15. Samantha
15
SAMANTHA
S am enjoyed the cozy quiet of Wolf’s house. The familiar dialogue of Miracle on 34 th Street washed over her as her little sister slept on her shoulder, a warm blanket across their laps.
Sam was used to putting Amelia to bed and then frantically trying to do a little cooking and cleaning to get a head start on the next day.
But here at Wolf and Ezra’s house, there was nothing to do but enjoy one of their favorite Christmas movies and the idea that they were starting to feel at home in their new life, and the new people in it.
He’s probably going back to the city, she warned herself. Wolf and Ezra won’t be part of our new life.
She had been on the phone with a couple of her old colleagues to brainstorm. But Wolf was right—there wasn’t much need for a pilot in farm country—not unless someone opened a private airfield nearby with people who wanted flying lessons. As great as that idea sounded, she doubted it would really be a booming business in Tarker County.
Most of the other good jobs out this way would require way more education, or the ability to invest in land and equipment. Sure, with his experience growing up here, Wolf could get work as a hand on any of the local farms. But if he wanted to provide the kind of lifestyle he’d been planning on, there was no way that was going to happen for him in Trinity Falls unless she came up with a miracle.
The sound of a car parking out front pulled her out of her worries. She grabbed a cushion and eased it under Amelia as she slipped out from her spot.
The little girl settled onto the cushion and kept right on sleeping. They’d had a busy day, so Sam wasn’t surprised. She resisted the impulse to kiss Amelia’s forehead. It would be nicer for both of them if she didn’t wake her until it was time to go home. That way Amelia could rest and Sam could catch Wolf up on Ezra’s evening.
It occurred to her suddenly that Wolf had probably been drinking. People in town called the local tavern the Barrel because of the sign out front in the shape of a wooden barrel. Though you could go there for burgers, and plenty of people did, she was told that it was also the spot where young men went to drink, shoot pool, and throw darts.
And pick up women?
She pushed that thought aside. It wouldn’t do anyone any good.
And she sincerely doubted Wolf would be anything but a gentleman whether he had been drinking or not. But she was secretly glad Amelia was sleeping. Her sister was very observant, and she wouldn’t want to have to explain it if he was a little tipsy.
Footsteps on the porch stairs told her that it was definitely Wolf coming home. She found herself running her fingers through her hair and shook her head at her own foolishness.
The front door opened slowly, and Wolf stepped inside.
She was always thrown for a moment when she saw him again after a few days or even hours apart. His wide shoulders always seemed even wider, and his handsome face more handsome than before.
“Hi,” she whispered.
“Hey,” he said, smiling warmly at her, his eyes bright and clear.
“You’re not drunk,” she realized out loud, then covered her mouth with her hand.
“I had to drive,” he said, shaking his head and smiling like he thought it was pretty funny that she would think he might get drunk. “And I have a baby at home. I had a Coke and a hamburger.”
“Right,” she said, nodding and feeling her cheeks heat. “Right. I wrote down Ezra’s schedule tonight, if you want to see it?”
“Sure,” he said, following her back to the kitchen.
She grabbed the piece of notebook paper that had her list of everything to do with his boy and handed it to him.
“Wow, you gave him a bath?” Wolf asked, sounding impressed.
“Of course,” she told him. “He had a big day. We figured it would help him relax. Amelia used to get fitful if she missed a nap. A warm bath helps.”
“You two are amazing,” Wolf said. “I really appreciate this.”
“It’s our pleasure,” she told him, handing him the baby monitor. “It was so nice to curl up and watch our movie here.”
“You can finish it, if you want,” Wolf told her, clipping the monitor to his jeans. “I’ve got to do a few things around here before I settle in anyway.”
“Oh no,” Sam said right away. “We’ve seen this one a million times. And Amelia’s not really watching anyway.”
“Ezra wasn’t the only one that wore themselves out today, huh?” Wolf asked with a crooked half-smile. “Seems like she’s really taking to Trinity Falls.”
“Except for school,” Sam said, frowning. “I mean, she likes the kids and her teacher. She’s been hanging out with Nick and Justin. But she really doesn’t want to do her project for some reason. I thought all second graders loved a big project. I tried talking to her about it tonight, but she just shut down on me.”
“She’ll love it once she gets into it,” Wolf predicted. “It probably just seems like a lot of work.”
Sam nodded. But she wasn’t sure that was right. Amelia wasn’t afraid to roll her sleeves up and tackle new things. And she loved the library and doing any kind of research.
But Sam wasn’t going to figure it out now. She decided to focus on Wolf instead. He had just seen some of his friends, and he looked kind of pensive now that she thought about it.
“How was it seeing everyone?” she asked gently.
“Good,” he said, nodding with that thoughtful expression still on his face. “Thanks for making it happen.”
Well, he didn’t have to tell her how he was feeling. She wasn’t his girlfriend. And besides, she got the sense that a lot of the veterans she worked with had a hard time articulating how hard the transition was between service and coming home. It was good for them to spend time together—at least they all understood, more or less, the kinds of things that the others were going through. That had to be worth something.
