Under the Florida Sun

Prologue-

June 23, 2014

A long time ago someone, history remembers as unknown said. "Under the Florida sun is the best place to be." I think they were right. Because there's no place, I'd rather be than sitting on the shores of Grasshopper Lake with my toes dancing in warm grains of sugar sand feeling lake water run up along my feet before circling around my ankles while my eyes look out across the ripples of water in front of me for gators breaking the surface like branches floating.

My name is Hallie Joe Corbin and I was born early in the morning just before the sun broke over the trees of the Ocala National Forest on February 18th, 2002, which was the last day of the sign of Aquarius for that year.

I didn't know it when I came into this world, but I came into a storm brewing on the horizon. A storm that would fill my life with flashes of lightning and booms of thunder. Lying in the hospital nursery that morning as a newborn baby I had no idea my Daddy was already dancing with demons he couldn't control. And I sure didn't know there was already a clock ticking on the time I would have with my Mama.

Eight years after she and Daddy brought me home from the hospital Mama disappeared one night while I was asleep. After she put me to bed, kissed my forehead, and told me she loved me. Somewhere in the hours that passed in the dark before I opened my eyes in the morning, she slipped away under the blanket of stars that are always shining in the Florida night sky.

Mama always told me each day was a gift and not to let even one of them go by without taking the time to notice the important things. Over fourteen hundred days have gone by since she left and not one of them has passed when I haven't stared at the dented metal door of our trailer waiting for her to come back through it.

The last memory I carry of her is an image of her lingering half in and half out of my room looking at me with her big hazel eyes for a long time before she shut my door. I've often wondered if she hesitated that night because she knew it would be a long time before she saw me again.

There is another memory from that night but it's not of seeing Mama it's of hearing her crying and the sound of Daddy's voice thundering through the thin walls of our 1970 Fleetwood Festival mobile home.

Before she left Mama used to always tell me that being an Aquarius meant that I was a water bearer and that I could carry all of my burdens along with other peoples too.

I don't know if I was ready to be born on the eighteenth of February instead of the nineteenth, but I think somehow Mama made sure I was because she knew I was going to have a lot of burdens to carry once she left Daddy and me.

June 24, 2014

Florida Watermen Hospital where my first breaths in this life were taken is only thirty minutes from the Golden Gem Estates mobile home park where Daddy and I live. Our trailer sits at 32 Citrus Lane on the last lot on the street, the one right before the chain link fence that separates the park from Golden Gem Drive, stands.

Daddy's name is Earl Ray Corbin. He was born in Apopka which is only a forty-minute drive down Highway 42 from where we live. He tells everyone our trailer was built in 1970, but that he rebuilt it in 1993.

Golden Gem Estates was originally supposed to be for the workers of the Golden Gem Citrus packing plant, but Daddy doesn't work there because he says those jobs are only for trash. He's a proud framer.

Sometimes on Fridays after he gets paid, and we go to Fish and Chips for chicken he'll put the meal right down on the seat between us so we can eat fritters, fresh fried pieces of chicken, and drink Coca-Cola while he goes through neighborhoods pointing out houses, he worked on.

Mama's name is Morgan Kacey Corbin. She was Homecoming Queen at Umatilla High School two years before I was born. People say she was a bright shining star with limitless possibilities ahead of her before Daddy came along with his storm and clouded out her shine.

Besides that, Mama was a Homecoming Queen and a bright shining star I don't know much about her. Just a couple of memories I try to hold onto real tight. Her sitting with me at Grasshopper Lake dangling our feet in the water while Daddy sat fishing beside us. The way she held my hand when we walked across parking lots. And how it felt dancing in her arms across the linoleum floor in our kitchen.

Sometimes I worry I'm forgetting Mama a little at a time the longer she's gone. Especially the sound of her voice. When I close my eyes, I can still see her auburn hair framing the features of her face without trying too hard, but even when I'm really quiet it's getting harder to remember the way her voice sounded when called me her. " Hallie Bear"

In Proverbs 3:5 Solomon wrote, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and not your own understanding." I think a lot about that verse. I think Solomon must have been talking about people like Daddy and me. The small people who mostly get lost in this great big world. People who don't have much. Who always seem to be saddled with more than their fair share to carry.

