Walking Through Needles

by Heather Levy

  The doctor opened her mouth and her smile dropped some. “Sam, I’m going to ask you something, and I want you to feel safe telling me the truth.” She gave Sam’s hand another little squeeze. “Has your boyfriend ever done anything that made you uncomfortable? Something that you didn’t want to do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Dr. Tohtsoni searched Sam’s face. “Has he ever forced you to have sex with him?”

  Sam turned her head and gazed out the window. The sky was gray and rain sprinkled soft and persistent against the glass. She watched the thousands of tiny diamonds hovering, quivering a moment before crying down the large pane—perfect weather for sitting with a cup of cocoa and a good book.

  “Sam, it’s safe to tell me.”

  No, it wasn’t. Isaac would find out and bad things would happen. He told her so. If anyone found out, she’d be taken away from her family, Arrow too—all because of her.

  The doctor touched Sam’s shoulder. “Can you tell me how you got the marks on your back?”

  Sam shut her eyes. She wouldn’t get upset, she wouldn’t. She had to be strong and say what she needed to say. She had to keep everyone safe.

  She turned her head back to the doctor. “I fell off the ladder in our barn.”

  The doctor smiled a little, and Sam knew she didn’t believe her. “Well, you’re very lucky neither of you were hurt.”

  Neither?

  “We had to remove your morphine drip once we knew,” Dr. Tohtsoni said, her dark eyes mirrors of Sam’s, “but your baby’s going to be fine.”

  The world grew dark around the edges and a faint ringing started in Sam’s ears.

  “Baby?”

  The doctor seemed to catch on to her surprise.

  “You’re pregnant. About eight or nine weeks along.”

  Fuck.

  Eight or nine weeks along…several weeks before Isaac came to her. Thank God. Dread quickly replaced her relief when she thought of Isaac finding out.

  “Does my family know?”

  “No, they don’t know yet.”

  Sam grabbed the doctor’s arm and knew she probably looked insane as fear washed over her. If her family found out, Isaac would know about her being with Arrow, and he’d do something horrible. A burst of terror streaked through her chest as she pictured Isaac beating Arrow to death.

  “Please don’t tell them. Please.”

  Dr. Tohtsoni’s mouth grew serious. “Minors do have certain privacy rights, Sam. However, I highly urge you to talk with your family about this so they can help you. You’ll need prenatal care.”

  If she kept the baby, there’d be no college scholarships, no leaving Blanchard. “What if I don’t want to keep it?”

  The doctor let go of Sam’s hand like she was suddenly contagious.

  “We’ll give you some information, but I hope you look at all options. There’s adoption, for one. But, if not with your family, you should talk with someone you trust. Maybe someone at church, like a pastor.”

  Yeah right. Sam imagined Pastor Doss going straight to her mama with the news. God, her mama—what would she say? She rubbed her stomach. She thought of Isaac again and a tremor passed through her.

  No one could find out. Ever.

  “Sam?”

  She looked up at the doctor.

  Your boyfriend—if you want to press charges, we can help you.”

  Sam stayed silent.

  “You have to start protecting yourself. Not just for you but for your child.”

  My child. She touched her stomach again. Arrow’s child.

  Chapter 25: Arrow, 1994

  Arrow couldn’t wait for Sam to come back home. Jeri told him she’d be in the hospital for at least two more days. She might as well have told him two weeks.

  Maybe if anyone had told him what was wrong with Sam he could focus at school and not be so anxious that he couldn’t eat his lunch. All Grandma Haylin would tell him was Sam was sick and was getting better now. Jeri wouldn’t talk to him, and he didn’t understand why. They wouldn’t even let him visit Sam, like he was a little kid who wouldn’t be able to handle it. She couldn’t be worse off than his mom had been when her cancer took over. He had a sudden thought of Sam with no hair, shriveled up to nothing in a hospital bed and he shivered.He went to the barn to check on the goats’ water. It wasn’t cold enough for a freeze, but the animals stirred more when the temperature dropped, constantly kicking over their troughs. He smelled pot smoke as soon as he walked in and wanted to turn right back around. As far as he knew, his father never smoked weed during the day, but Arrow recognized the smell coming from the loft.

