In Search of Sam

by Kristin Butcher

  “Nice,” I say, running my hand around its edge as I make my way to one of the loveseats.

  Alex grins and sits down beside me. Almost immediately we are joined by her grandparents. Mrs. Sheffield gives Alex a hug before sitting on the other loveseat with her husband.

  “How nice to see you again, Dani,” she says. “I had no idea you and Alex knew each other.”

  “We met in Farrow,” I say. “I saw Alex’s pottery at the spring bazaar and,” I shrug, “things went from there.” I don’t bother going into details about our rocky beginning.

  “It’s such a small world, isn’t it?” Mrs. Sheffield says. “Here you were just a few days ago, and now you’re back with Alex. Six degrees of separation and all that.” She smiles, but I can tell from the way she’s fidgeting that she’s nervous. She looks at her husband and then back at me and asks, “So, did you have any luck finding information about Sam?”

  “That’s why we’ve come, Grandma.” Alex pulls the half-heart pendant from her shirt. What is the story behind this?”

  Mrs. Sheffield frowns. “You know the story as well as I do, Alex. My mother gave that to me, I gave it to your mother, and when you were born, she passed it on to you. I hope you will pass it on to your own child one day.”

  Alex nods. “That’s what I told Dani. But we both think there must be more to it than that.”

  Mrs. Sheffield cocks her head. “Oh?”

  I pull out my half-heart and hold it next to Alex’s. “These obviously started as one whole heart,” I say. “Do you know why they were cut?”

  “Where did you get that?” Mrs. Sheffield’s voice is just a whisper, but her eyes burn right through me.

  “It was one of the things Sam left me.”

  Mrs. Sheffield buries her face in her hands and starts to weep. Her husband wraps his arm around her, and she collapses into him.

  Alex sends me a concerned glance and mumbles, “Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.” Then to her grandmother she says, “Grandma, I’m so sorry. We didn’t mean to upset you. Dani is just trying to find some answers about her dad. Please don’t cry.”

  Pushing herself upright and taking a deep breath, Mrs. Sheffield composes herself once more. She impatiently wipes her tears away. “Never mind me. I’m fine. It was just a bit of a shock, that’s all. I haven’t seen the other half of that heart in over forty years.” Her husband places a hand on her arm, but she shrugs it off. “I know, Duncan. I promised Kate. And I’ve kept my word. But it’s time for the truth.”

  “You’re sure?” he says.

  She nods fiercely. “Yes. It can’t hurt Kate or Sam anymore — not my parents either, and Dani deserves to know.”

  “Who’s Kate?” Alex asks.

  “My sister,” Mrs. Sheffield says. “My twin sister.”

  “I never knew you had a sister, Grandma,” Alex says.

  “She was barely eighteen when she died,” Mrs. Sheffield replies. “That was a long time ago, many years before you were even born. By the time you came along, memories of her had been buried. There was no reason to tell you about her, but many reasons not to. Your mother doesn’t even know.”

  She licks her lips and smooths her skirt, and I brace myself for the story that is about to come. When I made the decision to search for Sam, I imagined all the different ways I might find the truth, but I never thought about what that truth might be. The fact that it was intentionally kept secret and that it is upsetting for Mrs. Sheffield to talk about makes me nervous. Even so, I need to hear it.

  Mrs. Sheffield’s gaze finally leaves her skirt and moves to me. “Dani, do you remember when you came here before and were looking at the photo of the young couple in the living room? I told you they were my great-grandparents.”

  I nod.

  “Well, that’s where the heart began. It was a wedding gift from my great-grandfather to my great-grandmother. And when they had their first child — my grandmother — the heart went to her. She, of course, gave it to her daughter — my mother. But when my sister and I were born, my mother was faced with a decision. Rather than give the heart to just one of us, she cut it in two; so like most everything else in our lives, we shared it. And when the time came, we both passed on our halves to our children, though until just now, I didn’t know Kate had. I always assumed her half of the heart had been lost.

