– Sammy –
Making a deal with the devil…
I gently place Lily down on the large king-sized bed that I assume is Sam’s, and back out of the room quietly. I didn’t realize last night that this apartment was above a workshop. It was all quiet and locked up when I drove around in the dark, but the thrown wrenches and shouted curses reverberating up through the floors today has turned me into an anxious mess. I don’t dare breathe as I back away from her sleeping body. Reaching the short hallway, I close the bedroom door most of the way and turn and walk away. Twelve noon feeding is done, one o’clock nap has begun.
I walk into Sam’s tidy kitchen, noting everything is put away where it goes, but the coffee and sugar sit out, with coffee granules littering the dark counter. I peek in his cupboards, looking at his mugs and smiling at the silly designs. I doubt he bought these himself, so maybe someone else did.
My smile turns flat at the thought.
Only a girl would buy a mug the shape of a chicken playing a guitar. It looks so ridiculously impractical, I doubt it’s ever been used. But he has it anyway.
Thirteen years is a long time, and the changes are so blinding it hurts my stomach. I don’t think I ever saw him drink coffee before. Or energy drinks. We were teenagers. We had energy already, we didn’t need artificial help. But now the coffee litters his counter, and the empty energy drink cans overflow his trash can. My walk through his living room showed a giant flat screen TV and a lumpy recliner lounge for one. No one else is invited.
Half a dozen guitars of varying designs stand in the far corner near the television, yet none of them are the guitar he so lovingly played when we were younger.
He let me draw on that one way back when. We sat at the lake on the grass, under a large weeping willow while he sang softly and wrote music, and I took out my sharpies and drew on his guitar. I was drawing neatly, I didn’t write anything obscene or silly, and he insisted, and yet I still felt guilty for defiling such a beautiful instrument.
Suddenly mourning an inanimate object, I turn away and swipe away a sneaky tear. I don’t know why I stayed here after he left this morning. I could argue that I didn’t want to accidentally lock him out in case he forgot his keys, but that’s a lie. The fact is, I’m just not ready to leave. I’m in no particular rush for him to come back either, because this new, grown up Sam just isn’t very nice, and I don’t relish the idea of him yelling at me anymore, but at the same time, I feel like a drug addict who’s been clean for thirteen years. I’ve just been locked in an inescapable room with my drug of choice laid out, and I’ve been given permission to sample – even though we all know it’s going to hurt me in the long run.
Saved from my own torment, the sound of heavy shoes thud on the outside stairs. I’m frozen with indecision; run to the door to silence the visitors, or run to Lily and close her door and be ready with instant shushes to calm her if they wake her?
Sam and Angelo emerge through the still open door, silent and brooding as they stare at me, and I stand like a deer stuck in their headlights. Sam glares at me hard, his teeth grinding together the way they weren’t half a second ago. Angelo’s surprise at my still being here turns to a kind smile as he claps Sam on the shoulder and moves past him and into the kitchen. He walks to the fridge barely three feet from me, and swinging it open, I grit my own teeth in preparation for Lily waking at his noisiness.
“Soda, Soda?” He grins at me, like his joke is so clever, but I just shake my head.
“No thanks.”
“Where’s my Squeak?”
“She’s asleep.” My eyes move to Sam’s as he continues to watch me. “I hope you don’t mind. I just laid her down on your bed.”
“You went in my room?”
I swallow away the lump in my throat. “I didn’t poke around or anything. I just put her down and came out again. It’s the quietest side of the apartment away from the noise down stairs.”
He snaps out the smallest nod.
“I’ll tell the guys to shut up when I go back down,” Angelo says.
“Down?”
“That’s my shop. Those are my boys. I’ll tell them to cool it.”
“No, it’s okay. You don’t have to do that.” I really wish it wasn’t rude for me to accept his offer. Every noise from downstairs sends a fresh wave of sickening anxiety through my stomach. I’m so sleep deprived, even the smallest noise has me feeling sick. “She’s fine. She’s sleeping now, so it’s fine.”
Angelo nods gently, watching me with curious eyes. “Wanna take a seat? Catch up? It’s been a long time, Soda.”
My eyes snap to Sam’s again. His jaw is so much more chiseled than I remember. Squarer. Less friendly. “Um…”
“I can leave,” Angelo offers on second thought. “But someone has to talk. You two need to work this shit out. I was just offering to be mediator.”
“We got it,” Sam answers abruptly. “Go do some work. Check in in a couple hours.”
Angelo nods and takes a step toward the door with a can in his hand. “Alright… I’ll be back.”
“Mom.”
Angelo nods at Sam’s cryptically rumbled word. “Yeah. Mom. Got it. See you later, Soda. Bring that baby downstairs to see me when she wakes. I already kinda miss the stinker.” He grins boyishly. “I can hear her from here.”
I smile even as I fight it, because I can hear her too. Her throat issues were scary at first, but now it’s almost comforting. I never have to wonder if she’s breathing. I never have to stop breathing myself or lay my head on her chest to make sure she’s okay. She can be heard squeaking from the next room. Silver linings. “Okay.”
