Billy wrapped the music box in layer after layer of tissue, then boxed it up and slipped it into a gift bag.
“Your joy is my joy,” Billy said. “Enjoy. And if the music box quits playing, bring it in. I know how to fix them.”
“Yes…oh my…thank you,” Katie said, blinking back tears.
She carried the bag clutched to her breasts as if it was a newborn as she left the store. Billy Arnold hadn’t just given her a gift. He had acknowledged her existence.
Katie’s real identity was a mystery, as was the original owner of this music box. They’d both been lost by fate and time until Billy had become their intermediary. Billy had cared enough to give Katie her own antique, and the music box was no longer lost. She felt grounded by another woman’s history—a woman she would never know.
She drove away, still blinking back tears. She was too full…spilling over from the love she’d been given. She’d been acknowledged. She felt seen.
She drove until she found an empty parking lot, then pulled in and parked before she realized it was a church. She sat for a few minutes, trying to pull herself together and wondering at the irony of ending up here at this moment.
Katie’d quit talking to God years ago because she didn’t think He was listening. She would pray for a family. She’d pray to be removed from one bad foster home to another. She’d prayed to be rescued…somehow…in any way He saw fit. But it never happened. And the broken child she was believed God could neither see nor hear her because she did not matter.
Now, when the most wonderful thing had just happened to her, she found herself here. She laughed, but in it were the sounds of anger and disbelief.
“What am I supposed to do here?” she cried. “Bow down at Your feet when You left mine bare? Join a church and listen to a man I don’t know start telling me how I’m supposed to live? If You’ve been following the shit show that has been my life, what about it do You expect me to thank You for?”
She closed her eyes and leaned back against the seat, choking on sobs, and then all of a sudden there was a knock at her window. She opened her eyes and groaned.
It was Sam.
She swiped at the tears on her face and then rolled down the window.
“What’s wrong?” Sam asked.
Katie shook her head. “Nothing you can fix.”
“Try me,” Sam said.
She sighed. “I’m not dying. I have no physical pain. I just… I just… I guess the dam broke.”
“May I get in?”
She shrugged.
Sam didn’t give her a chance to change her mind. He got into the passenger seat and then closed the door. The cool air inside was a far cry from the heat outside, but he could feel her rage as if she were on fire.
Then, instead of grilling her, he just held out his hand.
Katie shuddered, knowing if she took it, he would never let her go. And in that moment, as crazy as she felt, it was his steadfastness that pulled her in.
She reached out. His fingers curled around her hand, and then he gave it a quick squeeze.
“Trouble shared is trouble bared. And when secrets are no longer hidden, their power is gone.”
“Oh, Sam…you have no idea what you’re asking,” Katie muttered.
“I ask nothing of you. But I’ll give anything to you that you need.”
“Why?” Katie asked.
“Because you’re worth it.”
The words hung between them like a white flag in a war zone.
What was it Lila said? Something about taking the ride, regardless of how the journey ended?
“You should never have knocked on my window,” she said.
Sam still held her hand without force, but refusing to let her go. She was going to have to be the one to pull way.
“I already knocked on your door. I already let you under my skin. Trust me, girl.”
Unconsciously, Katie tightened her grip. “I don’t know who I am. I don’t know where I came from. I was abandoned in an alley in Chicago as a newborn. A homeless person found me, and the police picked me up and took me to a hospital. I have lived in so many different foster homes, I lost count. Sometimes they were good to me. Most times they were not. I was to be adopted twice, and both times the people backed out. I never knew why. I grew up unloved. Unwanted. I aged out of the foster system and worked two jobs to put myself through college. I wanted to be someone. I needed to be someone special for others. So I became a teacher…and I was loved. And I began to love myself.”
Sam pulled a handful of tissues from the box in the seat beside him and handed them to her. She wiped her eyes and her nose. She wouldn’t look at him. She just kept talking.
“And that’s when I met Mark Roman. A nice young CPA who charmed me and swept me off my feet. Three years later, we’re getting married. I’m at the chapel, in my wedding dress, ready to walk down the aisle, and I get a phone call. He’s in Las Vegas with his new bride…who just happens to be his boss’s daughter. He left me to face the guests…to tell them I’d been jilted, and to take their gifts with them when they left. I don’t know why I didn’t see it coming. I’ve never been good enough to choose.”
Sam’s heart was breaking. He already knew all this, but hearing the pain in her voice was his undoing.
“Well, he’s the original dumbass,” Sam said. “But never mind my opinion. Just get it all said because once it’s out, it never has to be spoken of again.”
Katie sighed. If only.
“Anyway, I went back to work a week later with my tail between my legs, bearing the pity of my coworkers and wallowing in the shared anger of the people I considered friends. The blessing was that my students were oblivious. Miss Katie was back, and their world settled onto its axis. Less than two months later, we had a school shooting where I worked. Saguaro Elementary in Albuquerque. I was shot twice in the back and was the only staff member to survive out of the five who were shot. But I kept my kids safe, and I healed. Sort of. I could not go back in that school without getting sick.
“I have PTSD. Anything that sounds like gunshots throws me back into the moment when I’m running with my students, trying to get them out of the hall before the shooter catches up with us. I have nightmares almost every night. I am so broken, I’m not worth keeping. I didn’t tell you the truth about myself because I wanted to forget it. But that’s lying to you and to myself.”
Sam lifted her hand and kissed the back of her knuckles. “I’m not scared of you. But I am pretty scared of losing you before I can even call you mine.”