Chapter 1 - The Mega Mart [https://cdn.midjourney.com/6a23df79-37e7-4816-b7d5-4ac299695b0c/0_2.png]
Kennedy’s brain itched, lingering on the Polaroid hidden in her back pocket. Easing her way towards the rear of the store, she waved her watering wand over the rows of fruit trees lining the side of the Mega Mart. The garden center was a low-effort gig, and she enjoyed being outside part of the day. She’d quit three times and been fired once, but kept returning. When her supervisor wasn’t paying attention, Kennedy turned off the water nozzle and placed the wand behind a stack of large tree planters.
Quietly, she slipped through the back gate and followed the burning smell of tobacco. In his usual spot, Doug relaxed against the cinderblock wall. Gaming into the night had given him permanent dark circles under his eyes, and his unfocused approach to life masked his intelligence. He mumbled, “I thought you were on vacation.”
“Tomorrow I will be.” A lie about her destination rolled across her lips. “I’m going to spring break in Florida.” Pretending to be in the black lung brigade was the only way to get consistent work breaks. From her front pocket, Kennedy pulled free an empty vape pen. Sandy had given her the useless thing to use as a prop.
“Lucky you.” Doug rolled his eyes when she lifted the empty pen to her mouth and pretended to puff. He said, “Didn’t you drop out of college?”
“I did, but that doesn’t mean I can’t go.”
Accepting her answer with an indifferent shrug, Doug tossed his cigarette to the asphalt and used the heel of his non-slip work shoe to grind it into the ground. The word was he had once spent an entire shift outside smoking.
When he swung the back door open, Kennedy slid her thumb against the Polaroid picture hidden in her back pocket. Air conditioning unfurled through the gap as he passed Sandy. Under her makeup and dark eyeliner, her friend’s face was green.
Kennedy grimaced. “That bad?”
“Some jerk peed in a display toilet. Guess who pulled the clean-up short straw?”
“No good. I am so glad I won’t be here tomorrow.”
Sandy tapped a cigarette out of her pack of smokes. “Don’t make me hate you. Keep your happiness inside yourself and pickle it like the rest of us.”
“I’m not going to Florida.”
Sandy’s lighter flame missed her cigarette. “What? I thought you said…”
Kennedy pulled the picture of her birth parents out of her pocket. “My mom lied.” She offered the picture to Sandy, who carefully accepted it with her fingertips, a lit cigarette held in her pixie mouth. “This proves she knew who my birth parents were all along.”
“Holy crap. When did you find this?”
“Last Christmas, when I was thinking about going back to college. I needed my birth certificate, and Mom was at the doctor’s office. I rummaged around in her stuff. Her file cabinet wasn’t locked or anything. I found this photograph among her important papers.” Taking the picture back from Sandy, she searched for herself in their reflections.
“She looks like you.”
“I think so too.”
“Is that why you got those weird tattoos this winter? Like hers?” Sandy pointed at the geometric lines on her birth mother’s legs. “I thought you were hiding your ink from your mom because of that weird church she goes to. Why would she keep a picture of your birth parents a secret?”
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“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.” She tapped the back of the photograph against her hand. “When I come home, I will ask her. Two days ago, I found the location of this lake and traded in my Florida ticket, for one that heads to the North Georgia mountains.” She flipped the photo over and showed Sandy the date and the name of the lake written on the back. “I’m going here, Bell’s Lake. Someone in that town might remember something.”
*
Nose wrinkled, Kennedy sniffed the smoothie her mother had placed on the table in front of her. Strawberry. “Can’t we have waffles like normal people?”
“How often have you been sick?”
“Never.” A morning argument was part of their daily ritual. Not ideal, but better than silence. Pinching her nose shut with more drama than was necessary, Kennedy took a sip of the herb-laced drink. When they could afford pineapple, the concoction wasn’t half bad, but she had no intention of admitting that to her mother.
“Quit complaining. Aren’t there bigger things in your life to vex you than a healthy breakfast?” Back stiff, her mother limped toward the other side of the table, two cats swirling around her ankles like dark rivers of smoke slowing her progress. Kennedy waited for her, eggs cooling on her plate. She knew better than to be rude and start eating before they were both seated. Cold eggs were better than the scratching of her mother’s criticism, even if both led to indigestion.
The table rattled as she eased herself into her seat. Her hips, like her heart, didn’t work like they used to when Kennedy’s dad was alive. Nothing had remained the same since his death. All the laughter and joy in their lives had drained away as he bled out into the street. Every time Kennedy drove past Market and Main, she strained to see a shadow of the stain of his life on the road. After she’d found the hidden photograph, she’d gone to the spot where his head had cracked open, to see if she could feel an echo of his smile or hear his laughter.
Years ago, when the hospital released her mother, she’d come home with more screws and bolts in her hips and back than a washing machine. The pain had turned her always cautious mother grim. At eight, two months of being at Nana’s house had felt like an eternity. Grateful to return to her neighborhood and friends, Kennedy bounced in her seat with relief and excitement.
She was ready to get back to the life she knew. The image of her father broken on the pavement didn’t feel real. Convinced he would be there, she’d run to the front door, confused by the dead flowers, twisted and brown, along the walk. The curtains on their big bay windows were drawn tight, sealing the house. When she’d tried the front door, she’d found it locked and refused to stop rattling the knob. They knew she was coming. Nana used her key, the one Kennedy’s Mom would take from her by the end of that visit. When the door opened, the front door released the aroma of antiseptic, the smell of the nurse’s office at school. Within, a machine rhythmically pumped air. A stranger in blue scrubs greeted them. “She is a little groggy from the drugs. Are you going to be the one staying with her?”
Nana recoiled. “Oh, no. I was just bringing Kennedy home. I’m sure Mary Lynn wouldn’t want me in the way.” After a quick, sideways hug, her grandma placed her pink suitcase on the floor and said to the nurse, “You’ll be coming by every day, won’t you?”
Lips parted, it took the nurse a few moments to say, “Yes, but she can only take a few steps. She will need help and a bedpan.”
From the living room, her shrunken mother spoke with metal in her voice, “We will be fine. I have diapers and I can change those by myself.”
“But…” the nurse argued. “I don’t think…”
Her mother snapped, “You don’t have to think. I have friends from church that will come and sit with me when my daughter is in school. Kendie can fetch water and use a microwave.” Shoulders stiff, mouth tight with pain, her mother announced, “I don’t want that woman’s help.”
Two generals on opposite sides of a war, they stared each other down. Her Nana’s nails bit into her shoulder as she said, “Kennedy here is very mature for her age. I have confidence that she will manage.”
One hand extended, palm up, her mother said, “Now that George is gone, you won’t be needing a key.”
Prickling with anger, Nana worked the house key from her key ring, chipping the edge of a perfect raspberry nail. “If that is what you would like, dear.” Her voice became frost, crisping the carpet, spider webbing ice across the walls.
“Dear?” Wincing as she forced herself to sit up, her mother said, “There is no need to pretend anymore. You’ve hated me since the day I stepped into your home with your precious son’s ring on my finger. I was beneath him. Or should I say you?” Kennedy tried to shrink backward, but her Nana held her in place. Cold sank into her, making her bones brittle. Without her father as a buffer, the two women she loved most froze her to the floor. “Why didn’t you let Jane take her? She could have kept going to class. Did you really think I wouldn’t have anything to say about you swooping into the hospital and stealing my daughter away?”
“What option did I have? Leave her with a lunatic from your church? Let her go into foster care? How fast were you driving, Mary Lynn? The light was red.”