  “Son,” his dad called out.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Get up here.”

  Arrow thought of his pocketknife tucked away in his dresser drawer. He wished he had it with him.

  He climbed the ladder, bracing for whatever his dad might try to do. His dad was lounging by the loft window, the heart and initials Arrow had carved with Sam framed by his bent knees.

  Arrow crouched over to him and found a spot to sit. The smell of alcohol almost knocked him backwards. His dad took a hit from the joint and offered it to him.

  “Well, take the damn thing,” his father slurred, pushing the joint into Arrow’s hand.

  He pinched what was left of the joint and took a light hit, holding the smoke in his mouth, not his lungs, before releasing it. His dad looked high enough for the both of them.

  “Bet you’re ready for Sam to come back home.” He glanced at Arrow before taking another long toke that killed the joint.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You miss her?”

  No point of lying. “Yes, sir.”

  His father shook his head and leered. “Yeah, I know exactly what you miss.”

  Arrow knew it was coming, something bad. He just knew it and he looked over to the top of the ladder, calculated how fast he could get down.

  “She’s not like most girls, that’s for damn sure,” his dad said. “She’s got a good head on her, not like half the dipshits in this town. And she knows when to keep her mouth shut and listen when she’s supposed to.”

  Arrow wanted to yell at his father that Sam hated him, feared him like Meredith had, but he pressed his lips tight until his jaw hurt.

  His father huffed out a drunk sigh, his hand over his chest as if it hurt him to breathe. “You really don’t know her, how she is, do you?”

  “I know how you are.”

  Arrow flinched, expecting his dad to take a swing at him, but his dad laughed instead. The goats moved below, riled up.

  “You know why she’s in the hospital?”

  Arrow shook his head.

  “She’s sick because of me. I took her down to Maddie’s old stall,” he drew out, his face dead serious. “I took her there and I tied her up like an animal.”

  Arrow didn’t want to hear this and he scooted back from his dad. His father grabbed his ankle.

  “She passed out after an hour. I couldn’t believe she lasted that long.” He kept his grip on Arrow as his face collapsed, his body folded over. “Oh, Jesus—Jesus Christ, I did that.”

  Arrow stared at his father, shocked. He couldn’t erase what his father said, couldn’t process it. The words sat in his stomach, churning hate and confusion.

  “Why?” he whispered.

  His dad lifted his head from his arm and stared at Arrow, tears rolling down his face. He looked lost and tortured, like the illustrations of damned souls in the children’s Bible Jeri had given him.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Stop doing it.” Arrow’s voice cracked with anger, with tears he failed to fight back. “Just stop and leave her alone.”

  His dad reached out to him, held the back of his neck, pulled Arrow to him until he curled against his chest. Feeling his father’s arms around him, hugging him, siphoned off any power in him, and he cried, his body shaking from it. Arr
ow pressed his face into his dad’s work shirt until he calmed down some.

  “Just stop, please, just stop.” Just be normal, he wanted to shout. Be normal, be normal.

  “I want to. Sometimes, I do, but...”

  His father shook his head as though he were trying to shake out the demons hiding there.

  Arrow imagined a younger version of his dad, before his last deployment and returning home, the half-dead glaze to his eyes that only got worse when Arrow’s mom became ill.

  “She needs me as much as I need her. I help her.”

  Arrow lifted his head from his dad’s shoulder, hoping he misheard his father.

  “We went too far this time, is all.”

  Meredith covered in blood flashed in Arrow’s mind.

  “Sam knows what she wants. She’s strong.”

  The fervor in his father’s eyes, like Jeri’s when she spoke about Jesus forgiving all sinners, dying for them—he knew his dad really believed Sam enjoyed what he did and that scared him more than anything.

  He let go of his father and crawled backwards to the ladder.

