Chapter 8

"Once upon a time, many, many years ago, there were five beautiful girls who were very good friends. They were always together, playing, running, laughing. They had met each other at one of the many parties organized by the high society. It was fortunate that their parents had become friends, because that meant they could spend more time together and maybe, who knows, even a miracle could happen and they would be friends forever. The oldest one of the girls was called Ann, and then followed Vivienne, Emily, Caroline and Ashley. All of them were only children of wealthy families, therefore each one of them saw in the others the sisters she never had, and together they allowed themselves to enjoy that magical freedom which only true friendship gives. So one spring night, under a starry sky, they swore loyalty to one another and promised never to be separated, whatever happened.

Time passed and those sweet girls transformed into beautiful young ladies. Their friendship was still as strong as ever, and as they were inseparable, they also had an indomitable character that nobody could conquer. But as it usually happens in life and in situations like this, there always comes the time when the good things come to an end and the typical villain of the story appears and overshadows what is wonderful.

Ann, who was already seventeen years old, was a beautiful girl with straight brown hair and brown eyes, fine and delicate; a true lady. She had been educated for that and she was happy in that world. So much so that she didn't even grumble when her parents ordered her to marry a complete stranger. The marriage that had been arranged since her birth was no secret; they were just waiting for her to turn eighteen in order to marry the only heir of one of the most powerful families of that time: Mr. Joseph Adams.

Joseph, who was twenty-two years old, handsome and strong, with intense blue eyes and jet-black hair, didn't object either. He had met Ann at one of the few parties he attended, and although the maximum number of words they had exchanged was not even enough to form a sentence, he was never bothered by the presence of the young girl with the brown hair. Never, until he met Emily...

That night he had attended the New Year's Eve party more as an obligation than a pleasure. He had begun working as the head of his family and his social gatherings had inevitably turned into business meetings. So since that year, he should attend any party only to have some contact with possible and important investors. But that boring meeting was over when he saw a beautiful blonde girl with freckles and intense emerald green eyes. Upon seeing her, he was immediately charmed by her, so much so that he didn't mind leaving half a dozen important business men. As soon as she entered the room, he asked her to dance, and as the waltz progressed, the world around them vanished. It was love at first sight. They weren't talking, just smiling and dancing. But they never imagined that two brown eyes were watching them with burning anger. Ann couldn't believe her eyes. Her best friend was dancing with her fiancé. Well, he was not her fiancé yet, but he would be! Their marriage had already been arranged and next year she had to marry that man whom her best friend was now seducing, making a complete fool of her. No, that couldn't happen; she would never allow it. Little did she care if she had to cross the whole parlor and push a few of the guests to get to the young couple. When she would reach them, she would have wanted to slap Emily and throw herself on Joseph, but she was a lady and she had to behave as such. So, using all the good manners she had learnt since her childhood, she caught the gentleman's attention, ignoring completely the one who until that moment had been her best friend.

Since that party, the rivalry between them grew uncontrollably. Emily didn't know how to apologize to Ann. She told her that she didn't know, that if she had known that man was betrothed to her, she would have never dared even to greet him; that it was all a terrible mess. She asked for her forgiveness. Even Vivienne, Caroline and Ashley tried to make stubborn Ann come to her senses. But there was something against them, and that was the grudge inherited from the young brunette, for whom it was just enough to witness that innocent scene between her future fiancé and her best friend to cut off any relationship with the latter.

Months passed and Emily, seeing that one of the best things that had happened in her life was completely destroyed, fell into terrible depression. Not even Joseph's furtive visits cheered her up. After that party, he was really astounded by Emily's lively and charismatic personality, and despite finding out about the problem that those two friends were going through, he wanted to keep visiting her. At first she refused to see him. But after months of countless visits and dozens of roses, Emily ended up accepting him, with the only condition that they would keep it in absolute secrecy. She didn't want to have more problems than she already had. But even so, she was still in low spirits and her parents began to get worried about her. A friend of her aunt's suggested that they send her to London for a while. She could spend a nice vacation in the mansion of that aunt and heal her wounded heart in the process. Without second thought, Emily's parents sent her there, and not having enough energy to grumble, she accepted right away. But nobody could ever imagine the power of a man in love; nobody ever imagined that Joseph would go after her.

Emily's green eyes were illuminated when a handsome young man with jet-black hair and blue eyes appeared at the door of the mansion in London. And without any resistance, she threw herself into his arms, finally accepting the infinite love that only two soulmates can feel. After long and countless discussions, they decided to return to America together. They were going to fight for their love; they knew it wouldn't be easy, but at least they were going to try. The love both of them felt was worth it.

