The Secret Life of Sam

by Kim Ventrella

  She opened the door, refusing to meet his eyes, and he stepped into a dimly lit living room. He had to admit, it was kind of a dump, with the saggy couch and stained carpet and the piles of dirty dishes. But it was also amazing. Not all the junk, but the other stuff, like the spinning model of the solar system dangling from the ceiling fan and the catapult on the kitchen table made from rubber bands, wooden spoons, and a whole lot of duct tape.

  “It’s for making breakfast,” Edie said. She pressed a button and the catapult shot a beanbag that knocked over a cup that sent a marble spinning through a maze that triggered a lever that pulled a string that started the toaster.

  “Holy crab cakes,” he said, which was Pa’s other favorite way of not cussing whenever Sam was around. “That is . . . freaking awesome!”

  Edie shrugged and unplugged the toaster. “Not really. I just got bored. There’s not much to do around here whenever Mom’s gone.” A sudden flash of anger crossed Edie’s face, but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared.

  “Oh.”

  Her cheeks got red, and she looked like she wanted to bury her head in her hoodie and never come out again.

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “Still.”

  A horn blasted out front, and Sam was annoyed but also kind of relieved.

  “I guess we’d better go,” he said, even though he didn’t want to go, because of Pa, but he did want to get out of the house, because he had no idea what to say to make Edie feel better.

  “Yeah, let me get the keys.”

  Sam said that Edie could have shotgun, partly because he needed time to plan, partly because he couldn’t take any more awkward silences. 3:07 p.m. As they drove away, Sam felt like a prisoner on his way to death row, the way his skin started to itch and the way he knew that if he didn’t find a way to escape soon, he was finished. But his heart grew lighter the more they drove, because he realized that Gina’s Diner was a lot closer to school than he remembered, and maybe, if he could just slip away while the others were eating, he could still make it.

  Despite the cool blast from the air conditioner as they walked inside, Sam could feel the sweat pooling in his armpits.

  “Three Saturday specials,” Aunt Jo called to a frazzled woman behind the counter, who echoed, “Three Saturday specials!” while at the same time pouring a coffee and giving someone change from the register.

  He waited till Edie and Aunt Jo had both settled into a booth before making his move. “I need to use the bathroom.”

  “Right back there,” Aunt Jo said, pointing toward a doorway in the far corner next to an old jukebox. “Can’t miss it. It’s the one with the stuffed armadillo over the door.”

  “Thanks.” Sam hesitated, feeling bad for leaving Edie all alone with Aunt Jo, but only for a second. “I might be a while. I’m not feeling too great.”

  “Need a Tums?” Aunt Jo said. “Think I’ve got an extra bottle in the car.”

  “That’s okay. Just don’t wait up.” His cheeks burned as he hurried for the bathroom, mortified that Edie now thought he was having explosive diarrhea, but also relieved that he’d come up with a plan. And it was working.

  He found the doorway with the stuffed armadillo but kept right on walking. This was it, and it was so easy. There was an exit just past the bathrooms. He slid outside, heart pounding, waiting for someone to catch him, but no one did. Some kid in an apron pushed past on his way inside, probably heading to work, and he didn’t even bother to look up.

  3:28 p.m.

  The wind pulled at his clothes as he crossed the parking lot. He ducked between cars to make sure Aunt Jo wouldn’t see him through the diner’s side windows, and then, when he’d made it past the liquor store and the gas station, he ran. There were no sidewalks in Holler, Oklahoma, but the grass along the main road was smooth and flat. He picked up speed, absorbing the roar of the wind and the exhaust smoke and the spray of grit from passing semis. Pretty soon, it was like he was running the hundred-yard dash all over again, except this time he was in the lead and Andy Hamlin could eat his dust.

  Despite the ache building in his calves and the wobble threatening his thighs, he pushed harder. So what if he couldn’t catch his breath and his chest was burning and he’d probably pass out any second and never get up again?

  3:35 p.m.

  A sports car hit a pothole, spraying him with muddy sewer water, but he didn’t care, because what was a little muddy water when he was about to rescue Pa?

  3:37 p.m.

  Some blue jays in the back of a truck laughed at him as they sped past, and one of them threw a beer bottle that shattered on the road and sent green shards of glass skittering past his ankles. So what? Jerks!

  3:41 p.m.

  He could see the school, and so he ran harder, even though it was at the top of a grape-soda hill and he was about to suffocate and maybe have a heart attack, but this was happening. He was going to make it.

  3:44 p.m.

  He fell over a grape-soda curb and scraped his knee and he was bleeding and muddy, but so what? So what? All he had to do was get over this last hill and run past the playground and try not to die or pass out and . . .

  3:46 p.m.

  There it was. The tree, the dragonflies, the glint as they twitched their wings in unison like a school of passing fish. Without waiting for them to scatter, he removed the duct tape from his pack, leaving the rest behind, and dove into the hollow.

  13

  AS SOON AS THE DARKNESS got hold of him, he was falling. Zagging side to side, shoulders banging into rough bark, leaves and twigs and spidery legs snagging his hair, scraping at his face.

  He dropped to the hard ground and knew right away that something had gone wrong. His fingers touched cracked dirt and brittle grass. The sun beat down, burning his eyes, and the air was dry and violent and full of dust. He sat up, head throbbing, and looked out at a sea of swaying grass burnt brown by the sun. Beyond that, a ruin, like something out of Ancient Greece, only way less fancy.

  “Take me back,” Sam said, because he could feel the presence of One-Eye or the Boy or whoever he was nearby. “I’m not supposed to be here. Take me to Pa.” He shoved the roll of duct tape farther up his arm as a faraway voice called in answer.