  And that’s when the penny drops. Kate was Sam’s mother — my grandmother. Which means Mrs. Sheffield is my great-aunt. I blink at Alex. She and I are related too. This is my family. The knowledge is so overwhelming, I have to force myself to concentrate on what Mrs. Sheffield is saying.

  “My sister and I were very close. We were mirror twins, identical, but opposite. I’m right-handed; Kate was left-handed. We epitomized the twin cliché. We dressed alike. We finished each other’s sentences. Sometimes we didn’t have to talk at all. We knew when the other was in trouble or hurt. We were connected in a way only twins can understand. We were simultaneously sisters and best friends. In fact, our world was quite perfect.

  “And then Kate got pregnant. She was seventeen. I knew almost right away, though I didn’t know who the father was. My parents didn’t become aware until Kate was nearly five months along. Kate wanted to keep her baby, but the idea was too scandalous for my mother to contemplate. Though it was the seventies already, my mother was pretty old school and didn’t buy into the free love movement. As far as she was concerned, nice girls didn’t have premarital sex, let alone keep the products of their indiscretions. So she arranged for Kate to spend the rest of her pregnancy in a home for unwed mothers in Calgary, and when the baby was born she was to give it up for adoption. The nuns at the home would take care of the arrangements. My mother concocted a story about Kate staying with an ailing relative to help out, and that’s what she told neighbours and friends.”

  “Why did Kate go along with it?” Alex asks.

  Mrs. Sheffield smiles sadly. “As I said, it was a different time. Hard for you girls to understand, I’m sure, but Kate had no choice. She had no money of her own and no place to go. My parents would have disowned her.”

  Alex’s jaw drops. “Their own daughter?”

  Mrs. Sheffield shrugs. “Kate and I exchanged letters constantly. We wrote each other practically every day. How I missed her. I could tell from her letters that she was terribly unhappy, and the closer she got to term the more determined she was to keep her baby. So it wasn’t a surprise when my parents got a long distance call from one of the nuns, saying Kate had run away.

  “Earlier that same day I had received a letter from Kate telling me her plans, so I had to act surprised by the news and then lie through my teeth about knowing anything. At least I had the sense to destroy the letter after I read it, because my mother didn’t believe me. When she’d finished ripping my room apart, the place looked like it had been burgled.”

  Though I never met my grandmother, my heart aches for her. She must have been so scared. “What did the letter say?”

  “It said she was planning to leave. She didn’t have much money, but she had enough for bus fare to Merritt. She told me the bus she would be on and asked me to meet her at the depot. She had an idea of where to stay, but it required a car. I had my driver’s license by then, so it was just a matter of coming up with an excuse to borrow the family vehicle. As it turned out, my mother asked me to run an errand, which coincided perfectly with the arrival of Kate’s bus.”

  Mrs. Sheffield stops and takes a deep breath.

  “You okay?” her husband asks.

  She nods. “It’s been so long, I thought some of the sting might have gone out of the memory, but,” she sighs, “it hasn’t. It still hurts.” She pats her husband’s hand. “But it’s okay. I’ll be fine.”

  Alex and I exchange glances. I don’t want to cause Mrs. Sheffield grief, but I want — no, I need — to hear the whole story.

  “It was so good to see Kate again. For about ten minutes we just hugged one another. Then I drove her to the f
amily cabin in Farrow. That’s where she wanted to go. She had money for some groceries, and the place was comfortable enough, so I knew she’d be all right for the time being. The baby was still three weeks away, so we had time to plan. We both hoped that once the baby was born, our mother would swallow her pride and accept the situation.

  “I came out as often as I could to bring supplies and keep Kate company, but I couldn’t risk raising suspicion at home, so it wasn’t as frequent as I would have liked. The baby came early. There was no telephone service at the cabin, and this was long before the time of cellphones, so Kate had no way of letting me know. To make matters worse, it was the May long weekend, and my family had been invited to spend the holiday at a friend’s cottage in Kelowna — so Kate couldn’t have reached me anyway.”