Solomon wrote the third chapter of Proverbs as advice to his son, but I believe he also wrote it as advice to anyone who was going through a hard time. I think he knew people wouldn't always understand what was going on around them and they would need a reminder that God has a bigger plan.

I don't understand why Mama left or why Daddy drinks as much as he does. I don't think Daddy understands why he's so angry. But I hope Solomon was right. That God does have a bigger plan. That one day if I keep believing in him with all my heart Daddy will stop hating everything and I won't have to count how many beers he's had to know whether I can be seen or if I need to hide. Mostly I hope that one day Mama will be there in the morning when I wake up and the whole world will smell like her special strawberry pancakes.

She left us in the early hours of a Sunday that came just before spring when winter's frost still clung to the tops of the grass every morning. That Sunday when she walked out of our front door and didn’t return my life became two separate and divided parts. The before when Mama made me feel safe even when Daddy got loud. And the after when the fairytale of her was gone. Daddy says she left a note telling him to clean the house and that she was leaving on one of those yellow post-it, stick-it notes she stuck to the refrigerator door. But I think there must have been something else she left.

Sometimes I look for hiding places where she could have hidden something for me to find later. Somewhere she knew Daddy wouldn't see it. Because I don't believe she would have left without telling me goodbye even if she did only write it down.

Sometimes I ask Daddy about Mama and where she is, but he tells me that what she did wasn't right and that she's out there livin' her a life of sin. He says Mama doesn't care about me anymore, that she never cared about me. But I know that isn’t true. Mama loved me with all her heart.

I believe the truth is that Mama is out there on a journey she had to take. I think she had to go by herself because she couldn't get us both away from Daddy at the same time. I think she's out there right now laying a foundation for a life that's just for us, and when she's done, she's going to come back for me, and I won't have to see Daddy again. He'll just grow old, alone, and be even more miserable than he is now. And I won't miss him at all when we go because I'll be with Mama.

Chapter One Leaving

"Goddamnit!" The word reverberated through the trailer. Its sound echoed in a shiver up her spine. Hallie flipped the cover of her journal closed on instinct. Her ears perked up and she listened for the sound of his footsteps on the floor. Every beat her heart made inside her chest pounded against the deafening silence surrounding her. The sound of his dinner plate shattering against the wall in the kitchen broke the silence with a crash that sent a fresh wave of fear racing up her spine.

The sound of his boots charging up the hall thundered in her mind. As quick as she could, knowing she was running out of time she lifted the corner of her mattress and shoved the journal underneath it. He couldn't find it. She had only gotten the spiral journal from the dollar store the day before and if he found it she would feel the heat of his hand on her cheek.

More than her cheek would feel the pain of his hand if he discovered she had spent money without asking. If he saw what she had written in her first two entries on the first two pages. She didn't want to think about what he would do if that happened. Moving fast, she had just enough time to make it back to the middle of the bed before her door flew open and his voice filled the room.

"Where do you want it? huh, which arm you want it on? You better tell me, girl. I'll just slap you in your smart mouth if you don't." His eyes were burning embers of coal.

"Why Daddy?" Somehow his face grew even angrier.

"YOU don't know, you don't have any clue?" He stepped forward.

"How bout that cold dinner, You think I like eating cold food" He grabbed her by the arm and snatched her from the bed. Out of instinct, she reached for the edge of the mattress with her other hand. She knew her mistake as soon as she made it. As she slid toward him the mattress slid partway with her leaving the top edge of the journal exposed.

Her eyes went to his immediately and she realized with sudden horror that he was looking right at it. His grip tightened around her arm digging into her painfully. His arm moved forward then back again shaking her hard. She watched terrified as he turned his eyes from the journal back to hers. Then he asked the question she knew was coming"What's that?"

She knew she needed to say something. Knew this was all about to get a lot worse but she couldn't make any of the words she needed to say leave her mouth. "You got secrets in there?" His other hand locked on her other arm. For a moment he just stared at her before he threw her against the wood paneling of the wall beside her bed. She watched his arm move toward the corner of the exposed box spring as she sank to the worn carpet floor.

Sliding the journal out, he opened it. From the floor, she could see him reading the two pages with writing on them. Copper filled her throat as she saw the lines on his forehead scrunch tighter together. A sinking feeling in her gut told her she had finally pushed him too far.

