“So?”
“He caught me downtown at the four-way stop.”
Two hours, one pee stop, and two bags of Cheetos later, the scenery changes, and it looks disturbingly familiar. Like Middleton, Texas. “Wait a minute. I know this neighborhood.” Were we going to my mom’s old trailer park? I’d lived here with her the summer before my junior year when she’d regained custody, and I didn’t see her again until she made her debut on the evening news. “This is my mom’s old trailer park.”
“It is.” Maxine flips down the visor mirror and reapplies her lipstick. “A mutual friend of ours gave me some information he recalled that helped me track this place down.”
“Who is that?”
She snaps the mirror shut. “Charlie Benson.”
Sam navigates the gravel roads, passing trailers of all sizes and varieties. I remember a handful were summer homes for some owners, while some were rentals, like the one my mom had occupied.
Sam’s Ford pulls into a stubby driveway, and a marmalade tabby leaps from the wooden front porch. A tidy brown and white trailer perches on a grassy lot, outlined by boxwood shrubs and the occasional parched rosebush.
“We’ve arrived!” Maxine gives her husband a peck on the cheek. “Katie and I can take it from here.”
“You sure?” Sam asks.
Maxine unbuckles her belt with no small bit of aggression. “I’m absolutely positive.”
This trailer park was not the source of fond memories. That whole summer was pretty much a disaster I’ll always need therapy for. To be back here churns up thoughts and images I’d rather not relive. But I follow Maxine up a cracked sidewalk right to the dented metal door and trust my crazy grandma knows what she’s doing.
Maxine knocks with the same hand she’d waved as a pageant runner-up.
When that rouses no response, she pounds on the door with her fist. “Hellllooo!”
Finally, the door cracks, and a head peeks out.
Maxine’s voice is sweet as the tea she keeps in her refrigerator. “Mrs. Flanigan?”
“Yes?”
“I’m Maxine Dayberry. We spoke on the phone.”
The woman lifts her fingers to her short, gray hair. “Oh, yeah.”
“This is my sister, Katie.”
Mrs. Flanigan lets her droopy eyes flicker to me and quickly decides this is not a factoid worth arguing. “Come on in.”
The trailer smells of flowery candles, which are lit on every table in the living room. My shoes swish across the worn, brown carpet as I follow Maxine to a pink couch held down by two overweight, snoozing poodles.
“You girls want a Coca-Cola?”
“No, thank you.” Maxine nudges a dog with her hip to gain her fair share of room. “Just a bit of information. You mentioned you thought you still had a box of a tenant’s belongings?”
“Yeah.” Mrs. Flanigan pulls a tissue from her jeans pocket before swabbing her red nose. “It’s always crappy when a renter leaves their stuff, but that’s what a security deposit is for. Usually, it’s just junk left behind, but sometimes I end up with a TV or some canned goods.” She gives her nose a noisy blow. “Mostly beans.”
“A total disregard for soluble fiber.” Maxine plucks a piece of dog hair from her sparkly pants. “You said you still had a box of items from Bobbie Ann Parker?”
“I did say that.” The woman picks up her television remote and changes the channel to the weather. A well-coifed meteorologist in a pantsuit stands in front of a digital map and warns the east coast of an impending storm. “I’d hate to hand over someone’s personal belongings to the wrong person, though.”
“Ms. Parker has since passed away,” Maxine says. “Katie is her benefactor.”
Mrs. Flanigan’s rusty cough causes one poodle to open a rheumy eye.
“Still,” the woman says. “Things left behind do become my property. It’s in the contract.”
“Right. The contract.” Maxine digs into her purse. “Where is my wallet?” She pulls out a glossy photo of Justin Timberlake, a romance novel adorned with a bare-chested cowboy, two Snickers bar, and a flashlight heavy enough to cause brain trauma. “Ah, here it is.” She produces a crisp fifty-dollar bill. “Would this be enough thanks for keeping a box of mementos?”
