Chapter Four
Parker
The thumping sound that came from the back of the seat next to her continued to get louder, grating on Parker’s nerves slightly.
It had been repeating almost constantly since they’d crossed the state line into Washington.
With each kick of her worn sneakers against the stiff backing, Kit made it abundantly clear that she wanted nothing to do with the move from Nowheresville, Idaho onto wherever they landed next.
Parker still had no idea exactly where they were going, only that she was likely to pull over at the first “Help Wanted” sign she was able to spot from the driver’s seat.
The engine of the beat-up, rusted sedan groaned and pinged as it usually did, offering Parker a short distraction from her daughter’s frustration.
Even though Kit was taking out her anger at the situation on their already desperately in need of maintenance car, Parker couldn’t be upset with her for it.
Kit’s mood was justified. Not only were they leaving their home, again, but Parker had needed to sell off almost all of their belongings to ensure that they had enough money to make it to the next town and survive until she was able to find a job.
Parker did everything she could to ensure that Kit didn’t have to part with any of her own personal belongings like her favorite books, the journal she wrote her feelings in that she thought she kept a secret but was really bad about hiding, and the blanket she’d had since she was a baby.
No matter how ratty and threadbare it got, the yellow gingham blanket stayed with them.
It had been Kit’s safety object and Parker would sell the shirt off her back before she gave that up.
Luckily, no one wanted the blanket or any of Parker’s thrift store finds, so they had clothing essentials, the camping gear that was basically their only home most of the time whenever they traveled, and enough canned food to last them at least a month.
As Parker thought of food, her stomach growled.
Apparently even the prospect of the lunch she’d packed for herself, dry tuna fish that tasted like tin, wasn’t enough to stave off her hunger.
Glancing in the rearview mirror at the tiny passenger who was scowling at her from the backseat, Parker tried to offer up her best smile and will some of her own positive attitude to be transferred over to her daughter.
“Dinner time is coming up,” she offered.
Parker searched for any indication there was a rest stop nearby, but there was none in sight.
“Maybe when we get to the next junction, we can stop and have a picnic. I’m sure there are some great parks around here or at the very least, a few places where we can appreciate all this beauty around us. ”
The area surrounding the small highway they were on was thick with evergreen trees, but Kit seemed less than impressed when she looked out her window to the passing countryside and sniffed. “Whatever.”
Parker tried not to roll her eyes. Her daughter was sixty-five pounds soaking wet but had enough attitude to fill the body of a grown man.
Too big for her britches was an understatement, but Parker didn’t fault her for it.
Kit’s demeanor was born from facing hardships no child her age should ever have to deal with.
Financial insecurity, stints in less than stellar daycare facilities, and teasing from kids who were better off were all things her little girl had had to endure over the last few years.
With every passing day, Parker could see the soft edges that made her daughter who she was hardening, like skin calloused from too much manual labor.
How long until Kit was so jaded that she gave up altogether?
Parker swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat at the thought of that happening and blinked away the moisture gathering in her eyes.
Feeling like a good mom was something that hardly ever happened, and more often than not Parker spent half her night crying silently as she thought about what a bad mother was.
In no way was she as horrible as her own mother, who seemed more focused on having a good time with a bottle of whatever amber liquid happened to be in reach than actually parenting, but that was a pretty low bar.
Parker liked to think her standards were higher than that.
A lot of what she and Kit dealt with was out of her control, but maybe if she’d made some better choices along the way, things would be different.
Parker could never bring herself to regret her daughter.
Kit was her whole world and she would do anything for her, but sometimes she wished she’d fought harder to get her father involved.
If she were a stronger person, maybe she would have demanded he claim his child, and if he didn’t want to help raise her, at least he could have contributed financially.
Every now and then when things looked truly bleak, Parker got a wild hair up her ass and thought about turning back east to do just that, but then reality settled in.
It was one thing to do that when Kit was a baby and wouldn’t know any better, but it was another to drag her back to a town that was unwelcoming to say the least only to expose her to a father that was the worst kind of asshole.
For all Parker knew, Trent didn’t even live in their one-horse town anymore.
He probably went off to college, married a buxom blonde who had both boobs and brains, and now the two sold real estate, their cheesy smiles plastered on every bus bench and “For Sale” sign in whatever city they lived in.
Disgusted at the thought as well as her letting her mind drift back to the loser who’d screwed her over, literally, Parker tried to focus on cheering up the little lady who had seen too much bad when she deserved only the good.
When a sign for a town passed by the window, Parker changed tactics. “Hey. I just saw a sign for some place called Applewood. Did I ever tell you how I wanted to own a fruit farm when I was younger?”
Kit flicked her gaze to hers through the rearview and shrugged. “No.”
Knowing she was likely to get little else from her daughter, Parker continued on with her story.