  Alex inches forward on the loveseat. “So what happened?”

  Mrs. Sheffield shakes her head. “It didn’t go well,” she says. “Kate had to deliver the baby alone. She lost a lot of blood, and she realized pretty quickly that she was in trouble. She had to get her baby to safety. During her walks around Farrow — she’d tried to stay as invisible as possible, but she’d still managed to get out — she had seen an older couple working in their yard. Kate said they’d seemed so happy, and she wished that she might find that sort of love one day. Anyway, she lingered too long, and the couple saw her. They asked about the baby, of course, and told her how lucky she was, and how they’d always wanted a child, but it had never happened for them. Then they wished her well, and Kate carried on with her walk.”

  “How do you know this, Mrs. Sheffield?” I ask.

  She looks surprised. “I’m the one who found Kate. She told me. That first night after the birth, while she still had the strength, she walked to Hannah and John Swan’s house and left her baby on their doorstep. So when I got to the cabin, the baby was already gone. I got Kate into the car and rushed her to the hospital, but she’d lost too much blood. The doctors couldn’t save her. And since there was no sign of a baby at the cabin, my parents chose to believe it had died, and Kate had disposed of it. They concocted a public explanation for Kate’s death, but once she was buried, they never spoke of her again.”

  “You never told your parents the truth?” Alex says.

  “No. Kate made me promise. She was afraid that our parents would step in and send the baby to an orphanage. She preferred to think she had found her son a good home.” Mrs. Sheffield smiles. “And she had. At least for as long as it lasted. Before she died, though, she asked me to keep an eye on her boy, to make sure he was doing all right. So that’s what Duncan and I have done. We got married young ourselves, so there was only a couple of years between the birth of Kate’s Sam and our Debbie, and when we learned Sam was being sent back to social services, we took him in.”

  She sits back on the loveseat and her mouth stretches into a determined line. “And that’s the story. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, Dani, but I was keeping a trust.”

  My vision has blurred, and my throat is tight, so I just nod. It’s a lot to take in, and there’s still so much more to find out. But there’s time for that, and at least now I have solid ground beneath me. Sam and I finally have a past.

  Chapter Twenty

  It’s been three months since the last time I visited Farrow, so when Reed invites me to check out progress with the distribution centre, I jump at the chance to go back. I can’t believe changes have begun already.

  “Woo-hoo!” I exclaim as he swings the BMW into the highway turnoff lane that didn’t exist back in March. “Farrow’s big-time now. It has it’s own turnoff lane and everything. And look at the sign. It’s huge! And it’s new, and not hand-painted. Welcome to Farrow: Population (Growing too fast to count).” I laugh. “That’s too funny. And look there, Reed. Another sign announcing the new distribution facility.” I shoot him a surprised look. “Is it really going to be operational by next spring? That’s less than a year away.”

  He waves his hand uncertainly. “Give or take. Knowing how there are always delays, I think summer is a safer bet, but we are trying to hype things up so the residents of Farrow have something to look forward to. We’ve already started interviewing for jobs.”

  “How many people are you looking to hire?”

  “Initially, probably about one hundred and fifty, but that could easily double down the line.”

  “Seriously? Whoa! That’s a lot —” but I’m sidetracked as we turn onto the road leading into Farrow, because gone is the narrow, rutted gravel track, replaced by four lanes of pavement. “Holy cow! You didn’t tell me there are roads already!”

  “So far this one leading off the highway is the only one that’s finished. The others are still under construction. You’ll see as we get into town.”

  “Have you started building the distribution centre yet?”

  “The plans are drawn up and surveying is complete. There are lots of pegs and spray-painted lines. It’s just a matter of letting the bulldozers loose, but we want to wait until the roads are finished before we bring in the heavy equipment.”

  I hug myself. I can’t stop grinning. “This is actually happening, Reed. I can’t believe it.”

  “Well, if anyone should believe it, it’s you, because you’re the one who set the wheels in motion.”