Mrs. Flanigan considers this as she draws herself up from her doily-covered chair and retrieves a dusty, broken down box from her disaster of a dining table. “I’ve kept this box for over two years. Stored it with the utmost care.”
“Fine.” Maxine produces another fifty. “But it better not smell of doggie tinkles.”
The landlady grabs the cash, stuffs it in the pocket of her blouse, and presents us with the parcel. “Nice doin’ business with ya.”
“You sure this is all that was left in the Parker trailer?”
“That’s all of it. One more month, and it would’ve been tossed out.” Mrs. Flanigan returns to her seat, backing into it like a dump truck. “I’m moving to Fort Lauderdale and leaving this paradise behind.” She blows her nose again. “Gonna work on my tan.”
Maxine lifts the lid and peeks into the box. “I guess I found you just in time.” She shoots me a wink. “Meant to be and all that.”
“Uh-huh.” The woman grabs a fresh tissue from her side table. “I’d love to visit, but Divorce Court is about to come on.”
“Right.” Maxine stuffs everything back into her purse and hands me what I assume is the sum total of my mom’s worldly possessions. “Off we go. Thank you, Mrs. Flanigan.”
We walk back to Sam’s truck, Maxine with a spring in her step, and me with a weight of wonder for this box. As I open my car door, I take another look at the neighborhood, the rows of trailers spaced out like checkers. My mom’s trailer was across the street and five lots down.
But it was never my home. And neither is this town.
As Sam drives away, his favorite George Strait song on the radio, I study the box. It bears the name of a brand of discount store shoes, size eight, color red. I run my finger over the name of the style.
Wanted.
Maxine twists around from her front seat. “Tear that lid off. There better be absolute treasures in there, or that kook owes me a refund.”
She watches as I gingerly lift the lid, my breath suspended in my chest. My hands shake and tears sting my eyes as I reach inside.
My nose wrinkles at the stale cigarette smell as I pull out the items, each one more valuable than the next.
My birth certificate. My yellowed birth announcement, cut out from the city newspaper and announcing my arrival. A photo of my mom and me with the words ‘first Christmas’ in faded ink on the back. A stack of photos of familiar faces and places—my mom, my grandmother, a few random boyfriends of Bobbie Ann’s I actually liked.
There’s my kindergarten report card. A folded note from my second-grade teacher warning my mom that I talk too much. My first detention slip. A pink velvet headband that matches a baby dress wadded into a ball.
My history.
My life.
Contained in an off-brand shoe box. Left behind and guarded by a chain-smoking hoarder.
As George Strait croons, “you can’t help but love her,” Maxine tugs on a lock of my hair. “Hey. How’d I do? Is there treasure in there?”
Road laws be darned, I unbuckle my seatbelt and hug Maxine, my lips barely capable of words. “Thank you,” is all I can manage. “Thank you, Maxine.”
“Aw, sweet pea.” She holds me tight. “I would’ve walked here in my pageant heels to get that stuff.”
I sniffle and smile. “But how did you know there was anything in that box worth the trip?”
“I didn’t. But it didn’t matter if what we found was worth it.” She caresses my cheek, a misty sheen in her own blue eyes. “What mattered was that you were worth it.”
I sit back in the seat and go through the box again, a treasure in my hands.
Life is hard. It changes and it throws you unexpected twists. And often life doesn’t go according to
plan.
What I know is I’m gonna give this college thing a better try. And when the next play audition is announced, I’ll gird my theater-loving loins and give it another shot. When I start to doubt or battle fears, I’ll think of Maxine, pleased as punch to be a runner-up and always ready to call her hard work a win.
And as for Charlie?
There will always be a part of my heart reserved only for him. Hopefully, one day our paths will cross. But I’m not walking his way until I take some time for myself. Some time to be a student, some time to be Violet and Jemma’s friend, and some time to be the daughter of James and Millie. I know I’m gonna have bad days and flare-ups. Forgiving my mom is a process I’ve started, but I’m committed to getting it right. Probably more committed to that than, say, a Fitness 101 class.
