Without You

– Sammy –

Shari Lytto

Thirteen Years Later

My life was never supposed to work out this way. I’m thirty-one years old, I’m single, and I’m living it up in the big city.

Except, this is exactly the plan I made when I was a teenager.

What’s that saying? Be careful what you wish for.

The year I started dating Samuel Turner, my life, a life that was so single track and black and white, suddenly turned into a grey tinged ‘Y’ intersection, wrought with jutting edges and painful corners.

Turn left – live this life in this way.

Turn right – live that life that way.

Do nothing… ruin his life.

The third option was the only one that I couldn’t live with, which meant it wasn’t an option at all.

I made plans when I was far too young to truly understand the complexities and consequences of my actions. Every action I did and did not make, had disastrous reactions.

Before ninth grade, I was just me, and I was fine with the plans I had made, but then Samuel came along and changed everything. He changed my life for the better, and I’ll never forget him… or his striking blue eyes that looked at me with such warmth, despite their resemblance with ice. I’ll never forget the way his curly hair hung in his lashes, or the way his large hands held me and instantly soothed any hurt that I ever felt.

Sam Turner could fix absolutely anything… except that one time.

We had less than one good year together, and excluding that last day or so, it’s still, to this day, the very best year of my life. But the world was never supposed to be that kind to me, so instead it gave me everything else I wished for.

Get out of that godforsaken, two-bit, backwards ass town full of snooty assholes and jerks who like to know everyone’s business and never deal with their own shit behind closed doors.

Done.

Never, ever return to said godforsaken, two-bit town.

Done.

Find freedom, get away from my parents, go to school.

Done. Done. And done.

Degree in psychology.

Done… With honors.

Masters in Social work.

Done… With honors.

And because I had nothing better to do with my time, I also studied Neuroscience.

Then as a final ‘fuck you’ to my overbearing, life ruining, lying sack of shit parents who just so happened to be paying my tuition, I also wasted their money and got a degree in yacht operations and floristry.

Why?

Because I could, and I knew I’d never use them, and besides leaving and never going home again, it was the only revenge I could get on them, petty as it may have been.

I’ve never laid eyes on my parents again after we packed up our house and moved clear across the country.

I got them out of town, I got them away from him, then when they moved their shit into their new home, I loaded up my most important possessions and moved again. They thought they won something from Sam, and in a way, they did. They stole from him. But they still lost, because they never got to keep me.

After almost nine years in school and several hundred thousand dollars paid from my parents’ check book for tuition, what degree didn’t I get? Law.

I was never going to conform to Frederick Ricardo’s expectations, and there was nothing they could do or say or threaten me with to force my hand. They’d already taken away the most important things in my life, and they did it callously and without remorse.

I packed my bags as soon as I was well enough to, and I left, a broken husk of a woman, empty and void, and for the most part, emotionless.

I was careless.

I didn’t have a deep-seated instinct to stay safe. Why should I? There was no one to go home to. There wasn’t a single person on this planet that I had to check in with to assure I was safe. But I also wasn’t going out of my way to put myself in danger. Why? Because I didn’t feel like doing it. I didn’t feel like doing anything.

I spent years studying and sleeping and watching crappy movies in the dark. That’s it. I went to class and wrote notes, millions of notes, not missing a single inconsequential thing my lecturers taught me, because if it was important enough for them to mention it, then it was important enough for me to write it down and commit it to memory. When I got home again, I read and reread those notes. I wrote my papers weeks early. I took extra classes every semester and fast tracked my education. I had no parties to go to, therefore no hangovers, no walks of shame, no regrets. And I had plenty of time to study, so I never got anything less than perfect grades.

It’s not that I was the smartest student at my school. I was simply the one with the most spare time and the innate drive to study and get my degree.

If I couldn’t have my life with Sam and our ill-fated baby, then I’d take no other pleasure except in studies, with the intention to help other children.

For several years straight, I ate takeout in front of the TV almost every single night, and on the nights I ‘cooked,’ I ate grilled cheese and avocado sandwiches. I was probably lacking a lot of vitamins in my diet, and the depression and lethargy that followed me around didn’t let up until my third-year post grad, when I realized sunshine and vegetables were important elements in life.

So was socialization.

I was once an excited teenager with grand plans in life and an overabundant well of energy to expel, and most of that energy was spent on Sam Turner.

