by Keary Taylor
And that was the real reason Sam started taking sign language.
I let out a long, slow breath, leaning back on my hands, like I needed to give some space to the huge thing that had just been revealed. This was much, much bigger than I ever would have expected.
“Only a few people on the island knew,” Sam moved forward. “Mom didn’t want people feeling sorry for her, you know?” I did. “So she kept it quiet. It wasn’t that hard, not a lot of people on the island really knew Mom because she was always gone.
“Not many people survive stage-four brain cancer. By that point it’s too late. It was for my mom. They said she could start treatments, but it was only going to slow it down for a few weeks and it was just going to make her feel sick all the time,” Sam’s lower lip quivered a little bit. “She only had ten weeks after we found out. We had some money saved up after she quit her job, but it wasn’t anywhere near enough to pay for all the hospital bills. We put the house up for sale the beginning of August, hoping we could keep her in the hospital for just a little longer, give her another week or so. The house sold just eight days before she died. She signed all the papers for it in the hospital. We got the money for it the day she died.”
Tears were freely slipping down Sam’s face now. I reached a hand out and brushed a stream of them from her right cheek. She squeezed her eyes closed, pressing her hand against mine, trapping my hand against her face.
“No one ever came to get me, Jake,” she said in a hoarse whisper, her eyes still closed. “I talked to people, thought my grandparents were coming, or Mike, my father. Child services kept going back and forth on who would take custody. But no one ever came for me.
“Finally I caught a bus after Mom had been buried in Everett, and came back to the island. By then I realized I was on my own. So I took what money we had left, after we sold the house and paid Mom’s bills, and bought this crappy motorhome. That house is just a summer home so I figure I’m good to stay here until they come back in June.”
I brought my other hand up to the other side of Samantha’s face. Her eyes opened to look at mine, so uncertain looking. I could only stare at her.
This explained everything. Why Sam had withdrawn from everyone so much this year. Why she had lost so much weight. She had no money for food. And her mom hadn’t been stuck in an airport, today on Thanksgiving. She’d been long gone.
Sam was lonelier than I ever could have imagined.
“So you understand why I was so pissed earlier,” she said, holding my eyes. “Maybe you can’t talk anymore, and that sucks. But you still have family. You still have a house. You still have food,” her breathing was coming out heavy and tired. “You still have everything Jake, and you just didn’t see it.”
I felt something behind my eyes prickle and was surprised when a tear rolled down my own cheek. I wanted to tell her I was sorry. I wanted to take back the entire last seven days. I wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear.
There were a lot worse things that could happen to you than losing your voice.
Opening the notebook again, I set to scribbling a confession. I had to tell her now.
The night I had my accident, I wrote. I was coming to see you. I was drunk, but the guys talked me into it. I was coming to tell you…
Samantha ripped the page out of my hands, her eyes reading along as I wrote. I looked up into her face, confused, on the verge of being hurt that she wouldn’t let me write it.
“Don’t say it,” she whispered, her eyes locked on my face, her eyes misty. She shook her head. “Don’t say that.”
Everything within me wanted to say but it’s true. My hand rose to the side of her face again. Sam’s eyes studied my lips and I studied hers. We each leaned in closer until our foreheads were touching. It felt like currents of electricity were running through the two of us, making me feel like I was going to melt from the intensity.
I wanted to whisper a million things to Sam, all the things I didn’t say, but I couldn’t. So instead I leaned forward and let my lips show her.
Sam’s lips were hesitant at first, as if over-thinking if she was going to regret doing this. And then they softened under mine. Her hand came to the back of my neck, as my hands pressed into her back.
There was a lot of pain in that kiss. There was so much hurt and so much fear in it. I felt tears rolling down the both of our faces. But, in that kiss, there was even more want. We both wanted to smother out that pain, to not have so many horrible things in the all too recent past, to just be normal, to do the types of things we were supposed to be dealing with besides death and disability.
Sam shifted on top of me, pressing me back against the bed. Her lips moved with mine in a way that was so familiar I could have sworn we had done this a thousand times before. And yet it was so new, I never wanted to stop cause I was afraid if we did, I would realize none of this was real.
Sam’s lips tasted like strawberries and bananas.
Sam leaned back away from me, her eyes studying mine. She had that look again, like there was something on her mind.
As if she could read what? on my face, she answered.
“I’ve liked you for a while, Jake,” she said. “I meant to do something about it this summer, but then Mom got sick and I couldn’t be worrying about the boy I liked when my mother was dying.” She stopped for a second, studying my eyes again. “I just wanted you to know that.”
I brushed the back of my hand against her cheek, my eyes still locked on hers.
She hadn’t told me she loved me. I believed Sam when she had written about not believing in love. But she had said that she at least liked me.
In that moment, that meant everything.
I lifted my head off the bed and pressed my lips to hers briefly. She smiled in a way I’d never seen her smile before. I committed to making her smile like that as much as I possibly could.
I reached over on the bed for our notebook and the pen.
This changes things, I wrote, turning it so she could see it.
“Yeah,” she smiled, kissing my lips again. “It does.”