All my life, I’ve looked for something to believe in. The Scotts showed me Jesus and boundless support. Maxine showed me family and friendship.
I’m Katie Parker Scott.
I’m the daughter of an addict. I was neglected, rejected, and left to raise myself.
But then love found me.
And that love began to rewrite my story.
I can’t change my beginning, and I guess I wouldn’t if I could.
But there are new things up ahead for me, and I’m ready to fight for my best days.
I’m ready to be something I believe in.
Preview of Can’t Let You Go
“What do you mean my bags aren’t here?”
I lean over the counter at the O’Hare airport, fresh out of patience and smiles. The TSA employee’s fingers clickity-clack on his keyboard, his generous brows knit together like an escaped wooly worm.
“I’m sorry, Miss Parker. Something apparently went very wrong, and your luggage seems to be on a flight to Reykjavik.”
“This is unacceptable. Who goes to Iceland?”
“Apparently your bags do.”
I want to slap my hand on the counter and yell until Mr. Brows makes this all okay. Because I just can’t handle one more catastrophe. My bottom lip quivers, and I hear the pitiful words tumble from my lips. “My whole life is in those bags.”
“Surely not everything,” says a voice behind me.
That voice.
One I haven’t heard in years, except in my dreams of home and heartache.
I turn around, pushing my tired, limp hair from my flushed cheek. Suddenly all the exhaustion of a ten hour flight evaporates, the weeks without sleep, the homesickness. All that I left behind in London. “Charlie Benson.” His name comes out of my mouth like a sacred whisper as he stands there smiling.
I immediately burst into tears.
“Hey,” Strong arms wrap around me, and I’m taken right back. My head pressed to Charlie’s chest, I inhale his achingly familiar scent, and I’m no longer this broken, exhausted twenty-three year old, who just spent a year studying abroad, the pieces of my heart, my only luggage that followed. I’m sixteen, back in my hometown of In Between, dancing with one sweet Charlie Benson on my back porch underneath the Texas stars.
“How are you here?” I dash at the tears and take a much-needed step back. I take in the boy before me. Can I even call him a boy? He stands tall, shoulders broad, as if now carrying not just muscle, but some of the world’s responsibility. With his dark dress pants, white button down, and navy tie, Charlie looks all man. And a professional one at that. “Are you traveling for work?”
“I live in Chicago now. Got out of a meeting only minutes ago. I’m on my way to In Between. You?”
I gesture to the desk. “I was trying to track down my luggage. I flew in from Paris, but had a terrible layover. I’m finally headed home as well.” To my mom and dad, my crazy grandmother, to people who love me.
“You were studying in London this year, right?”
Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. “Yes.”
“My mom keeps me updated on In Between. She said you were in some plays on the West End.” At my nod he smiles. “She says you’re kind of a big deal.”
Glad someone thinks so. “Just lucked into some good roles, I guess.”
“Flight 247 for Houston will now begin boarding our first class passengers. . .”
Rain pelts the wall of windows at the gate, and I wonder if the crew has noticed.
“Are you on this flight?” he asks.
“Yes, you?”
“Yep.” He reaches out, runs his hand down my arm, his head tilted just so. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“What, me? This?” I gesture to my mess of a face. “Jet lag, you know? And then the airline losing my stuff.” I give a laugh so genuine, the Academy should FexEx me an Oscar. “I’m sorry. I’m a little homesick, and when I saw you—” I shake my head and smile. “I guess you were just a sight for sore eyes.”
His lips tip in a grin. “Last I heard you were engaged.”
Another announcement for our flight cracks across the speakers, but it sails over my head. “Wow. Word travels fast.”
“You can’t beat the small town communication system.”
“You mean my grandma?”
His laugh swirls around me, settling somewhere in the gray recesses of my heavy heart.
The garbled voice comes across the speakers again.
