hand over the rubber mat and then heard the jingle of coins. “Eighty cents.”
“Great.”
“You’d better call Grandpa.”
“I am not calling him,” she stated with greater emphasis. “I’ve still got my bank card. We can get more money as soon as I find an ATM.” She quickly calculated what she had in the bank. Fifteen hundred for the truck, five hundred in cash. She had about twenty-seven hundred left in savings back in Richland. Plenty to get to Charlotte and enroll in school.
Adam set his chin on the back of the front seat and stared out the windshield at an unending panorama of pasture and trees. “Ought to be a lot of ATMs around here,” he said.
Kitty ignored him. If only Adam had used some of that intelligence to succeed in his schoolwork instead of coming up with sarcastic comments. After finally taking this positive step, she was determined not to crawl home to Daddy like the first time, eleven years ago, when she’d called Owen Galloway and begged him to send money so she could leave Bobby Watley and bring her one-year-old son back home. Her father had spent the past eleven years reminding her of the mistake she’d made marrying the down-on-his-luck golf pro. Owen had consistently pointed an accusing finger with one hand while handing her cash with the other—and she’d let him.
Her friends might call her crazy for taking this step. After all, who had a better, more comfy life than Katherine Thelda Galloway? She lived in a fine house, drove a super car and had a cushy job in her father’s corporate citrus groves offices. But Kitty, as she was called by those who knew her best, often thought about running away from home again. Only now her reason would be different from thirteen years ago when she was twenty years old, grieving over her mother’s death and letting Bobby Watley fill her eyes with stars and her heart with promises. This time she needed to go for the sake of her twelve-year-old son.
Adam opened his fist and dropped coins onto the front seat. “I can’t believe you cut up every single credit card.”
His latest accusation brought her back to the present. “I couldn’t use them anyway. The receipts would leave a paper trail for Grandpa to see where we’re headed.”
Adam rolled his eyes. “Grandpa knows a lot of people. I bet he can find anybody. Remember how he found us two summers ago when we barely made it into Georgia?”
She remembered. The failure still clawed at her insides.
“And I know he’ll want to find me especially,” Adam said.
Kitty had considered Owen’s wide web of contacts, making her even more determined to fly under his radar. Yes, he would do almost anything to regain control of her son, the young heir to Galloway Groves that Owen had substituted for the worthless bundle of female his wife had handed him thirty-three years ago.
“And besides,” Adam said, “why do you all the sudden hate him? He takes care of us. He buys us stuff...”
“I know that, and I don’t hate him.” That was basically true, but how did she tell Adam that she didn’t admire his grandfather, either? Any more than she admired herself. She’d allowed her father to pull the strings of her life while she never tried to cut them—until two days ago when Owen had pulled those magic strings with the principal of the middle school to get Adam out of a theft charge.
“I’ll handle this,” her father had said. “Adam’s just spirited. You know that.”
Theft! She’d been completely shocked. Adam had everything, and yet he’d stolen an iPhone from a kid who’d just gotten it for his birthday and had justified his crime with a flippant remark about how the kid had irritated him by showing off the games he’d already downloaded. Since Friday had been the last day of school, and because he’d promised the principal he would punish Adam appropriately, Owen had once again avoided expulsion for his grandson. More strings and more lies. Ignoring Kitty’s attempts to discipline her son with grounding, Owen had accused her of “sucking the spunk right out of the kid.” And he’d even defied her by taking Adam to the racetrack in Tampa that very night.
Now, looking out the window of a rusty old truck, with thirty-seven dollars in her pocket, Kitty felt as if she’d finally severed those strings—with a chain saw.
“I thought you understood, Adam, that I think you and I need some time alone. Just the two of us.” That was true. She hadn’t shared nearly enough quality time with her son, and that was a major reason for his problems and attitude now. “Is that so bad?”
“No.” He thought better of his answer and said, “It’s just weird, that’s all. Why now?”
Because now I need to seriously be your mother before it’s too late. “Adam, don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll think of something.”
“Think of using your phone to call Grandpa.”
She skewered him with a threatening glare before pointing to some bushes several yards from where the pickup had wheezed to a halt. “You gotta go?”
“Oh, right. Me, first. Then if anything bites me on the butt, I can warn you.”
Kitty slid her feet into her chunky cork sandals, scooted to the passenger side and yanked on the door handle. “Forget it. I’ll go first.” She wiggled her fingers at the backseat. “Hand me that box of tissues.”
When he did, she managed a smile. “See? Aren’t you glad I thought to bring these?”
“I’m thrilled.” He nodded at the window that separated the cab from the back of the truck. “We got a bunch of crappy material, a sewing machine and tissues. Fat City.”
She got out of the truck, leaned inside and said, “While I’m gone, you get all that sarcastic trash talk out of your system, because when I get back I don’t want to hear another word of it.”
As she walked toward the bushes in her suddenly impractical designer slides, Adam hollered, “I’m hungry!”
Ten minutes later Kitty and Adam stood by the side of the road scoping out approaching traffic. When a van appeared, Adam stuck out his thumb. Kitty pulled his hand down.
“What’d you do that for?”
“We’re not hitchhiking. It’s dangerous.”
“So is starving. We gotta get to a town somehow.” Again Adam scrutinized the endless stretch of rolling hills and farmland. “If there even is a town in this state.”
“I’m watching for just the right ride,” Kitty said. “I’ll know it when I see it.” And she did—a farm truck loaded with watermelons. She waved at the driver, and the vehicle braked. Tugging Adam behind her, Kitty ran to the passenger window and explained to a middle-aged woman in a cotton dress and straw hat about the truck breaking down.
“You wantin’ a lift to town, then?” the woman asked.
“If you don’t mind,” Kitty said.
The woman looked to the driver, a man of her same approximate age. He nodded. “We’re headin’ to the grand opening of the twenty-four-hour Super Value-Rite,” she said, “so we can get you that far.”
A Value-Rite! Food. Bathrooms. An ATM. “That’s perfect,” Kitty