“Hey, do you have a sec?” Wolf asked suddenly.
“Sure,” she told him.
“Grab your coat,” he told her.
She followed him back through the dining room and living room, taking her coat off the hook by the door and slipping it on.
Wolf opened the front door, letting in a swirl of cold, sweet night air.
She followed him out onto the porch, where he stood by the railing, looking out over Oberlin Avenue.
A light snow had fallen earlier in the evening, frosting the houses, lawns, and sidewalks with a shimmering layer of delicate white so thin it was almost transparent. Every other house on the block was hung with Christmas lights so that even in the darkness of night, the whole street seemed to glow.
It was such a magical sight. Sam floated up to the railing to join Wolf as he took in the peaceful view.
“It’s beautiful,” she breathed.
“So beautiful,” he whispered.
But when she turned back to him, she saw his eyes weren’t on the snow globe all around them. They were on her.
She wondered suddenly if he was going to try and kiss her again. Happiness filled her chest at the thought of a second chance.
I won’t pull back this time…
But he straightened and cleared his throat.
“I guess we ought to get going,” she said too brightly, hoping to cover her disappointment. “Thank you for bringing me out here. When I’ve got Amelia up, she’ll probably be talking a mile a minute about today and we won’t even notice our surroundings.”
She stopped, realizing she was talking quite a bit herself.
What is wrong with me?
Wolf chuckled and opened the door for her.
Thankfully, Amelia woke cheerfully enough, even though she was still very sleepy. They gathered their things, bundled up, and Wolf walked them both out to the porch.
“It’s so pretty,” Amelia yawned, looking around with satisfaction.
When they reached the corner, Amelia turned around to look back at the house.
“Ezra’s house is the only one without any lights,” Amelia said sadly.
Sam turned back to see that her sister was right. Though the glow from the windows was cozy enough.
“Wolf has a lot to do right now with a new baby,” Sam said.
“They’ll have lights next year,” Amelia decided. “The prettiest ones on the block.”
Sam felt a pang at the idea that Wolf and Ezra might have been back in the city for most of a year by next Christmas.
“Hey, today was fun, wasn’t it?” she asked her sister.
“I like that town Christmas thingie,” Amelia said. “It’s like a block party.”
“It is like a block party,” Sam agreed with a smile. “I didn’t really think about it that way.”
Back in their city neighborhood, the street had been shut down for a day every summer. Kids rode bikes and played in the street while the adults grilled burgers and dogs and set out plastic tables with bowls of fruit salad, coleslaw, and all the fixings.
The Hometown Holiday celebration had obviously required a lot more planning than the simple parties they were used to, and there were so many more things to do and see. But it managed to retain the same relaxed sense of neighbors happily enjoying each other’s company that they both remembered fondly.
“I wonder if they do that kind of stuff in the summertime,” Amelia said.
“I think there’s a big Fourth of July parade,” Sam told her. “I guess we’ll see.”
They reached the door that led up to their apartment over the hairdresser’s shop. Sam unlocked it and Amelia darted up the stairs in front of her, as usual.
“ Oh ,” the little girl said when she got to the top, sounding very surprised and more than a little excited.
Sam joined her on the landing outside their apartment and saw what had her sister so worked up.
A small Christmas tree, wrapped in netting, leaned on the wall next to their front door. There was even a stand with it, and a note hanging from the tree said, Merry Christmas Amelia & Samantha! From: Ezra & Wolf
Sam felt tears prickle her eyes, and the idea that she didn’t want her sister to see her crying made her want to cry all the more.
It wasn’t just that Wolf had done something kind for them. It was that he had done something that meant so much to Amelia—something that showed he had been paying attention, and wanted to help without judgement.
Kind of like we’ve been helping him, she had to admit to herself.
“We can get this in the door,” Amelia squeaked, jumping up and down a little with excitement. “It’s not too big, right, Sam?”
“No,” Sam told her, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. “I think it’s just right. It was so nice of Wolf to do this for us. He found us the perfect little tree.”
“And it smells so good, ” Amelia squealed.
“Let me get the door open and we’ll get it inside,” Sam told her.
Half an hour later, after much excitement, the little tree stood in its stand in a place of honor by the windows that overlooked Park Avenue.
“We can decorate it,” Amelia yelled. “And then everyone will be able to see it from outside, too . Can we decorate it now?”
“For tonight, the branches need to rest and relax into place,” Sam told her. “When a tree has been wrapped and moved you always have to give it a day. But maybe tomorrow night we’ll decorate it.”
“Okay,” Amelia said a little sadly.
“It’s still very pretty just like this,” Sam said, smiling at her sister.
“It is ,” Amelia agreed, skipping over to visit the tree again.
“We need to get ready for bed now,” Sam told her. “So just say goodnight to the tree for a second and we’ll go get your bath ready.”
“Okay,” Amelia said, her eyes on the tree.
An hour later, Sam found herself curled up on the sofa, gazing at the sweet little tree.