  He ran back to the house, but where he wanted to run was to the hospital, to Sam, to tell her it wouldn’t end, he knew it now. It wouldn’t end until he made it end or died trying.

  Chapter 26: Sam, 2009

  Sam looked away from her mom’s puffy, powdered face, the face she got after crying and trying to hide it with makeup. She wished she hadn’t suggested meeting her mama halfway to Blanchard at an IHOP during her lunch break, which had ended five minutes ago. If she weren’t a manager at the bank, she’d expect a reprimand from her work.

  “I know I look a mess, honey,” her mama said. “I haven’t been sleeping well.”

  “Because of Isaac?”

  “No.” Her mom did that fluttery blinking she always did when she lied.

  “The detectives talked to me.”

  Her mom’s face crumpled into her hands. “Oh, Lord. I’d hoped they would leave you alone.”

  Sam saw an older couple staring at their table.

  “Please stop crying, Mama. It’s going to be fine.”

  Sam didn’t know why she said that to her mom. It was a reflex answer she gave to coworkers, her boss. She was fine, everything was fine. She hated seeing her mom cry. Really, she didn’t like seeing anyone cry. It made her want to sink into the ground until it was safe to come out again.

  Her mama dried her eyes on a paper napkin, glancing at the people eating around them as if they were secretly listening in. She looked back at Sam, her composure mostly intact again.

  “I saw you and Eric are friends on Facebook now.”

  Sam sighed. This was exactly what she expected.

  “So? What do you have against him?”

  Her mom stared at her uneaten country omelet. “I never trusted that boy, not from the moment I met him.”

  “Why? Because of a bunch of small-town gossip?” Sam drank some of her lukewarm coffee, eyeing the server for the creamer he still hadn’t brought her. “Come on, Mama. Eric didn’t rape that girl. You know him better than that.”

  “Certainly not better than you.” The hard look her mom gave her made her redden.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Sam said.

  The server brought her mom’s requested ketchup but no creamer.

  “You never want to talk about it, yet you want me to be okay with him?” Her mom struggled to open the ketchup cap. “After Isaac? And Eric said nothing when he knew it was happening?”

  “Mama, stop it,” Sam hissed through her teeth.

  She couldn’t have this conversation without her insides tightening around something absent yet always there, a seed poised to blossom outward until it ripped her apart. Someday, it probably would and she’d go crazy from it, but not today in front of her mom.

  Her mama squirted ketchup, sufficiently drowning her hash browns and half of her eggs. “Fine, but you know Eric had every reason to kill Isaac.”

  “So did I. He fucking attacked us.” The older couple nearby gave Sam the stink eye.

  Her mom swallowed her bite of hash browns. “Watch your language, Samantha Grace.”

  Nothing changed with her mama; she still skimmed right over the small fact that Isaac raped Sam right under her roof.

  Sam banged her plate with her fork. “Can I please get some goddamn creamer like I’ve asked for the last thirty fucking minutes?” she yelled.

  Her mom’s fair skin flushed, her mouth a thin line. When the server rushed over with an entire bowl of creamer, her mom smiled, eyes downcast, and said a quiet “thank you.”

  In that moment, Sam saw why Isaac had chosen to marry her mom. She was the perfect submissive female, hardworking and a firm believer that women shoulder know their place. She wondered at what point Isaac realized her mom wasn’t into his sexual proclivities, his need to dominate and cause pain. Maybe he always knew and didn’t care. A thought shivered through her, one she couldn’t believe she had never thought of before: what if he married her mom to get to her?

  “I don’t know why you have to be like this,” her mom softly said, her eyes tearing up again. “Bringing up the past like I can change any of it.”

  Her mom lifted her knife to cut through her omelet, her swollen fingers quickly dropping it. She rarely talked about her lupus, but Sam noticed her mom having more trouble performing simple tasks. Her mom’s graying blond hair was much shorter than Sam had ever seen it, right below her chin, and she saw how limp and greasy it looked. Sam imagined her mama losing the ability to get around on her own. She’d have to move from Blanchard, get better care for her symptoms. Sam didn’t want her mama living with her, knew they’d drive each other nuts, but she couldn’t picture her living on her own, and Sam would never put her in a nursing home. She was too young to be around a bunch of elderly people pushing walkers.

