Verwandte Artikel zu The Tin Box

The Tin Box - Softcover

Kennedy, Holly

 
9780765351043: The Tin Box
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0765351048 ISBN 13: 9780765351043
Verlag: Forge Books, 2006

Inhaltsangabe

Growing up, Kenly Lowen's life was shaped around a widowed alcoholic father who made it clear that he never wanted her in the first place. She emerged from childhood determined to find happiness. Today, at thirty-two, Kenly has a husband and a son who mean the world to her; the kind of life she always dreamed of having.

When her closest childhood friend dies, Kenly is given an old tin box they once shared - a tin box they hid on the roof of a tree house fifteen years earlier. Inside is a secret she has kept for years. To reveal it could end her marriage and shatter her world, but can she continue to shoulder the weight of years of silence?

Kenly's is a story filled with heartbreak, tragedy, and hope. In a small town filled with hidden treasures, young Kenly discovers people who change her life. From terminally ill Tommy, who loves her, to old Max, who shows her that a fire pit is sometimes the best medicine, to edgy Lexie, who believes life should be lived, The Tin Box will take Kenly on an unforgettable journey. The decision she finally makes will test the ties that bind people together against a wound that could tear them apart.

The Tin Box is an achingly beautiful novel of one woman's desire to save all that she loves while honoring the past that made her into the woman she is.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

The Tin Box is Holly Kennedy's first novel. She lives with her husband in Alberta, Canada.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

