Chapter Eight
Parker
After gathering their tent and driving the rest of their belongings over to the barn, Parker and Kit started to set up their apartment.
She knew it wouldn’t take very long since they didn’t have many belongings to work with in the first place, but Parker was surprised at how quickly Kit’s room had come together.
After putting some sheets delivered by Cora on the bed, tossing her baby blanket on top, and piling what few toys she had to play with onto the dresser, the smaller room was complete.
Kit bounced on the bed, gigging happily as she had been doing all morning long.
It was both a joy and a pain to see. Kit being safe and happy was all Parker had wanted in life, but the realization at just how infrequently she’d been able to provide that for her daughter made her once again feel like the worst mom on the planet.
“I feel like we won the lottery!” Kit exclaimed. She continued to roll around on the queen sized bed, her bare feet looking in dire need of a wash.
It was on the tip of Parker’s tongue to tell her daughter not to get used to it, but Kit knew enough about life’s hardships without the reminder from her mother.
With a sigh, she gathered the best kept items of clothing from Kit’s drawers and the toiletry kit they took with them everywhere they went.
“Alright, miss. Even lottery winners need to shower.”
Kit groaned as she always did at the prospect of having to clean herself, but when she saw that the shower was also a tub, she looked up at her mom with wide eyes. “Oh, can I please take a bath? It’s been forever.”
Parker wouldn’t mind a soak for herself either, the idea of warm water undoing some of the tension in her body all too tempting, but they were both way too dirty for that to happen today.
“We need to wash the road off you before you get to take a bath.” She grabbed some towels from the full linen closet and set them on the counter.
“If we tried that now, the minute you stepped into the water it would turn into a mud bath, and not the fun, relaxing kind.”
Kit turned up her nose at Parker. “Mud is always fun,” she protested.
Leaving her daughter to it, Parker went into her room and started to put her own clothes away, smiling when she heard her daughter singing Dolly Parton in the shower.
Love is Like a Butterfly was a song Parker had sung to Kit since the day she was born.
She may not be able to give her daughter an example of what love between two people should look like, but she could sing about it.
The song also gave Parker hope that one day she would have a love that gave her those fluttery feelings again, only this time it would be the kind that was real and stood the test of time.
Humming along with Kit, Parker put her clothes away in the drawers, frowning at the state of them.
A few more washes and some of her shirts would be bound for the garbage bin.
Kit’s weren’t much better and some of hers were at least two sizes too small.
With food and rent taken care of, maybe she could dip into their meager savings and get some new clothes for Kit’s first day of school.
Parker thought about getting something new for herself too, wondering if she would look nicer in a pair of pants that actually fit her, not that she was trying to look nice for anyone but herself.
Parker rolled her eyes, not buying into her own bullshit.
She knew damn well whose eye she was hoping to catch. Don’t be stupid, Parker.
Giving up the idea of ever looking halfway decent, Parker selected a perfectly acceptable outfit consisting of jean shorts and a blue t-shirt for their trip to the grocery store later.
Once that was done, she stuck the only other item she had, a photo album with a few pictures she’d printed of Kit when she was little, into the nightstand drawer.
Once Kit finished in the shower and was dressed, Parker made her way over to the bathroom to take her own.
“Can I watch television, Mom?” Kit’s eyes were practically begging her to say yes as they had been all day.
They hadn’t really ever had a TV before and Parker didn’t want Kit getting used to such luxuries, but she also didn’t want to deny her daughter the pleasure while she had access to it.
“Go nuts, sweetheart.” Kit whooped before fiddling with the remote, glued to the images flashing across the screen not three seconds later.
Chuckling, Parker went into the bathroom and turned on the shower, smiling at the water still being hot.
After she stripped her dirty clothes off and stepped into the spray, she sighed audibly as the water ran over her sore muscles and washed away the grime that had built up over the last couple of days.
This was definitely better than the truck stop showers she and Kit were used to while being on the road.