"This is what you think?" Her mouth opened, but her words and her thoughts were paralyzed in her throat. "THIS IS WHAT YOU THINK!?" He charged her, bringing the journal down over and over. Striking her skin. He hit her again and again. He hit her until the cover ripped off. Until the bindings came apart. And when the journal was gone, he kept hitting her with his hand until she was a ball on the floor sniveling through tears mixed with blood.

She could hear his breath heaving in and out. Lying on the floor she knew it was her fault. It was always her fault for making him mad. She lived inside the hope that it was over. With each second, he didn't hit her, she prayed that he would leave. Fear pumped through her with every beat of her heart. Her eyes stuck like glue to the bottom half of his legs imploring them to leave.

"Clean yourself up and throw this trash away." He said before she watched his legs go and her door close. She listened to his footsteps fade down the hallway to the kitchen. When the stereo came on and Lynyrd Skynyrd started to play she stayed where she was afraid to move. Afraid if she did anything at all it would bring him back.

The early morning sun was just making its way into the blue canvas of Florida sky when Hallie stepped from their trailer the next morning. Pulling the straps on her backpack tight she prayed Daddy hadn't noticed her when she walked to the door. She hoped he'd been too busy getting his coffee from the stove. Her heart pounded in her ears with each step she took. Her eyes focused on the safety of the bus stop ahead. Daddy wouldn't do anything to her when there were other kids or parents to see him.

Songs from birds chirped in the trees around her. Clouds floated in bands in the distance. The afternoon would bring more monsoon rains. The yard would flood all the way up to the front steps the way it did every time they got a heavy rain and Daddy would curse the Park Manager, that goddamn Tom Lords who had suckered him into renting to own the worst lot in the park.

A tremor of fear went through her when she heard the exhaust leaking engine of Daddy's Nissan truck fire up. He was leaving early. Her knees suddenly felt shaky underneath her. The same way they did before one of Uncle Bill's fishing trips. The ones where Daddy needed a break from her, and Uncle Bill took her out to the middle of Lake Dorr so he could touch her on his boat.

She had told Daddy several times she didn't want to go, but he always said, "Your Uncle Bill is a good family man, and after what your Mamas done to mess our family up you need to see what a real one looks like." Daddy didn't care about what a real family looked like he just wanted to bring home a woman from the bar, and he didn't want her around to mess things up. He didn't care anything about what Mama had done to mess up their family.

She didn't believe he even thought about Mama anymore. There were several times when she'd thought about telling him the real reason she didn't want to go. But she knew it would just be her fault. Daddy would say she had led Uncle Bill on just like her Mama was doing with other men now that she was out in the world whoring around.

Heavy air, wet with humidity, filled her lungs. Her fingers tightened around the straps on her backpack. She prayed he wouldn't notice it was fuller than usual. Her eyes stayed on the two boys standing at the end of the street in front of her. All she had to do was make it to them, then she'd be safe. Daddy wouldn't let anyone see how he really was with her.

Earl Ray grabbed the roach from the ashtray and burned his fingers lighting it.

"Damn it" He licked his fingers and cursed his luck. His whole life everything had been unfair. Starting with his goddamn name. The lyrics of Johnny Cash's A Boy Named Sue came into his mind. Breathing in the sweet taste of marijuana, he thought who the hell names their kid after an assassin? The sound of his idiot father's voice saying James Earl Ray was a good man floated through his consciousness. Coughing, the thought escaped his head. Turning the engine to the old Nissan hardbody pickup over, he looked down the street for his abomination of a daughter.

Watching Hallie walk halfway down the street from him, his anger flared back up. His wife had been bad enough, but his little girl was going to be the death of him. As hard as he worked driving nails all day, all he wanted from her was a little respect. Part of him wished she was gone just like her bitch of a mother. Flipping on the radio he backed out of the driveway as the Allman Brother's song Mellissa came to life in the dry cracked speakers mounted in the Nissan's cab.

Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen steps left to go. The sound of rpm's increasing and more exhaust leaking as the faded blue Nissan backed out of the driveway teased her like a taunting bully. Hallie took her breath in and watched her feet, eleven, ten, nine. Behind her, the Nissan picked up speed. She wasn't going to make it. Daddy would turn the corner and trap her away from the other kids with his truck in between them and her. He was closer now. Five steps, four. The sound of leaking exhaust roared past her, turned the corner, and stopped blocking her from the safety of the bus stop.

She listened to the whining sound of him cranking down his window. Charlie Daniels singing The Devil Went Down to Georgia poured into the morning air before he turned the volume knob down. She didn't want to, but she looked up anyway. He smiled a smile she knew wasn't real. Daddy was never happy. He only smiled when he wanted to make people believe he wasn't angry.

"I want you to make those pork chops tonight, and make sure you keep my dinner warm. No man deserves a cold plate." He left his lying smile on his face as he looked at her. "Now, you have a good day at school. And we'll talk about that journal more after I eat." Her stomach sank as he started to roll up the window. Not because of what he would do tonight, but because of what she was going to do long before that. "You know Daddy loves his little girl." He said as he rolled the last of the window. The loud exhaust called out again and she watched the letters spelling N I S S A N on the back of the truck grow smaller as he drove away. She watched until he turned and disappeared around the corner. Then she started walking the same path the truck's tires had taken.

"Hallie, you okay?" Her legs stopped. Her feet stood still. Looking at the blades of grass growing thick under her worn Keds, she hesitated for a moment before she turned back to where the voice had come from.

"I'm leaving." Her eyes met each of the two boys standing at the stop she'd been headed to a moment before. Poor, southern white trash, too ignorant to have come from anywhere but their mama's trailer. The mantra repeated in her mind. All three of them had shouted it a thousand times. She trusted these two boys, these two brothers. Saltwater appeared in the bottoms of her eyes. This was the last time she was going to see them. After this, she’d be with Mama. She wouldn't have another chance to say goodbye.

"What do you mean you're leaving?" Memphis, the older brother stepped forward as he asked the question. He was tall for his age. Most people thought he was two or three years older than he was. Hallie looked at his reddish blonde hair noticing for the millionth time the way it fell in a wave over the left side of his face.

"I can't stay anymore, he was bad last night. I did something stupid and it's gonna be worse tonight." London stepped closer but remained behind his brother with his permanent puppy dog eyes staring out at her.

"Where you gonna go?" he asked. She thought about not telling them. When she was gone, they were sure going to be the first ones people asked. But a strong part of her wanted them to know.

"I'm gonna go find my Mama. I know where my grandma lives. Daddy tried to hide it But, I found letters she wrote to me in the trash, and her address was written on the envelopes. She lives in Deland. I'll have to sleep outdoors but if I walk all day and only stop to sleep, I think I can make it in less than a week." The sound of the bus turning off Route 19 floated past in the morning air. London stepped the rest of the way out from behind Memphis.

"What are you gonna eat?"

"I've got some jerky in my bag and a few cans of chili I took from the pantry, plus I got forty dollars I've been saving from change Daddy was too drunk to remember he left laying out." The bus was closer now they could hear it turning into the entrance of the park. Hallie started to walk again. Memphis and London watched her for a moment before Memphis asked.

"Are you gonna be, okay?" She turned back to look at the brothers.

"I don't know, Mem." She said the words and turned away again. Keeping her eyes straight ahead trying to stay to fight the tears pricking at her eyes she picked up her pace. The sound of the bus coming down the street roared behind her. The air brakes made a loud whooshing sound as the bus came to a stop. A minute later the diesel engine came back to life as the bus pulled away again. Right then it hit her like one of Daddy's hands flying through the air, she was alone. It'll be okay, she told herself. This is what she had to do. The sound of Memphis's voice stopped her in her tracks.

"Hallie Wait." Hallie turned to see Memphis and London running toward her. An Instant rush of relief flooded through her. Before she could think about it, she heard herself asking.

"You guys are coming?" Smiles stretched across both boys' faces.

"We can't let you go alone." London reached out and touched her shoulder before adding. "We have to go back and get some of our things though."

"I think our mom has some money hidden in her dresser," Memphis added.

Hallie nodded and did her best to hide the tears that were just pushing out from the corners of her eyes. Together they turned and took steps in unison back across the street toward the run-down trailer where the boys lived.