We spent the next two hours talking, filling a full ten sheets of paper. I asked how she survived, where she got money from. I was surprised when she told me she made money from some girl who went to a prep school down in Seattle, doing homework for her and sending it online.
She told me how she was afraid someone would eventually realize she was still here and try to come and take her away. The plan was always to go to UW after graduation and get her teaching degree, but to secure her scholarship she needed to make sure she kept her Valedictorian status, and she couldn’t do that unless she stayed here at Orcas High School.
She just had to stay hidden for the next nineteen weeks until she turned eighteen.
About three weeks ago she’d moved the motorhome to this house from somewhere just passed the golf course when the owners moved back into their house. And a few weeks back, she’d looked so terrible because she’d gone three days without power. Some rodents had chewed through her wires. I was impressed she’d fixed them herself.
I couldn’t feel sorry for myself anymore, I knew that. Seeing what Sam had to live with, how she’d kept going after she’d lost everything, everything, made me feel like a criminal. I did have everything, except a voice. I wasn’t going to waste any more time acting like an idiot and letting my life go unlived.
I vowed to live every second of it after that day in Sam’s motorhome.
19 weeks ‘til Sam’s birthday
11 hours since finding out the truth
There had never been a better Thanksgiving break than the one senior year. Mom, Jamie, Jenny, and Jordan went off-island early on Black Friday, not expecting to get much, just going off. Dad, John, James, and Joshua went off as well to do I didn’t know what. I pretended to be unawakable when they came in to get me in the morning, and thankfully, they left me alone with a note. As soon as I knew they were gone, I pulled my clothes on, and went to Teazer’s for
cinnamon rolls and strawberry milk. I got to Sam’s trailer at eight, just as the sun was starting to come up. I knocked three times, careful not to drop our breakfast on the ground.
I heard something hit the ground with force, followed by a curse. I smiled, silently chuckling. Finally, Sam opened the door, her eyes wide with fear.
“Jake!” she said, surprise and relief washing over her. “Oh my… Geesh! You scared me! I thought you must have been the owners or the cops. What are you doing here so early?”
I held up the bag and the cups. I couldn’t help but stare at Sam’s legs. They stuck out of a thin red bathrobe that clung to her tiny frame. Sam really did need to put on about fifteen pounds. I’d have to start bringing her to dinner as often as Mom would allow.
“Aww,” she said, that smile spreading on her face. “You brought me breakfast?”
I nodded and stepped inside. It wasn’t freezing in the motorhome, but it wasn’t terribly warm either. I noticed one little space heater back in the bedroom. I made a mental note to look through our storage for a more powerful one.
Sam scarfed down her cinnamon roll faster than I ever could have, and after some insistence, I gave her half of mine too. She licked her fingers clean when she was finished.
“Thank you,” she said, wiping her mouth with a napkin. “You’d think after that huge meal your family fed me yesterday I wouldn’t be this hungry.”
I suddenly stood and walked to Sam’s tiny fridge and pulled it open. I found a half gallon of milk, a small brick of cheese, and a few apples. A half a loaf of bread sat on the tiny counter along with the crackers and banana that had been intended to be Sam’s Thanksgiving dinner. Her frozen pizza had sat out too long yesterday and we’d thrown it out. I glanced back at Sam. She watched me, shame in her eyes.
Why don’t you get dressed, I wrote. We’ll go to my house for a while. Family’s off island today.
It didn’t take much more than that. In less than three minutes Sam walked out of her bedroom wearing the same jean’s she’d worn the day before and a sweater that looked like it had been worn once before as well. Not waiting for her to protest, I walked past her into her bedroom. Looking around, it didn’t take long to find her laundry basket wedged into the corner. Grabbing it, I walked right past Sam, who looked rather embarrassed. Not saying anything, Sam grabbed our notebook off the table and followed me out to the Bronco.
Sam seemed relaxed in a way I hadn’t ever seen her before as we drove through town and to my house. She was quiet as we rolled along, watching the trees and small shops around us. It was one of the rare times she didn’t seem to have something on her mind, just enjoying the moment and being.
The house was unusually quiet when we walked inside. Quiet was about as rare in that house as snowfall on the island. It happened, but it seemed like something just short of a miracle when it did.
Sam followed me to the laundry room just off the kitchen. There were piles of everyone’s clothes in the room and I found a load of Jamie’s things still in the washer. It smelled just a little off, like it’d been in there for a day or so. I shoved the clothes into the dryer anyway and started it.
Putting some detergent in the machine, I then poured Sam’s clothes in, pretending like I wasn’t seeing all of her underwear and bras. Closing the lid, I turned back to Sam, finding her watching me closely.
“I’m impressed,” she said, nodding her head. “I didn’t think too many guys knew how to do laundry.”
I just smiled. When there were seven kids in the house, you taught your kids pretty early on how to do their own laundry. It saved Mom hours of work every week. Joshua was the only one who didn’t do his own laundry.
Next I went to the pantry, which was the size of a small bedroom. When Mom went off-island she came back with the entire van loaded with as much food as she could possibly manage. With so many people, shopping off-island was way cheaper than shopping on. Finding an empty box on the floor, I started filling it with stuff. Crackers, cereal, canned soups. Anything I could fit in the box.