With Sam Turner.

Under Sam Turner.

Smiling at Sam Turner.

Swimming with Sam Turner.

Pretending to be coy around Sam Turner.

Then I became Mrs. Turner, and I lost it all. In a matter of one single perfectly imperfect week, my life imploded in spectacularly horrifying fashion.

It’s really pathetically poetic how it all worked out.

Though I never conformed and never went to law school, nor did I even consider for a single second that I’d be joining my father’s law firm, I recognized soon after I left them that perhaps I should have at least taken a few law subjects. It took until my second year of college to realize my parents’ threats of statutory rape and assault would never have held up in court.

They lied.

No laws were broken, and they knew that. Well, Sam did hit my dad, but apart from that, my metaphorical falling onto my sword was a complete waste. Everything was a complete waste.

I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was saving him from a lifetime of prison for assault and rape and the billion other things my dad so convincingly laid out for me. He was a lawyer, he was respected in his field, and he put forward a really convincing argument during a time I was hurt and overwhelmed and couldn’t make better decisions. My parents were masters of manipulation, and they knew they were bullying teenagers who were emotional, hurt, and didn’t know any better. I’ll never forgive them for what they did to me and Sam.

But alas, by the time I realized my parents’ threats were just hot air, everything had already been ruined anyway. I’d already left Sam. I’d already broken his heart and severed all ties. But worst of all, I’d already lost his baby. And I never got to tell him myself. I never got the chance. No, that had to come from my father in the most hurtful way possible.

My father wielded the sword that would hurt Sam forever, but I was the accessory to his crimes. I hurt him in a way that would invariably change his life.

I just hope he’s happy now.

“Samantha, Shari Lytto’s back in emergency.”

I look up at the knock on my door, and I study my overworked and underpaid coworker as his white dress shirt wilts and wrinkles in the August heat. We both work for the state, and I guess amenities such as air conditioning just aren’t important to them.

I throw my pen down on my desk and sigh. “Do you know her status?”

“Nope, only that she was just brought in and they flagged it for you.”

I drop my head into my hands and my hair falls to curtain me in. This whole fucking thing sucks. Why must Shari Lytto be a drug addicted pregnant woman? Why must she continue to be found in dark alleys and behind filthy liquor stores or gas stations, shooting up and floating into the abyss? Why can’t she be strong enough for her baby?

Shari’s a first-time mother. She’s so early in her pregnancy that she shouldn’t even be known to us yet, but she’s known to the authorities, and the last time she was found out back of Skeeter’s Diner with a needle in her arm, the police officer also found her smuggling a teeny tiny basketball under her ratty and stained shirt. If she were a larger woman, he’d probably never have noticed, but when you’re all skin and bones already because you’d sooner spend your money on heroin than you would a sandwich, even the smallest baby bump is noticeable.

“Lapress or Swanson?”

“She’s at Swanson,” he answers on a low rumble. “They want you there in the next hour or so.”

“Is she conscious?” I don’t know why I continue to ask Ed for answers. He’s not my assistant. In fact, he’s my superior. Having my answers isn’t his job, and I’d bet my left leg he’s just as busy and tired of the system as I am, but I keep asking because it grants me another minute before I have to pick up my phone or walk out my office door and face reality.

I don’t want to see Shari. I don’t want to face the woman who treats her body that way, who treats her unborn baby that way. Some of us, millions of women all over the globe, wish every single day to know the feeling of carrying a baby, to feel that baby boy or girl kick and roll from within. Some women will never know that feeling, yet others take it for granted.

I’m sympathetic to Shari’s situation in life, it’s my job to help her, to help her baby, but more than I feel sorry for Shari, I feel angrier for her baby.

That poor sweet baby inside of her is already, no doubt, drug addicted. He or she may not even make it to the outside of his mother’s womb alive, and if he does, he’s in for a hell of a ride to overcome addiction. Even if he’s strong enough for that, he’ll probably stay in Shari’s care, and I already know how that’s going to go.

It’s not my job to judge, and I’ve spent years following the rules and staying objective. But not this time. This time I’m tired and I’m angry. I probably should go home and take my bitch pills.