“Time for me to board,” Charlie says. “Where are you sitting?” He holds out a hand for my ticket, and I fumble in my bag to find it.
“It’s here somewhere.” I dig through the outer-pocket, coming up with a nail file, half a Snickers, two pieces of gym, and ten wads of used Kleenex.
“Hey.” He steps nearer. “You’re shaking.”
I shrug and continue digging. “Fatigue.”
He takes my worn leather messenger bag, looks in the middle compartment, and pulls out my ticket. “You’re still afraid of flying, aren’t you?”
The things people remember. One senior class trip to Miami Beach with me trying to storm the cockpit demanding two forms of identification from the pilots, and everyone thinks you have a full blown neurosis.
Please. I’ve grown up since then.
“Final boarding call…”
“It’s been incredible seeing you today.” Charlie pulls me in for a hug, and I just breathe him in. The warm, the familiar, the safe. “We have more catching up to do,” he whispers near my ear. “Are you going to be okay?”
“Definitely. I haven’t had a flying meltdown in such a long time.”
It’s been at least three hours.
Clutching a water bottle and my wrinkled ticket, I follow Charlie as we board the sparsely populated plane. He stops off in row seven, while I schlep to the very back of the cabin. Next to the bathroom. How these odiferous seats don’t come with a discount is beyond me.
I squeeze my bag in the bin above me, then settle into the window seat, hoping the two empty seats on my right remain that way. Buckling in, I check my phone one last time. I quickly respond to a text from my mom, two from my dad, and five from my grandma that consist of nothing more than her fish-lipped selfies with the message “My face misses yours!”
And then there are those voicemails I immediately delete.
Fifteen minutes later, we taxi down the runway. I sit in my blissfully empty row, push my breath in and out, and pray to the Lord Jesus to spare me one more day. I’m not afraid of what comes after death. I’m just a little terrified of the actual dying process. Especially if it involves crashing, flames, and wasted drink carts.
I’m just promising the Holy Father my favorite mascara and first born when a shoulder bumps mine, as someone throws himself into the seat beside me. I continue to whisper my beggar’s prayer when a hand covers my clenched fingers.
I look up.
Charlie smiles. He brushes my damp hair from my face like he’s done it a million times before. His strong hand pulls one of mine into his. And he just holds it.
“I’m not afraid to fly,”I say.
“Of course not.” He gives our fingers a squee
ze. “It’s the fatigue.”
Thunder cracks outside. “Do you think it’s safe to fly?”
“I do.”
“But I read this report that when it storms, your statistical chances of—“
“It’s perfectly safe.”
“But sometimes lightning can be magnetically attracted to the wing and—“
“Nearly impossible.”
“And then there’s the possibility of—“
“Katie?“
My heart beats wildly, and my bones ache with exhaustion. “Yes?”
His gray eyes hold mine. “I won’t let anything happen to us.”
“Promise?”
With a smile as safe as church and sweet as sun tea, he slowly nods. “Always.”
CLICK HERE FOR MORE CAN’T LET YOU GO.
Acknowledgments
I’d love to humbly thank a few people:
* * *
My readers- for still believing in these stories.
* * *
Kristin Avila- for editing and re-editing. I appreciate your eye and all you do to make my work better.
* * *
Christa Allan—for your years of short-girl friendship, your artful way with the sarcasm, and for all your help polishing this book.
* * *
Erin Valentine—for your years of friendship, for small-town diner breakfasts, and for being my grammar hotline.
* * *
Janet Spivey—for helping me with cremation and burial information. And for being you.
Statististically speaking, only about half of children raised in foster care will finish high school, and less than 3% will graduate from college. These are terrible odds that radically shape a life. How can you help? By fostering kids of all ages, by investing, donating, and/or volunteering in local foster care organizations, and by mentoring in schools. Together, we can make a difference in the life of a child.
* * *
(Source: National Foster Youth Institute)
Something to Believe In Page 24