Amelia had gone to bed with a smile on her face. Sam hadn’t had the heart to remind her that they would need to work on her project tomorrow.
The whole apartment smelled like Christmas now, and though Sam had a library book in her hands, she couldn’t seem to stop looking at the little evergreen and thinking about the friendship it represented.
He’s so good with Amelia and he’s so kind to us both. How could I close the door on the idea of something more?
But he was almost certainly going back to the city. She knew to her bones that he wouldn’t sacrifice what he felt he owed to Ezra just to stay out here.
We could go back to the city, too. Maybe Amelia would feel more at home there.
But the idea of leaving this little paradise, where her sister seemed to be thriving, hurt Sam’s heart. And she knew it would be wrong to leave Captain Anderson when he had taken a chance on her, and when she had work that was fulfilling and paid enough for them to live modestly.
“Sam?” a soft little voice whispered.
“Hey,” Sam said, opening her arms to her sister. Amelia still had nightmares sometimes. There were plenty of nights when they had a sleepover in Sam’s bed. She figured Amelia would grow out of it one day, but for now she had no issue giving her sister as much comfort as she needed.
“I’m sorry about my project,” Amelia said, snuggling into Sam’s arms.
“It’s okay,” Sam told her. “Is it the subject? Your teacher said you can still change it.”
“What if I have a seizure in front of everyone during my presentation?” Amelia said suddenly. “They’ll all think I’m stupid.”
Oh.
“You’re obviously not stupid,” Sam began.
“But they don’t know that,” Amelia said before she could continue. “They’ll think I’m weird.”
“So, you don’t want to present your project in front of the class because you’re worried that you’ll have a seizure, and the kids will think it’s weird,” Sam said.
The child psychologist back in the city had warned her that Amelia might have all kinds of fears after losing their parents. She said it was important for Sam to honor those fears by restating them when Amelia spoke about them, so she would know Sam was listening.
This had nothing to do with their parents, but Sam was grateful for the tactic when she saw her sister’s face relax a little as she nodded.
“And you know that you’re not stupid or weird, right?” Sam asked.
Amelia nodded, her eyes serious.
“That’s good,” Sam told her with a smile. “Thank you for telling me how you feel about this. That was really brave.”
Amelia knew Sam had experienced seizures when she was younger too. She must have worried that telling Sam would be a little bit like saying people had thought Sam was weird or stupid when she was a kid. It was almost certainly why it had taken her so long to talk about it.
“Well, as far as I can see, you have four choices,” Sam told her. “Do you want to hear about them?”
Amelia nodded, sitting up straight like she was ready to get serious about this problem.
“Okay, choice number one is to just do the project,” Sam said. “You’d face your fear and either you would have a seizure or you wouldn’t. If you had one you’d explain, and if not you’d move on.
“Okay,” Amelia said.
“Choice number two is you refuse to do the work,” Sam said. “You don’t tell the teacher why you didn’t do your project and you get a zero.”
“I don’t like that one,” Amelia said.
“Me neither,” Sam told her, and bit her tongue about the fact that Amelia had been about to make that exact choice just by not making a choice at all.
“Choice number three is that I go in and talk to the teacher,” Sam said. “I would remind her that you have CAE, and tell her that we don’t want you to have to give any presentations. The school would probably have to agree since CAE is a disability and giving a written presentation instead of giving one out loud is called a reasonable accommodation. ”
“That sounds good,” Amelia said.
“It does,” Sam said. “For now. But do you know what I think?”
Amelia shook her head.
“I think you’re really great at speaking in front of people,” Sam told her. “Remember last weekend when you told funny stories at the Cassidy house? And everyone laughed?”
Amelia nodded, smiling.
“And you always get my attention when you tell me about your day,” Sam went on. “I think it would be really good for you to get even better at public speaking. And you can only do that by practicing in front of people.”
“So, I have to go back to choice number one,” Amelia said, looking uncomfortable.
“Well, there’s one more choice, I think,” Sam told her. “You could change your whole topic to CAE. And you could tell your class all about it as your presentation. That way, from now on, they would know what’s going on if you have a seizure. And no one will think you’re weird.”
Amelia frowned, but she didn’t say no.
“I think your teacher would be really proud of you if you did that,” Sam told her. “And I know I would be really proud.”
“Would you come too?” Amelia asked in a small voice. “For my presentation?”
“I’ll bet your teacher would be just fine with that,” Sam told her. “And it would be super fun to come and see you talk to your class. I would love to do that.”
Suddenly Amelia was wrapping her arms around her sister and hugging her hard.
“Can we restart my project tomorrow?” Amelia asked excitedly. “And practice it? Maybe I can bring in the video about CAE that Dr. Trimley gave us.”
As Amelia launched into the kind of happy brainstorming Sam expected from her when she found out that she had a fun project to do, something unlocked in her chest.
She was doing something right when it came to Amelia. And if that meant some sacrifices in other areas in her life that was just fine. They were more than enough for each other.
All of this must be for the best, she told herself. It has to be…