He winks charmingly, then turning on his heel, he heads out quickly. Sam and I stand silently in the kitchen for a long time, awkwardly pretending the other person isn’t here. This is why Angelo should’ve stayed. At least someone was speaking then.
I look at my boots and bite my lip for a long time, shuffling my feet and fussing with the loops on my belt, and I think about the millions of hours Sam and I spent alone when we were younger. Not only didn’t we need an intermediary, but our relationship was built on quiet mornings together at the lake. We craved our alone time. We planned our lives out and we kissed and touched in the shadows.
“Alright.” He stomps around the kitchen loudly. He digs around in cupboards above his fridge, then pulling out a yellow legal pad and pens, he noisily drops them onto the table. “What do you need from me, Samantha? Put it all out there. I’m not a dumbass. I know adoption means home studies, psych evals, financials, criminal. I know they’ll wanna interview us both, so put it all in writing for me.”
I nod shyly. He’s right. This is smart. I walk to the table, and taking the pen, I lean forward and start writing out appointments I have to attend over the next two months. He stands nearby, but maintains a couple of feet between us. He coughs gruffly, turning away every minute or so, but every time I move, he turns back. I take my cell from my back pocket, unlocking it and opening the calendar app, then I write more dates down. “Do you want pediatrician appointments too?”
He nods sharply. “Put it all down.”
I nod and start listing all the extra dates. He frowns as he gets closer. “How often does she have to go to the doctors?”
I shrug. “Often enough. She was an unwell baby, so we have some stuff we have to take care of--”
“She was? She’s still a baby.”
“Yes. I just meant… never mind.”
“How old is she?”
“Three months. Thereabouts.”
His eyes snap back up to mine. “Three months? I expected you to tell me three days, not months.”
I shake my head softly. “No, she was born premature. She’s still really small, but she’s catching up fast.”
“Why was she born so early?”
“Her mom was a homeless addict. Life beat her down and she went into labor early.”
“Her mom was an addict? So Lily--”
“Was born addicted also. She went through withdrawals in hospital.”
“Jesus.” He scrubs his hands through his hair, stepping away from the table and pacing across the far side of the kitchen. “That itty bitty thing has already had to fight that hard?”
I smile. “Yeah, but she’s a fighter. She’s a survivor.”
His eyes flare quickly, but snuffing the flame, he turns his gaze away. “Okay, keep going. Write everything down.”
“My apartment has a spare room, so if you want to stay there, you can. Or there are nice hotels really close, so if you’d prefer that, that’s okay too. I’ll take care of the expenses.”
He turns back slowly, glaring at me again. “Why would I need a hotel? Or a room in your apartment.”
“Because we’re pretending to be a happy family. Happy families at least appear to be living together.”
“So you can stay here,” he snaps.
My eyes come up to his in shock. “What?”
“Stay here in town. You had your chance back in high school, Samantha. I would have gone anywhere for you, but you threw that away. Now, I’m not going anywhere. Not a single fucking block. You want my help, you’re coming to me.”
“Sam--”
He shrugs carelessly. “I guess you’ve got decisions to make.”
“But I have an apartment in the city. And my job. And--”
“And I have an apartment here. And a job. And a family. You’re delusional if you think I’m leaving them for you.”
I sit down heavily in the kitchen chair, and drop my face into my hands. I scratch my nails over my scalp in an attempt to calm the shakes rushing through my body. “Okay.”
“We have pediatricians here. We have courthouses. We have everything you need, and anything we don’t, the city’s only an hour away. You can find everything else there.”
“Yeah, I know. I live in the city.”
Sam’s chest fills to bursting point as he stops and glares at me. “You live in the city an hour away from here?”
I nod my head.
“Since when?”
“Since a couple weeks after I last saw you.”
He breathes heavily through his teeth, his jaw clenches and grinds, and his hands flex. “You’ve been living an hour away this whole time?”
I nod again.
Sam turns and slams an open cupboard door. “I fucking hate you, Samantha. I hate you with every cell in my body and I wish I never met you.”
His words cut me to the quick. But Lily’s squeaking in the distance reminds me why I’m doing this. I look away from him before the moisture in my eyes turn to full tears and fall.
“You never marked the city on your map.”
I shrug. If I speak, my voice will crack.
“I’m not leaving this town, Samantha. I’m not leaving my apartment. My life went on without you, and you missed it all. My sister is married and has a kid now, and my brother is newly engaged. You are nothing but a traitorous thieving bitch with no care for anyone’s feelings but your own. I have a spare room here. Use it. Don’t. I don’t fucking care, but don’t speak to me unless you absolutely have to. I’ll see you at our appointments, but other than that, I hope not to see you at all. Set your watch, because in two months from now, I wanna see your back for the last time, and I won’t be crying over your shitty goodbyes again.”
He snatches the list of dates from beneath my elbow, then scrunching it up and shoving it in his pocket, he storms from the kitchen and slams the door loudly behind him.
That’s three for three now. Three times we’ve met and talked in the last twenty-four hours. And three times Sam has yelled at me and stormed out.
It doesn’t hurt any less each time it happens.
If anything, it hurts more.