Chapter 37 Peggy
They open the door.
I have had talks with the doctor, with the whole discharge team. They were kind and patient. Told me this is not the end of my recovery, of my care, that it will continue, that I have managed well. We talked more about medication and how I can get in touch if I need extra help.
I walk up to the door.
I step through it.
Fatima is still in the other hospital, the private one, the overspill. I never had a chance to say goodbye to her. To thank her for helping me through those early days.
They are here.
He runs to me.
I drop my bag on the floor and open my arms, the way I did when he was small, and he leaps into my embrace. I smell him, bring him in tighter, wrap myself around him, squeezing his frame.
“My boy. Oh, my boy.”
He will not ease up. His slender arms are tight around my neck.
My heart swells.
The scent of his hair. The mole on the back of his right ear. The sharpness of his shoulders.
Drew comes over and takes my bag.
“All right, Peggy?”
I wipe my eyes. “I am now.”
The outer doors open. We walk out of the building, people watching. There is a taxicab waiting with its engine idling.
Drew opens the back door of the cab.
“What’s this?”
“It’s for you. For all of us. I booked it.”
I shake my head and smile and peer over at Sammy. He looks so proud. Drew places my bags in the trunk and we climb in and drive away. I glance back out of the rear window at the hospital. The wire fence. The missing pine tree. All the signposts.
I breathe.
A blur of a journey.
The cab slows and pulls over. We climb out and pay and then we walk down through the woods.
How would this look? Stopping a cab in the middle of nowhere, no marker or crossing, no sign that this point signifies home, no address or zip code to speak of, and then walking down through trees and scrubby brambles.
The unfamiliar route is well-trodden. Samson’s footprints. Broken twigs and a rotting carton of milk. Some missing child’s face, faded.
The boat looks the same. Drew has maintained it, repaired the entrance cover, replaced one of the old mooring ropes.
“Welcome home, Mom.”
I had to be smart to get out of that place. Smart and patient and strategic. I will do the same to get out of this place, when the time is right, when it is safe to do so.
The two of us.
I stroke Sammy’s hair and the sensation of having him so close, so available, is indescribable.
The boat is cool. Drew takes coal from the scuttle with his bare hands and builds up the fire. He blows and tends to it.
“I missed you so much,” I say to Sammy. “It is wonderful to be home.”
“We missed a woman’s touch around here,” says Drew, wiping coal dust hands on his jeans. “Not the same just us, is it, boy?”
“Definitely not,” says Sammy, grinning, his eyes sparkling.
“A few things have changed since you left. We’ve been low on cash what with one thing or another, so we’ve been stuck here a fair time.
No fuel in the tank. Means we’re out of propane and we can’t fill up the water.
No hot water, either, of course, no electric.
But I’ve found some windfall branches farther up the embankment.
It’ll work well once they’ve dried out. Woodstove’s been keeping us going, hasn’t it, Sammy? ”
“It’s been all right,” he says, quietly.
“Payday on Friday. I’ll get some diesel in.”
I look around. There is appallingly little food. Three large water bottles and a six-pack of ravioli on the countertop. A small cup on the table full of perfect, still-tight snowdrops.
“Those are lovely,” I say.
“Boy’s idea.”
“I’ll have my book money come through soon,” I say. “Then we can fill up propane; get a new fridge in, maybe.”
Rather, I can plan our escape.
Drew stiffens and looks out of the window.
“You’re the breadwinner, love, I know that,” I say, biting my lip. “Always will be. It’s just a top-up is all. A slice of good luck.”
He doesn’t shift his gaze; he just nods ever so slightly.
“You must have been mixing with all sorts in that place,” he says. “I saw some of them coming and going. Looked like the gates of hell, that hospital. Folks babbling and groaning. Spaced out their heads. Bedlam. Don’t know how you put up with it, Peg.”
“I didn’t have much choice.”
“Perhaps not.”
I frown. I can’t hold it back. “Drew, you know I didn’t. I wasn’t allowed out.”
“Boy missed you something terrible.”
My eyelid twitches. “What are you saying, exactly?”
“Been a long time is what I’m saying. We coped, though, didn’t we, Samson?”
Sammy nods. He looks uncomfortable between us.
“You settle in, then,” says Drew. “I’ll make coffee.”
I walk through the kitchen, past the dinette, and pause by the sliding door to the bathroom. My blood chills in my veins. I drag it open. The sink. The cassette toilet. The bath, now full of tools and old rope. I close the door.
When the money comes through I will be able to look after Sammy. I will have some autonomy at long last. Stage one of the exit plan.
Sammy comes in.
“It’s great to have you back here. Did you get my notes? The white mice?”
I sit down on the bed and bring him close to me. “They kept me going. You write beautifully, Sammy, just like your father. Thank you, my love.”
He blushes. “It’s all right.”
“Did you get my letters?” I ask.
“Your letters?”
I stare at him.
Tightness in my chest.
“I sent them to your father at the scrapyard office.” I pause. “He never told you, did he?”
Sammy looks away and shakes his head.
I breathe deeply. Slowly. Exactly like I have been shown. “He never even mentioned them?”
“No, Mom.”
“I’m going to make it all OK, Sammy.”
Sammy frowns.
Drew shouts through, “Coffee’s gettin’ cold.”
The fire is blazing hot, vents open, burning ferociously.
Ramen noodles with lots of cracked black pepper. The snowdrops are in the center of the dinette table, the exact location of my son’s heart each night when he falls asleep.
“This is cozy,” I say.
We eat in silence.
I do the dishes, careful not to use too much of what precious water we have.
“How’s school?”
Sammy puts down his Walkman and joins me, picking up a dish towel to dry the plates.
“Not bad, really. Dad taught me a few tricks. Simple stuff. Body language, not backing down, not looking like an easy target. Sounds dumb saying it out loud, don’t know why I didn’t do it years ago. It’s getting better.”
“I wish those bullies would pick on someone their own size,” I say. “They’re cowards.”
He dries the cutlery.
“Dad helped me. It’s better now.”
He converts the dinette to form his bed. We read together by the fire. Drew tells me he is approaching act three of his book, the final third, and he must not stop, must not lose momentum.
I tuck Sammy in. I do not rush it; I take my time like the old days.
I perch on his bed and tell him about Christmas in the hospital and he tells me about what Drew cooked for him.
He talks about Phoenix on the next boat and how he might buy himself a leather jacket on layaway when he is older.
He sits up and we hug and I breathe him in.
“Night, my boy. I love you.”
“Night, Mom.”
Drew shaves his head and gets to work.