It was a real scandal. Ann was furious, and swore revenge. Emily's parents also disapproved of that union. They would never allow the name of the family to be stained like this. Ann's arranged marriage with Joseph was something everybody was aware of, and their daughter being the third party was the worst shame they had ever lived. Ann's parents requested a talk with the Knight family and demanded that they control their daughter. They also talked to the Adams family who agreed that that relationship was shameful and asked Joseph to obey his family and marry Ann.

But the love between Joseph and Emily was stronger, and they eloped one April night. The three families went mad with rage. It was the greatest scandal ever seen. They searched everywhere, but never found them.

Ann's parents, desperate to silence the rumors, didn't waste any time in arranging another suitable marriage for their daughter with the heir of another one of the wealthiest families, and they were married the following year.

But Ann was not satisfied after the humiliation she had been through. Her heart had shut forever. Friendship and love had ceased to exist for her at the exact moment she had seen them dancing together, and they were replaced by an immense and uncontrollable feeling of resentment and revenge.

It took her several days to plan her next movements very quietly. Then she decided that it would be best to hire specialized people to track down the couple, and once they found them, they would pay for every humiliation she had felt.

Years passed and the detectives finally found the whereabouts of the young couple. They were living in a small village called Winds of Hope. Emily, who was now twenty, was working as a waitress in a small restaurant while Joseph, who was twenty-seven, was working as a cook. They were poor but immensely happy, since besides being married and living together their great dream of love, Emily was eight months pregnant. The detectives didn't wait and instantly informed Ann, who soon traveled to that village to see it with her own eyes. When Ann came, Emily had already given birth to a beautiful baby girl.

Ann, when she heard about this, couldn't help smiling; the baby's birth

suited her perfectly. It didn't take her long to threaten them that she was going to take their daughter away from them in order to take revenge for all the humiliation they had caused her. But what Ann didn't count was the skill for flight which her former friends had acquired. Neither of them hesitated for a moment to escape immediately. They took a train and traveled aimlessly, until Joseph told Emily that they'd better separate because what they were looking for was a couple and not two people alone. He promised her he would find a good job to raise a lot of money and then he would come back to her so they would live happily like a family. He gave her the little money he had with him and prompted her to seek help and to stay in that village until he could return. So Emily got off the train, crying disconsolately, with the baby in her arms, to a village south of Lake Michigan. She did everything possible to find a job or some help but she had no luck. It was snowing heavily and her strength was gradually leaving her. Then, in despair, since the baby hadn't eaten for a long time and was getting feverish, while she was walking she found an old convent hidden in the mountain area. Confused and unsure of what she was doing, she left her at the door of that convent, in a basket, along with the doll she had made herself when she was pregnant. It was a beautiful rag doll with a very unusual name embroidered on its chest: "Candy". Yes, she had decided to give her that name; although Joseph thought that "Candice" would suit her better, she said that "Candy" was much sweeter. Hidden behind some bushes, she waited for the two women who had come out to see who was crying to enter the convent with her baby. She was greatly surprised when she saw the women stopping at the door to pick up another baby who was also crying.

A little calmer now, she left that place, praying that her sweet Candy would have the care she hadn't been able to give her.

Her idea was to find a good job and a good place to live and go back to take the baby. But after she left her things got complicated; as she kept walking, it started snowing more and more. Visibility was decreasing, and having walked for several hours, she didn't even know if she was still on the same path or if she had been lost. She walked aimlessly for a few hours more, until it was dark; then her strength completely abandoned her and she fainted in the snow.

A villager and his wife who were passing by in their cart saw her. They picked her up and brought her to their house. For more than a month she was ill, unconscious and with a high fever because of pneumonia. The family doctor didn't give her much hope. But even so, the miracle happened; a beautiful morning Emily opened her green eyes after a long time. Upon awakening, she barely remembered her name, nor did she know where she was. But she began to regain her memory little by little, and at the same time her despair was growing when she realized she couldn't remember in which village she had left her baby. She cried disconsolately. Her remembrance of those days was so vague...She remembered that she had gone off a train, that her beloved Joseph had told her to wait for him there, but she couldn't remember where that place was. She asked the people who had taken care of her all that time where they had found her and as soon as she regained a bit of her strength she asked to be taken to that place, but getting there she realized that it was a desolate place, far from any civilization. She asked them to take her to the nearest village, but when she arrived there she didn't find any convent, much less a train station. She was completely desperate. Searching something in her mind, some concrete indication of her past life, was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Years passed, and her memories became more and more distant, until she started to believe that everything had been a dream, a sweet dream...