THE TIN BOX
chapter 1
SIXTEEN YEARS EARLIER
KENLY ALISTER WAS FIFTEEN YEARS OLD and in the middle of year-end exams in Kalispell, Montana, when her life started falling apart all over again. She and her dad had been living there eight months and four days--something she tracked religiously on her bedroom calendar. It wasn't a record, but it was a good sign that maybe this time they would stay put until she graduated from high school.
She was lying on the couch studying, surrounded by the cracked, gunmetal-gray walls of their living room, when she heard her dad's heavy footsteps come up the walk an hour earlier than usual. Frowning, she looked at her watch. They had a routine, and this wasn't part of it. Every morning, he drove nine blocks to school, parked, and disappeared into the teachers'lounge half an hour before she even rolled out of bed. Then, at the end of each day, she got home at least an hour before he did. Pushing aside a twinge of worry, she told herself everything was fine. When he pulled the screen door open and dropped his briefcase on the floor, she tried to convince herself itwas just her imagination that the air in the room had changed or that he seemed to be avoiding her eyes. Muttering under his breath, he yanked the door shut and gave it the extra tug it always needed, prompting her cat, Java, to come skidding around the corner, where she disappeared underneath the couch.
"Stupid bloody cat," he said, shedding his jacket on his way into the kitchen.
Kenly chewed on the ice from her drink and gave his back a heavy stare. She'd found Java a year earlier under the front steps of the house they were renting, and had had to tear a few old boards off with a crowbar and wriggle underneath through the dead grass just to catch her. Emaciated, starving, and with the jittery personality of someone who's sucked back a pound of espresso, the cat seemed to fit the name "Java" perfectly. She followed Kenly everywhere, but she turned into a nervous wreck whenever she saw Kenly's dad.
Clearing her throat, Kenly held her spot in the textbook with a finger and called out, "My day wasn't bad, thanks. How about yours?"
Her dad taught tenth- and eleventh-grade remedial math for students who either were struggling with the basics or were behaviorally challenged--neither easy to work with. He muttered something unintelligible, then came back around the corner with a drink in one hand and the tense, uneasy look of someone who's just been pulled over for speeding. The cuffs of his shirt were rolled back and his tie had slipped out of the knot he'd put it in that morning.
"What's wrong?" she asked. "Have trouble in one of your classes today?"
He raised his eyebrows and grabbed the remote control. "Something like that." He flipped through the channels, then set his drink down and made a big production of rubbing his shoulder, slowly kneading it with the heel of his hand as if she was supposed to believe he was having a drink because it ached after a hard day of teaching and notbecause of the drinking problem they both knew he had. Disgusted, she lowered her gaze back to her textbook.
"Math exam?" he asked.
She nodded but didn't lift her head.
He turned off the TV and went down the hall to his bedroom; then she heard the telltale squeak of his closet door and knew he was looking for the bottle of vodka he kept hidden on the top shelf behind his suitcase--the one he thought she didn't know about. She swallowed hard, rubbed her temples, and went back to studying, dangling the fingers of one hand to entice Java back out.
It was five o'clock when she glanced up and saw a leggy redhead striding up their front steps. They almost never got company, and rarely anyone as crisp and all-business as this woman. Sensing something was wrong, Kenly frowned and slid off the couch, but her dad came down the hallway and pushed past her on unsteady legs. When he pulled the door open, Kenly saw the determined look on the redhead's face and guessed that these two weren't going to mix.
"Well, hel-lo." He let his eyes slide over the woman as if he had the right, then made a box with his fingers and peered through it with a lopsided grin. "Now isn't that a picture."
Kenly's stomach rolled and she tried to grab his arm, but he shook her off. Staggering back against the door, he motioned their visitor in with a dramatic sweep of one arm.
The woman didn't move. "Mr. Alister?"
He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, lit the last one, and tossed the empty pack on the floor. "Call me Steve."
She handed him an envelope. "Okay, Steve, this is for you."
His face darkened for a split second, and then he grinned with one side of his mouth, pulled hard on his cigarette, and blew smoke in a stream over her head. Kenly waited a half beat, slipped past him, and took theenvelope from the woman, nodding politely to her before closing the door. He had a tendency to push things too far, but when he was drinking they spiraled out of control even faster than usual.
Her hand was shaking when she gave him the envelope. "What's going on?"
He didn't answer, just tore it open and read the letter from top to bottom as she inspected one of her fingers, half-guessing at what he would say next. Finally he murmured, "It was time to move anyway."
"You can't be serious."
"Sometimes change is good."
But she saw his hands shaking and knew it wasn't true, knew he hated moving as much as she did, and saw the flicker of worry that told her he'd been fired again. A familiar feeling of panic rose up and circled her chest, looking for a spot to land. This would be their sixth move in less than three years. "I don't want to move."
"You're just nervous."
She leaned forward, trying again. "But it's hard making new friends."
"You do fine."
"Dad, you're not listening."
His eyes met hers and held them until she looked away. "I'm listening, Kenly, but it doesn't change the fact that we're moving."
Looking around the kitchen, her eyes settled on a stack of boxes she'd left by the back door weeks ago. Boxes she'd asked him to take out to the shed, filled with things they never used. One crammed with photo albums, another stuffed with camping gear, and the last one taped shut, her mom's broken studio stand wrapped up inside next to a bag of oil paints. Now the boxes would all be moved somewhere else, where no one knew Kenly and her dad, and where they'd get another new phone number and another fresh start.
As reality hit her in the face, Kenly's hopes evaporated and she left the room, rounding the corner into the hallway,where she stopped and pressed her back against the wall. Moving meant starting over again, and that thought sent a wave of nausea through her. She wanted to go back and ask him why. Why he kept getting fired, why he drank so much, and why he didn't seem to care about anything anymore. Grandma Alister often said he used to love the challenge of teaching, but that was years ago, before her mother died. Now he was the kind of teacher who didn't last in the good schools and couldn't even hold on to the jobs he found in small towns.
"He never got over losing your mother," Grandma would often say, defending him.
Kenly sighed, knowing that she'd seen the signs, but had ignored them. After all, he'd called in sick twice last week, and then Grandma had phoned when he didn't show up to drive her to Missoula. That alone should have set off alarm bells. A friend of Grandma's had won two tickets to a George Strait concert, and even though she was seventy-eight, Grandma couldn't wait to go. She thought George was the sexiest country...

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Verlag
Forge Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2006
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0765351048
ISBN 13 
9780765351043
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
306
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