  She reached for her mom’s hand, so strangely warm from the inflammation caused by the disease. She remembered her mom’s hands being so cold when she was younger. She used to have her mom press them to her face after she played outside for hours in the summer heat, her skin a furnace by time she’d come indoors.

  “Mama, I’m sorry.”

  Her mom smiled a little, but the hurt remained in her pink-rimmed eyes.

  “I should’ve done something to help you,” she said, gently squeezing Sam’s hand. “All that time you two spent together. Then that time you were in the hospital. I knew it in my gut he hurt you, but I was so stupid. I loved him.”

  Sam’s stomach dropped. She could never talk to her mom about Isaac, about anything that happened, because it would mean telling her everything and everything, she knew, would kill her mama.

  “All those rumors about that poor girl in Anadarko, but I didn’t want to believe.”

  A pool of acid formed in the back of Sam’s throat. “Do you mean Meredith Lang?”

  Her mom’s blue eyes widened. “So, you know about Eric’s cousin? Well, cousin by marriage. Isaac said she was a disturbed girl who made up stories, and I stupidly believed him. He was so good at making people trust him.”

  Meredith was Eric’s cousin by marriage? Sam slowly shook her head, feeling numb as the pieces she’d struggled over seemed to come together.

  “Meredith’s mother—is her name Vickie?”

  “Yes, honey,” her mom said. “I didn’t think you knew about what happened.”

  “I’m not sure I do.”

  She didn’t know what to believe, there were so many rumors floating around after Isaac and Eric moved to Blanchard.

  She thought of Caleb, how much he looked like both Isaac and Eric. Only a paternity test would tell for sure. The probability was nauseating, but she knew people would think the same thing about her having sex with Isaac and Eric, father and son.

  Eric wanted her to stay away from Meredith either because it was true, he raped her, or because he didn’t want Sam to find out he mig
ht’ve had a kid with her. If it was Eric, not Isaac, who raped Meredith, there’d be no reason Sam could think of for Meredith to kill Isaac, and then she’d be back to the only other person she knew about who had a motive besides herself: Eric.

  “Mama, did you ever talk to Meredith’s mother, to Vickie, about Eric and what really happened in Anadarko?”

  “No. At the time, I didn’t have any reason not to believe Isaac. And look at what Eric put you through.”

  “He never did anything I didn’t want.” Unlike like your husband, she wanted to add.

  “You say that like it’s something to be proud of.”

  Sam’s laugh came out low and humorless. Her sexual history something to be proud of? Her mama would die on the spot if she knew the half of it. Eric might too.

  She touched her throat, hoped the makeup she had used was concealing the bruising Eric made.

  Heat flushed her face and she looked away from her mom. She wouldn’t be ashamed about what she enjoyed, she refused to be. Eric’s hands on her neck the other night, the sounds of pleasure he made before she stopped him—maybe he could accept what she needed. She knew he’d probably try, and she believed him when he said he still loved her. She also knew there was something missing to the story he fed her, even those years ago, some detail he left out about Meredith.

  “Mama, did you send Eric away to foster care?”

  Surprise entered her mom’s face.

  “You told me he ran away, but he says you put him in foster care. Is that true?”

  Her mom gazed at her plate for a long time, her mouth twisted in a frown.

  “I didn’t have a choice. He kept sneaking off, and I couldn’t handle him. You remember how out of control he got.”

  Memories came to Sam, unwanted. Memories of being in the hospital after the attack, sitting next to Eric’s hospital bed, his left leg bandaged. Her mom had left to go back to the house to get some things for them. Grandma Haylin stayed behind at the hospital until she got a call and left for a long time. Eric woke up startled like he was having a bad dream. He looked around the room, frightened until he saw Sam. “Is he dead?” he had asked and promptly fell back asleep.