already had guardianship of Beady so it was just a matter of her putting in a request to take custody of all of us."