  I open my mouth with every intention of modestly protesting, but what comes out is far from modest. “Yeah, I guess I sort of did, didn’t I?” I grin.

  Reed laughs. “You certainly did. Your mother and I are unbelievably proud of you. I’m sure Sam is too. You set out to find your roots — and you did. Then you set out to save Farrow — and you did that too. You are definitely a lady to be reckoned with. Looks like I got two of those for the price of one.”

  We turn onto Main Street, and to my amazement it looks different too. Oh, sure, there are still a lot of boarded-up storefronts, but now there are a lot more that aren’t. New painted exteriors, eye-catching signs, and sparkling windows winking in the sunlight make me catch my breath. Reed has slowed right down, but even so my head is on a swivel as I try to take everything in. One building has gone from wooden siding to a red brick facade. A display card in the window identifies it as the future home of a postal outlet. Across the street is a restaurant, and next to that a sandwich shop. Both are filled with construction workers. The next sign to catch my attention is The Exquisite Artisan. It is a shop featuring work by local artists. Arlo has clearly been getting the guild operational. There’s a grocery store and drugstore too — already. In the distance, I can see the service station once again has an operational gas pump. It’s all so amazing, I am speechless.

  Finally Reed pulls up in front of a barnboard storefront and turns off the car. I look at the building. There are several rusty horseshoes hung above the door and assorted bottles, kettles, spurs, harnesses, and other cowboy memorabilia on display in the windows. The printing on the sign has been branded on. I read it. Sam’s Place — Come and sit a spell. I instantly choke up.

  Reed squeezes my neck. “Come on. Let’s go inside.”

  I let myself onto the street and swipe away my tears before Reed can see. He comes around the car, opens the door to the shop, and waves me inside.

  And I melt — my bones, my heart, every molecule of me.

  The place is amazing. It could be Sam’s place. This is probably the coziest room I have ever been in. The walls are whitewashed and trimmed with wooden beams. The floors are barnboard, and there’s a pot-bellied stove smack in the middle, amid oak and pine tables and chairs and leather easy chairs, rustic loveseats, and even a couple of ottomans. The walls are lined with shelves, and the shelves are filled with books and memorabilia — mostly cowboy and baseball stuff. Western music plays in the background. Only someone who knew Sam could have put this together. I blink back my tears and look up at Reed. “Mom?” I say.

  He shrugs. “She might have had something to do with it.”

  At the back of the space is a bar, the kind you find
in saloons, complete with the brass foot rail. A sign overhead says, Help yourself to a coffee and muffin, a book, and a chair. Donations gratefully accepted. Proceeds help those in need.

  And then, through blurred eyes, I see them — my three amigos — Alex, George, and Arlo. They’re standing behind the bar, grinning.

  I totally lose it. “Oh, you guys,” I blubber, “this is awe … awesome! You guys are awesome. Thank you for this. It’s wonderful. Sam would be so happy.”

  Now I’m crying so hard, the tears are flowing down my face like a river. Reed hugs me, and then Alex, George, and Arlo are hugging me too.

  “You’re the one who’s awesome,” Alex says. “You cared enough to try to save Farrow. You believed in it and us, and you found a way to make things happen.”

  “Like I told you before, Dani,” Arlo grins, “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. You’re definitely your father’s daughter.”

  “Hmmph,” George mutters, straight-faced. “I suppose she’s all right.” When everyone pulls back to gawk at her, she shrugs, but her eyes are twinkling. “Well, the girl might have Sam’s big heart, but she doesn’t have his curls or his piercing black eyes, now does she? And that’s the truth, or my name isn’t George Washington.”

  The prequel to In Search of Sam

  Truths I Learned from Sam

  Dani’s mother is getting married — again — because that’s what she does, and while she and her new husband jet around Europe for six weeks, seventeen-year-old Dani is sent to stay with an uncle she didn’t know she had in a small community in Cariboo country she didn’t know existed. It promises to be the summer from hell. But Dani’s uncle turns out to be an okay guy. In fact, Dani really likes him. And she finds romance, too.