“I don’t know,” Ed answers, bringing me back to reality, back to my office, back to the ratty and banged up filing cabinets lining every single wall from floor to ceiling; back to my single squeaky office chair pulled up behind my chipped and dented desk made of laminate wood that has a billion half-peeled away stickers from children who’ve spent time in my office for one reason or another over the years. I set out to jump into the system, to try and fix it, to try and speed up the clogs of the wheel and attempt to help children. And sometimes, in the short term, I think I’m helping, even if it’s only a little bit. But so often, children are returned to unsafe homes, to uncaring parents, and I’m left holding the pieces as each child passes through my home.

Not only do I work with children for the state, but when I can, when I’m allowed, I also give them a home. A temporary home, a safe haven to rest in between their first hell and the next one.

Just like I always planned. But not at all like the dream I envisioned.

I have a nursery set up in my home that babies and small children have slept in for a night, a week, a couple months, but that’s all I get them for, then they’re moved on, whether back to their birth parents, or into adoptive homes.

I take these children for the time I’m given, then I kiss them on their sweet-smelling hair, and send them to their new home. If nothing else, hopefully my heartbreak at letting them go won’t be in vain. Hopefully the safety they found with me, if only for a short time, was enough to show them that the world can love them and that they’re worthy.

I rub my palms over my eyes one last time, then close the windows on my computer screen, shut down, grab my phone and purse, and stand up. “Alright. Thanks Ed.” I step out from behind my desk and move toward the door. “I’ll go check it out.”

Ed might be my closest friend in the whole world now. We work together. We sometimes – that is, maybe twice a year – eat lunch together. But we don’t know each other.

I know he’s married. I know his wife’s name is Henriette and she’s a short and stocky woman who enjoys bonbons and wine. I know he has three children, all of whom are now grown. I know he drives a ‘smart car’ to work to save gas, and that Henriette drove a gas guzzling SUV to soccer practice to fit in with all the other fancy moms.

But I don’t know his favorite food or color. I don’t know who his ex is that he probably hates, or if his children made good grades at school.

And he sure as shit doesn’t know anything about me. He has no clue about my life. He doesn’t know that I fell in love and married a boy in a small town barely an hour south of here, and he doesn’t know that the love of my life, the man who’s probably moved on and has a new family by now, lives only an hour from here.

One of my very own conditions I had when agreeing to keep my folks and Sam Turner separate, was that they’d leave town. Immediately. And they’d never return. No exceptions.

They would get what they wanted; I would leave town too. I would not stay with the man they claimed not good enough, and in my martyrdom and in return, he would not be arrested for allegations I later realized were bullshit.

I walk through the hive of busy workers in my poorly kept, state funded, multi-story workplace, as we all sweat and feel the beginning effects of heat stroke – at ten a.m. I head to the elevators that I’m ninety-nine percent certain I’ll probably get trapped and die in one day – such is their terrible upkeep. The elevator lets me out in the dark and dingy underground parking garage, and I walk to my shitty little car that was built before I even graduated middle school.

I have a trust fund the size some small countries could live on, but I don’t want their money. I refuse it. The second I touch that account, they’ll know, and they’ll start calling me thinking my acceptance buys them forgiveness.

Not in this life, and not in the next one either.

I jump into my car, and although it looks like it’s going to die at any given second, given it’s billion dents and squeaky doors, it actually runs perfectly. Routine tune ups keep this car running like a dream.

If I cared about such things as music, then the broken stereo might bother me, but I don’t and it doesn’t. I don’t listen to much music these days. It tends to bring me down the way music builds a lot of other people up.

I sat in Sam’s garage and listened to them play far too often in my seventeenth year. I don’t know if I’ll ever truly be able to appreciate music again without wondering if Sam would sing this song, and if he did, how he would sing it. I’d think about whether the guys would amp it up, making it louder and more energetic, where Luc beats the shit out of it and Sam rips the lyrics up through his chest, or if they’d slow it down and Sam would turn it into a soft acoustic version.

We’ve been separated for more than a decade now, but I still feel the sting of being cheated out of something amazing.

Despite my melancholy today, I don’t often think of him this much. I’m usually so busy I don’t even have time to pee, so thoughts of Samuel Turner are few and far between – until I’m home at night and in bed alone. I don’t think a single night has passed since the last time I saw him that I haven’t thought of him. It’s not always sad memories; sometimes I smile as I relive the good times. Sometimes it’s only a passing thought, like he was simply a guy I went to school with and I wonder what he’s up to these days. But no matter what my memories throw at me on any given day, I try and beat it back. I have no energy left to give, my well of tears long ago dried up.