But even so she didn't want to lose hope, and working on the farm of that kind family that gave her shelter without hesitation, selling milk, cheese, eggs and other things, she could save enough money and make her own investigations. She told the couple she lived with that her plan was to travel to the village where she had given birth to her little girl, because if there was something she remembered, that was the name of that village: Winds of Hope. And if everything had been real, the people there would surely recognize her and maybe she would find her beloved Joseph and her darling baby.

So Emily, asking here and there, managed to find that village. Some of her memories came back when she stepped on that beautiful land. She remembered that Joseph and she had chosen to live there because they liked the village's name, and besides the people were very friendly, kind and warm. As soon as she came there, the people who were her friends before recognized her and confirmed her suspicions. She had lived there with Joseph for a long time and they had had a beautiful baby girl whom they had named Candy.

Without any money and with a few resources, Emily stayed there for a few more years, hoping that her beloved Joseph would come back for her...But Joseph never came back, and nobody ever knew what happened to him. Even so, she was still wearing her wedding ring and she never dropped the double surname, because for all the world she would always be Emily Knight Adams, wife of Joseph Adams and mother of Candy Adams.

When Emily turned thirty, tired of being there without money and waiting for something that seemed it would never come, she managed to find out the addresses of her three faithful and old friends, Vivienne, Caroline and Ashley, to whom she wrote immediately, asking them to be absolutely discreet. Without hesitation, they came to the small village. During that encounter Emily found out that Ann had married a wealthy gentleman of high society shortly after they had run away and she was already the mother of two children. She also found out that her father had died and had left, ironically, half of his fortune to her and the other half to her mother. But she never knew anything about Joseph.

Thanks to the insistence of her friends, Emily returned to her home and made her peace with her mother, and as she was now a rich woman, she began searching on her own with every means she could afford.

Several more years passed when Emily's detectives finally found the orphanage where she had left Candy, but just at that moment she began to get sick and soon afterwards she was diagnosed with a strange disease called cancer.

Without losing hope, Emily asked her mother to take her to that village where she had been very happy once and she sent for her friends, entrusting them with the task of searching for her sweet Candy."

…..

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Candy kept looking at the cold landscape behind the window of the private compartment of the train. After having listened to the whole story those three mysterious women had told her, she didn't hesitate for an instant to go and meet her mother. She wanted to see her, to find out if they really resembled so much. She wanted to know more about her life, her past and her family. Yes...Because now she had discovered that she had a family too. And thinking about that, a smile appeared on her lips...Now she was Candy Adams...

Candy Adams...How strange it sounded...Her name was no longer Candice White Ardlay; now it was Candy Adams. A notably simpler name but with a much greater meaning for her.

What does it feel like to have a mother? What will it feel like to hug her or to simply look at her? Candy was so lost in the recent events that she didn't even know why she was sitting there. Emotions were swirling incessantly inside her. Suddenly, she had a mother overnight and not only that; she had also a new name and a whole family behind it.

She remembered the whole story of her mother over and over again, and in doing so she inevitably shuddered. It was incredible how someone could do everything for love, and even so, sometimes things don't go as we want them to, and they may even end worse.

She recalled the time when she was little; how badly she felt knowing she had been abandoned. Later, that bitter feeling became indifference and little by little it was transformed into gratitude. How many times she had written to Albert that she was grateful for being an orphan, because that was why she could meet him...Yes, it was because of that bad joke of fate that she was able to meet Albert and the whole Ardlay family.

Albert...I fought so hard to get away from you and now I see that I have

achieved it...I thought I would feel better, that I would feel free, but I don't...I feel a terrible emptiness in my chest, and as I move further and further away from you that emptiness gets bigger and bigger...

She was invaded by such confusing emotions! Sadness, joy, anger, pain...All of them mingled together; she didn't know whether she felt one or the other. She felt so distant, so strange...Something very important and unfamiliar was waiting for her in the future, while something else equally important, warm and terribly familiar had been left behind...

But why should she say goodbye to the one in order to welcome the other? Couldn't she have both of them together? Couldn't she keep her past and her future at the same time? No, she knew very well she couldn't...Her past had said goodbye to her as soon as he showed up at the mansion of Lakewood, hand in hand with that elegant woman. And her future...Her future was so uncertain...

During that trip, Candy went through every moment of her life, over and over again, countless times. She had lived so many things since her mother had left her in that convent. So many joys, sorrows, loves, meetings and farewells...A whole lifetime beside her two mothers and beside that man who never hesitated for a moment to protect her...And as much as she longed to know her real mother, every now and then, a "What if..." appeared in her mind, and something inside her told her that if she had to choose between living everything all over again or changing her life, she would choose the former without hesitating at all.