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the best childhood? Yes, her parents were alcoholics and often
unemployed, but aside from the snow-globe incident, they’d
never hurt her. No, she didn’t get a car or have birthday parties,
but she’d never gone to bed hungry, either, and in the fall, no
matter how tight things were, she always got new clothes for
school. Her dad might not have been the greatest, but he hadn’t
snuck into her bedroom at night to do awful things, things she
knew had happened to her friends. At eighteen, she didn’t
consider herself scarred. A bit disappointed about college, maybe,
and nervous about having to make her own way in the world, but
not damaged beyond repair. And she’d made it. Atlantic City
hadn’t been all bad. She’d met a couple of nice guys, and she
could remember more than one evening she spent laughing and
talking with friends from work until the early hours of the
morning.
No, she reminded herself, her childhood hadn’t defined her, or
had anything to do with the real reason she’d come to Southport.
Even though Jo was the closest thing to a friend that she had in
Southport, Jo knew absolutely nothing about her. No one did.
“Hi, Miss Katie,” Kristen piped up from her little table. No dolls
today. Instead, she was bent over a coloring book, holding crayons
and working on a picture of unicorns and rainbows.
“Hi, Kristen. How are you?”
“I’m good.” She looked up from her coloring book. “Why do you
always walk here?”
Katie paused, then came around the corner of the counter and
squatted down to Kristen’s level. “Because I don’t have a car.”
“Why not?”
Because I don’t have a license, Katie thought. And even if I did, I can’t
afford a car. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll think about getting one, okay?”