I move through the city streets at a speed barely above walking pace, and after a full forty-five minutes of listening to the monotony of city workers and their machinery, I pull in and wind my way from one floor to the next of the multi-story parking complex that hospitals insist on slapping parking meters on and charging the sick and grieving out the ass to use when they’re already tired and broken.

Just another cog. Just another broken system.

Just another unfair facet of life.

I grab tissues and shove my hands into my blouse to mop up boob sweat that won’t stop coming, then I grab my files and climb out of my car.

I’ve been in this hospital a million times before. I know who to speak with to get answers, and I know which ward Shari is likely in – though she’s probably still in emergency for now.

It takes no more than ten minutes to find her room, but when I walk in, I find her asleep with a drip in her arm and crusty dirt on her face and hands, so I take a seat and wait.

I sit in the visitor chair beside Shari’s bed for hours, working on my phone and handwriting notes for her file, and I watch her small baby belly lift and fall under the white hospital blanket as she sleeps.

Who’s just on the other side of that skin? Is it a boy or a girl? Will he grow up to be a musician, or a school teacher? Will she grow up to be a ballerina, or an engineer?

Will she grow up to have track marks bruising her delicate skin like her mom?

Doctors said Shari will be fine. She didn’t overdose, though she did take the drugs. She’s simply hooked up to fluids today because she’s dehydrated and likely very hungry. If I thought it was hot in my office, it would have been positively stifling sitting behind a brick building exposed to the elements.

The nursing staff said that she’ll be free to leave tomorrow or maybe the next day. They’ll strongly suggest she stay, but we all know she’ll sign waivers absolving the hospital of any responsibility, and she’ll go back to the diner or gas station and shoot up again.

I hate this system. I hate that we can’t even try to help that baby until it’s born. As it stands, Shari has more rights than her baby, so we just get to stand by and watch Shari kill them both.

Eventually, as my back aches and my boob sweat threatens to drown me, as my straightened hair curls from the humidity and the paper on which I was making notes begins to curl up at the edges, Shari stirs awake in her bed.

Her hair is matted and dirty, her face smudged with dirt and a hard life. Her hands come up to pat at her face, and I note her nails have dried mud caked underneath them. She looks wild, like those Wildlings on that TV show.

As soon as her drowsy azure blue eyes lock onto mine, her bottom lip begins to wobble and she breaks down into sobbing tears. “I’m sorry!”

I jump up, tossing my paperwork into a pile on the floor beside my chair, then I hit the nurse call button. I take Shari’s hand without the needles and I clasp it between both of mine.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Samantha. I’m so sorry.”

I look up to the still empty doorway, and I silently plead for the nurses to hurry. I don’t want to tell her it’s okay, or that it’ll be okay. It’s not okay. What she does to her body and her baby’s, is not okay.

“It’s just so hard,” she cries, pulling me closer and burrowing her face into my chest. “I tried to stop. I swear I did.”

A portly, older nurse, bustles into the room and stops on the spot when she notices us, but then with pursed lips and wringing hands, she moves forward and shuts off the buzzer. She turns to the bag hanging on the pole beside the bed and plays with a few buttons, then she turns to Shari and takes her shoulder. “Come on now, Ms. Lytto. Lay back now and let me get a look at you.”

“I tried to quit.” She allows the nurse to settle her back against her pillows, but she continues to stare into my eyes. “I swear. I stopped for a full month. I stopped for my baby, but then…”

“But then what?”

“Well, Clayton got a bit of work over the weekend, then he got paid--”

“So you guys grabbed the cash and went straight back to your dealer? Shari--” I want to scream at her. I want to ask what the hell she was thinking. I want to shake her and take her baby to safety. But I’ve studied the minds of addicts. I know it’s not entirely her fault. It’s an illness, but understanding won’t make her baby healthy. “I have to report this, Shari.”

Her eyes turn from sad to defensive. “You can’t judge me, Ms. Samantha! This isn’t your life to judge. I’m doing the best I can.”