Parker laughed lightly as she spread her arms from one side of the shower to the other, the doubled amount of space making the one back at their old apartment seem like a sick joke.
It had been like trying to shower in an old phone booth, but of course they’d made due.
As she washed up, taking care of the curls that were in desperate need of attention, Parker gave herself the reminder she’d refrained from giving her daughter. Don’t get used to it.
The words might as well have been a bucket of cold water to the face, making Parker’s spirits drop.
Good things like this happening to them had been few and far between.
In fact, they’d never experienced anything as amazing as the offer from the Kemps before and probably never would again once they were gone.
Travis said he would help her find more work, but what if there was none to be found?
Swallowing her dread at the uncertainty of the future, Parker finished up in the shower, toweled off, and got dressed. She may not know what would happen once they left, but at least for the time being they were safe and taken care of, so she tried to focus on that.
Stepping out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam, Parker scrunched her damp curls with her fingers when a knocking sound hit her ears.
Peering over and seeing Kit still enthralled with whatever cartoon was on the screen, she walked over to the door and opened it slowly.
Standing on the other side was a gorgeous brunette with her hair tied up in a blue scarf.
Parker took in her clothes, marveling at the high-waist shorts and sleeveless blouse that looked old-fashioned but miraculously brand new at the same time.
In her arms, she carried a large basket.
On her pretty face was the biggest smile Parker had seen in a long time.
“Welcome to the neighborhood,” the woman said. She balanced the basket in her left hand before sticking out the right. “I’m Lottie. You can think of me as the unofficial Applewood Welcoming Committee.”
Parker shook the woman’s hand, wishing her own skin felt that soft, and waved her inside.
“Parker. It’s nice to meet you.” Lottie placed the basket on the small dining table and started to pull out a few items. Parker shuffled on her feet, a little leery of having a stranger in her space and also making her wonder how the woman had known about her to begin with.
“Um, I know small towns work a little differently than other places, but how exactly did you come to find out we were here?”
Lottie looked up at Parker, her smile reassuring. “Oh, I got a text from Felix.” Parker shook her head when that name didn’t ring a bell. “Felix is Travis’s brother. Well, one of them anyway.”
Parker walked closer to the table, looking at what Lottie was placing there.
It looked like a series of cards, some specialty foods like chocolates and muffins, and different kinds of lotions.
“I didn’t realize he had brothers.” The Kemps had mentioned their other children in passing, but Travis had been so good with Kit that Parker had assumed the rest had been girls.
Lottie chuckled, passing a bottle of something called bath milk over to Parker.
“Oh yeah, a whole slew of them.” She continued to pass over item after item, ending with a group of gift cards.
“Now, these are all from shops downtown. There’s the clothing boutique, the toy store, the book store, and a few for the coffee shop as well as the market.
If you’d rather shop at a big box store, there’s one a couple of towns over and I would be happy to give you a ride. ”
Kit wandered into the kitchen, her jaw dropping to the hardwood floor when she saw the box of chocolates on the table.
“Wow.” Ripping off the top, Kit dove into the first truffle she found, chewing it loudly and making it very apparent that Parker had been a little too lax in teaching her daughter table manners.
“This is delicious,” she mumbled, spraying crumbs everywhere.
“And who is this?” Lottie said, smiling down at Kit. “Are you the little girl I’ve heard so much about?”
Kit nodded. “I’m Kit. What’s your name?”
Parker watched as Kit spoke with Lottie for all of two seconds before launching into the story of how they’d come to be there and all about how she was going to be in charge of feeding the chickens.
It was a good thing Parker wasn’t that ashamed of their circumstances because it seemed as though everyone and their mother was going to hear about it eventually from her own daughter.
Lottie chuckled at Kit and chucked her on the chin.
“I like you already, Kit.” Pulling out her phone, Lottie passed it over to Parker.
“If you want to put your number in there, I’ll text you so that you have mine.
Oh, and I can send you the link to my town newsletter.
It’s not much, but it will give you a chance to get to know the area and the activities we have going on. ”