for candice nicole smith, there had only ever been herself and her mother. sure, there were her grandparents christine and ethan smith, but to her the only one that ever mattered was elizabeth rebecca smith and she liked it that way. it wasn't as if her father was ever really a thought in her mind, never having met the man, nor caring to. her parents had been young, just barely on the cusp of adulthood and according to her grandparents, too stupid to know any better, when the two had conceived danielle and not knowing what to do about it, or even if he could handle the responsibility of being a twenty year old father, hers had ran.
even without the presence of her father in her life, candy got along well with the fact that to her, her family was her mother and her grandparents with whom the two lived. while her mother was out working, trying to make sure that they didn't have to rely too much on her parents for more than what they needed to, candice spent most of her time when she wasn't in school glued to her grandma's hip. it was through her grandma that she inherited the love of cooking, especially that of baking, and every free minute was spent learning her grandma's famous recipes because every town had that one person who's baked goods all others were compared to and in her little suburb, that was her grandmother. life was sweet - literally.
while candice never really complained about the fact that missing her father had left a whole in her heart, and a void that she felt needed to be filled, it wasn't until she had graduated that she felt she wanted to track down her birth father, as well as start to make a life of her own. most of her searches led her to believe that her father was located out in california and well, with a heart full of hope and dreams in her pocket a month after graduation, candice left georgia for california.
she still hasn't met her father yet, but her searching did lead her to palo alto, and it was there that she really felt like she found a place that she belonged and even more, she found people that she wanted to be around.