I have nothing to say. I simply pry my hand from hers and step back to grab my paperwork. I don’t know why I’m here – I can make my reports without sitting by her bedside for hours, but I can’t find it in my heart to leave. I pick my dropped pen up from the floor and begin taking notes again. I’m a type of addict too, I guess, because I can’t seem to leave her and her belly alone.

My non-reaction to her defensiveness turns her back to a crying mess, and she sniffles into tissues and wipes her face on her arm. “Ms. Samantha?”

I silently look up from the notes in my lap.

“Will they take my baby away from me?”

Probably. I know her baby will likely spend some extensive time in hospital overcoming her addiction before she gets to go home with anyone. “I don’t know right now.”

“Who will get my baby?”

I tap my pen against the manila folder in my lap and avoid her sad eyes. “I’m not sure your baby will even be removed from your care.”

“Will I go to jail?”

Nope. “I don’t think so.”

“You sometimes look after the babies, don’t you?”

My eyes snap back up to hers.

“Do you think if I put my baby up for adoption, I can choose who her new mommy would be?”

My heart hammers in my chest and my breakfast bagel threatens to explode all over the room. “Shari--”

“You took care of me all these times. You’re not a bitch like some of the other state people I’ve met.”

“Shari. No--”

“So you could probably take care of a baby.” She sniffles and wipes her dirty hand across her dirtier face. “You have your life all put together, and I want to quit, Ms. Samantha, I really do, but I’m scared because I don’t know if I can. So maybe if you took my baby, she would be safe and everything would be okay. You could make her safe.”

“Shari. No. This isn’t like rehoming a cat. How do you even know I have space in my life for a baby?” I do. “How do you know I have money or a safe home?” I do. It’s especially safer than whatever Shari has to offer. “How do you know… anything?”

“So maybe you can go home and talk to your husband,” she bargains. “Go and talk to him and maybe he’ll say yes, then my baby will be safe and she won’t be sleeping outside when it’s winter. Your husband is a good Christian man, right? He’d do the right thing--”

“My husband?”

“You have such a pretty ring on your finger, and you’re so classy and pretty. I bet Mr. Ricardo would listen to you. He’s a good man, right? He wouldn’t hurt her?”

“Mr-- He… No--” Wait. “It’s a girl?”

“Yes.” Shari cries again. “The state sent me for a scan a few weeks back. Over at that place on fifth. You know the place.” Shari’s body is visibly shaking – nerves, or coming down off her high? “She’s a little girl, and we’re due in a few more months.”

“Shari, I’m here to help you, not to just take your baby and send you on your way.”

“But if they’re gonna take my baby anyway, I don’t want them to put her into a state home with a grouchy fat mom and twenty other kids. That’s where I grew up, Ms. Samantha, and that’s not what I want for her. But you’re nice and you’re kind. You’ve brought me food and water, so you know how to take care of someone.”

“Bringing a bottle of water and snacks doesn’t make me a good parent.”

“It makes you a better parent than I could be…” Devastation and acceptance both wash over her face. “Please help me. Please help my baby.”

“No.” I stand and begin collecting my things. “I’ll come back tomorrow to see you. I have to get back to work for now.”

“Don’t let the state take my baby--”

“The state doesn’t want to take your baby,” I repeat, though I silently admit that what she’s asking for is better than the alternative. If I had a choice, I’d remove her baby from her care. “Our goal is always to help you take care of her yourself. We’re here to help you get on your feet, to get clean and be able to provide her with a safe home.”

I turn toward the door with my arms filled with folders and my handbag, and I take a step away to leave, but a strong hand comes down on my arm with painful precision. My eyes snap back to Shari’s, and the desperation in them physically hurts me.

“I’m asking you to adopt my baby, Samantha. I’m asking you to take care of her.” Shari’s nails bite into my skin so hard I know there will be bruises later. “I’m not asking for the state, I’m asking for you. Get the papers ready or whatever you gotta do, I’ll sign her over.”

Shari releases me with a shove so strong, you’d never believe it was the underweight junkie in a hospital bed who did it. I stumble a few feet away, catching myself on a counter lining the wall seconds before I fall. My eyes meet the nurse as she stands at the entrance in shock. I take one last quick peek at Shari, back to pathetically sad instead of the possessed woman from a moment ago, then I turn on my heel and bolt without another word.