“Jake,” Sam said, horror filling her face. “That had better not be for me. I can’t take all that. That’s like stealing.”
I shook my head, walking out of the pantry, Sam’s box full. I grabbed the notebook. Trust me, I wrote. Mom won’t notice. And if she does, I’ll just tell her I got extra hungry today.
“Jake,” she protested, shaking her head. “I can’t.”
Look, I wrote, rolling my eyes at her as I glanced up. I’ll get Mom and Dad an extra nice Christmas present this year to repay them.
She stared at me for a long time, and I could see the internal debate she was having. Finally she just shook her head, a small smile spreading. Her stomach won out.
Digging up a small cooler, I filled it with a bag of left-over turkey, a couple bags of frozen vegetables, and a few pieces of frozen chicken. Setting it next to the box of non-cold stuff, I went out to the garage, Sam trailing behind me.
It didn’t take long to find a pretty good sized space heater. It would work a lot better than the one Sam was currently using. She’d tried protesting against that too as I carried everything out to my car, but I just waved her off.
Is there anything else you need? I wrote when we got back inside.
“Really, Jake,” she said. “This is all too much.”
I pointed at my writing again, turning my eyes on her.
A small smile spread on her lips and she closed the space between us. She wrapped her arms behind my neck, burrowing her face in my chest. “I’m okay. Thank you.”
I kissed her cheek. She turned her face to mine and my lips found hers, warm and soft.
Today they tasted like grape juice.
We turned the TV on and watched some bad comedy while we waited for Sam’s laundry to finish. I couldn’t help but smile and lick my lips every so often, the flavor of grape still lingering.
It felt good to be helping someone else out, someone who really needed it. Better than good. I hadn’t felt like this in a long, long time.
19 weeks ‘til Sam’s birthday
For some reason I was nervous for school to start again on Monday. Sam and I had both said that things had changed, but I really wasn’t sure what they had changed into. We’d kissed a few times, grown a whole lot closer, I finally knew her secret. But did that make her my girlfriend? Would she consider me her boyfriend now?
The uncertainty was killing me.
Mom said she was feeling under the weather on Monday so I offered to drive everyone to school. Jordan called shotgun, Jamie wedged herself in the backseat with James and Joshua. I couldn’t help but notice the little smile that spread on Jordan’s face as we got closer and closer to the school. She didn’t say anything but I knew she knew.
My palms were sweating like they had that first day I’d gone back to school after the accident.
What’s going to happen today? I wondered.
I stopped in front of the elementary school and Joshua and James hopped out and scampered toward the old red-brick building. Jamie headed toward the middle school and I pulled into the parking lot of the high school.
I hadn’t thought of how Sam got to school these days. She certainly wasn’t driving the motorhome. I hoped there was a school bus that stopped close to where she lived.
“Hey Jake?” Jordan said, just as I was about to get out of the car. I glanced back at her, already knowing what she was going to say. “I’m really happy for you,” she said, giving a smile. “Samantha seems perfect for you.”
I simply returned her smile and gave a little nod before climbing out of the car. Jordan dashed ahead to join her friends. I watched her as she went, feeling incredibly appreciative of everything she’d done for me. Even though she was eleven months younger than me, Jordan had always felt like more of a big sister, even more so than Jenny ever had.
Jordan always had my back, she always looked out for me.
I was disappointed when I didn’t see Samantha before school
started. Calculus felt like it took forever, as if the subject wasn’t bad enough. My heart jumped into my throat when the bell finally rang for second period.
But Samantha wasn’t in class. And she wasn’t in our ASL class or AP English. I tried not to let myself have a total panic attack when I didn’t see her at all before lunch break. Had I scared her away? It would take some major scaring for Sam to skip school.
As I wandered in the direction of Sam’s locker just after lunch period started, I felt a hand clamp down on my shoulder. I turned to see Rain and Carter.
“Hey, how was your Thanksgiving break?” Carter asked, shifting his books from one hand to the other. “Feels like I haven’t seen you in forever.”
I nodded, pulling out my pocket notebook. Fine, I wrote. Yours?
“Boring,” Carter said. “Just went up to Bellingham to my grandparent’s. There was only six of us there.”
I nodded in Rain’s direction.
“Well, let’s see,” he said as we started for the parking lot. No one at the high school really ate the food from the cafeteria. It was a mass migration at lunch time to the deli at Island Market. “I think every one of Mom and Dad’s hippy friends showed up. It’s not quite a real Thanksgiving dinner when everything’s all organic, or raw, or vegan.”
Carter and I both laughed. As much of a circus Thanksgiving was at my house, I couldn’t even imagine what it must be like at Rain’s.
We all loaded into the Bronco and headed for the Market.
“So Blake’s putting this party together, out somewhere in Olga this weekend,” Carter said from the backseat as he flipped through some of my notebooks. I was grateful that mine and Sam’s was tucked safely in my backpack. “Sounds like a lot of people are going. You going to be able to make it, Jake? Promise there’ll be no booze. Everyone’s sticking to those pledges.”