“Well, I did. Growing up, our next door neighbor Mrs. Fowler has this cherry tree in her front yard.” Parker smiled automatically when she thought of the kind woman who had no kids of her own but treated every single one in the neighborhood to baked goods and lemonade despite not having much money either.
She was a generous woman and her moving away when Parker was ten was like losing the last bit of light at the end of the day, only darkness remaining.
“She would let all of us kids eat the cherries as soon as they were ripe, even leaving a bucket out for us to spit the pits into.”
“Ew, Mom,” Kit groused. Her daughter was acting too sophisticated for such talk, but Parker saw her mouth ticking up in the corners. “What did she do with the pits?”
Parker chuckled, her shoulder bobbing as she made the turn off for the small town.
“To this day, I have no idea.” As she drove down the main drag into Applewood, Parker’s eyes automatically scanned the cute shops for those “Help Wanted” signs, a disappointed sigh leaving her lungs when she didn’t immediately spot any.
It was too bad, from what she’d seen thus far, the red brick buildings and friendly looking townspeople had created an inviting atmosphere.
“Some kids had a theory that she used them instead of buckshot so as to not harm the animals that would wander onto her property too much, but I honestly just think she used them in her garden or something.”
Steering deeper into the town, Parker sighed wistfully at the thought of having her own cherry farm.
Kit could run around in the orchard while she tended to the trees, then they would make pies and jams together.
It sounded idyllic, like a dream come true.
It was likely to stay a dream, however, especially since they weren’t exactly handing out free cherry farms on street corners these days.
Suddenly, a dirt road appeared on the side of the asphalt.
For whatever reason, Parker decided to take it.
It could have been that she’d just wanted to do something spontaneous by choice for once, but it was more likely that it was because she knew the bumps along the way would cause her little girl to giggle for the first time the entire trip.
Parker reveled in the sweet sound, her heavy heart feeling a few pounds lighter as Kit’s laughter at the uneven ground tickling her filled the car.
When the giggles gave way to excited squealing, Parker nearly ran off the side of the road.
“What is it?” she asked. Kit was pointing out the window, and when Parker followed her daughter’s finger, she could see why the little girl’s eyes were as big as saucers. “Oh, wow.”
Lifting her foot off the gas, Parker let the car roll to a stop at the edge of a grove of trees. “Look, Mom. It’s your cherry farm,” Kit gushed.
Before Parker could react to that exclamation, Kit was out the door and running toward the trees.
“Kit!” she shouted, throwing the car in park.
Stepping outside, Parker ignored the heat that hit her almost immediately and chased down her daughter.
After a minute of running, she finally found Kit staring up at trees with branches covered in fruit. “These are some big cherries.”
Parker scoffed and nudged her daughter’s shoulder.
“That’s because they’re actually apples.
” Reaching up toward the branch, she ran her finger delicately across the skin.
Fresh fruit was a rarity for the two of them, and normally the sight of it would have her grabbing greedily, but there was something about the orchard they were in that called for reverence, and she felt compelled to listen to it.
Kit bounced on her heels. “Can we have some with dinner?”
Hearing the excitement in her daughter’s voice lifted her mood, but reality brought it crashing back down.
“I don’t think they’re ripe yet,” she said.
Picking her daughter up, something that was getting increasingly difficult to do, Parker pointed at the apple hanging in front of them.
“See how light it looks. I think it needs to be bigger and heavier to be ready to eat.”
“How do you even know that?” Kit gave her a withering look, long brown strands from her uneven pixie cut falling into her equally brown eyes.
If there was one saving grace about Trent, it’s that his genes were mercifully recessive.
The only thing Kit got from him was his straight hair, which was a blessing given how often there were lice breakouts in elementary schools.
Parker shrugged and set her daughter down on the ground. “It’s more of a guess really, but I would feel bad taking something that wasn’t ready to eat.” She gazed longingly at the tree, remembering how much better fruit tasted when it was right off the branch. “It would be wasteful and...”
“We’re not wasteful. Yeah, I know.” Kit kicked at a twig on the ground and looked up at her mother, the expression on her face downtrodden. “Do we have to get back in the car now?”
Parker’s instinct was to say yes. They needed to get back in the car and find a place to set up camp for the night. Looking around at the abundant orchard, however, another plan formed in her mind. “We could. Or we could camp here if you want.”
Kit’s eyes were so full of hope that it nearly brought tears to Parker’s eyes for the second time in an hour. “Really?”
Parker had barely started to nod before Kit was taking off back toward the car to grab their gear.
Shaking her head, Parker followed her daughter, smiling at the delight her little girl was exuding for the first time since they’d left Idaho.
As they set up their tent and dug into their meal of canned tuna and peanut butter for Parker and a package of shelf stable chicken and dumplings for Kit, Parker looked around the grove of trees, wishing that their stay would last longer than one night, but knowing that by this time tomorrow they would be onto the next town.
Pushing aside that sadness for when Kit was asleep, Parker focused all of her attention on her little girl, wishing that she had so much more to offer her.