  “Hey, slowpoke! You eat turtle soup for breakfast? Because I’ve never seen anyone run so slow!”

  A teenager with cropped hair and overalls burst from between two broken columns and leaped to the grass. It was a young Aunt Jo, followed by a slightly older Pa, racing after her through the knee-high grass, wielding a stick like a sword.

  Pa was fast, but Aunt Jo was faster. Sam couldn’t believe the way she ran, like she had lightning bolts trapped in her sneakers. He watched her leap over a weed the size of a warthog without so much as breaking her stride, and then he rubbed the dizziness from his head and took off after them.

  By the time he caught up, Pa and Aunt Jo were sitting beside a rusty oil rig, sharing a can of Orange Crush.

  “Pa!” he said, but Pa didn’t hear him. “We have to go!” He shouted and tried to grab Pa’s arm, but it was another one of the Boy’s tricks. Like last time with Mama, his hand slid right through.

  Pa grinned over at Aunt Jo, taking a swig of soda. He was maybe eighteen or nineteen by the looks of it. “So you really did it? You signed up for the army?” Pa passed the can to Aunt Jo, then leaned back against a concrete support.

  She took a sip, eyes focused on the clouds looming low on the horizon. “I had to. I can’t stay here. Besides, they said they’d fast-track me for pilot’s training.”

  “What did Pops say?”

  Aunt Jo’s expression darkened. “What do you think?”

  Pa plucked a piece of dead grass and slid it between his teeth. “I think Pops is as stubborn as a donkey and half as smart.”

  “What about you? You moving out for good this time? Pops said you got a place down on the swamps in Louisiana. He didn’t seem too happy about it.�
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  “Don’t see much reason to stay. Not once you’re gone.”

  Aunt Jo leaned back and studied the clouds. “It’ll be different, not having you around.”

  “We’ll still talk. I’m not moving to Timbuktu.”

  “I might be. And after that . . . well, Pops said I’m not welcome here again, not if I join up.”

  A gust of wind rolled over the dead grass, making it rise and fall in waves.

  “But we’ll still be us, no matter what and no matter where.” Pa bumped her shoulder and she bumped him back. “Right? You and me against the world.”

  “Yeah, we’ll still be us.” Aunt Jo kept her gaze on the sky, following the slow circle of a passing hawk. “I think Pops hates me.”

  “He doesn’t hate you,” Pa said. “He sure hates me, though, if that makes you feel any better.”

  “I can’t be the person he wants me to be,” Aunt Jo said.

  Pa looked at her, and it was so strange to see them sitting there, just a few years older than Sam. So real and sad and yet still hopeful about the world.

  “But you’re you. And, sure, you’re annoying as heck, and you fish like a girl, but—”

  “Shut up.” She was laughing.

  “Come on, race you back?”

  “If you think you can take the humiliation.”

  “Oh, I can take it.”

  With that, Pa stole the head start, Aunt Jo on his heels, and the world collapsed in around Sam. It was like everything, the field, the ruin, even the sky and the clouds were sucked into a black hole, and Sam was hurtling along its center. He tried to shout for the Boy, to demand that he be taken to Pa, his pa, but he couldn’t do anything but scream.

  He landed facedown in the mud.

  “Take me to Pa!” he shouted, scrambling to his feet and swiping the muck from his face and mouth.

  “You do realize that you’re in no position to make demands.” The Boy was leaning against a tree nearby, twirling a set of whiskers that had sprouted from his cheeks. Though he still wore Pa’s face, it had taken on a distinctly feline quality, his lips curving up in the center and his pupils narrowing into slits.

  “Who are you? Why are you doing this?”

  The Boy watched Sam, eyes glinting in the light filtering in through the treetops. “People die, and then they move on. Except sometimes they don’t, or can’t. That’s why I’m here.”

  “Are you Death?”

  “What a nasty word. Like I said, think of me as your guide. I show the living what they need to see in order to let go. And you will let go. Trust me. I always get the job done in the end.”

  “And what if I don’t?”

  The Boy’s body flickered. For a moment he was a skeleton draped with bits of seaweed and rotting skin, then the Boy, then something in between.

  “You will. Eventually.”

  “Take me to Pa. Now.” But before Sam could finish, the Boy was gone. A twig snapped behind him, and Sam turned to find Pa, his pa. A second later, he was wrapped up in Pa’s arms, and all the confusion and questions and doubt of the past few days faded away.

  “It’s been so long. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.” Pa wiped his face, and Sam saw that he’d been crying.

  “But it’s only been a day.”

  Pa looked ready to argue, but Sam wasn’t wasting any time.

  “Here, quick. Wrap this around your arm.” Sam used the duct tape to bind his left arm to Pa’s right, and Pa made sure it was extra tight, wrapping that tape as fast as he could, not bothering to ask questions. Sam could tell he understood.

  “Ready?” Pa said, staring at the hollow, which stood just a few feet away, gaping at them like an evil mouth.

  “Ready.”

  “You first.”

  It should have been impossible for them both to climb into a hole that was no bigger than a dinner plate, but the wood seemed to grow and stretch around them. His plan was working. As soon as Sam’s head and shoulders had been swallowed by the wet darkness, he was flying straight up, a fierce wind at his back. Only this time, Sam wasn’t the least bit scared, because he could feel Pa at his side. They flew faster and faster, Sam’s stomach lurching up his throat, and then the sunlight assaulted his eyes and he dropped to the hard, dead earth.

  His fingers spread out, feeling the solid ground beneath him. “Pa!” he called, head spinning, certain he had somehow been lost or left behind. Then he heard a groan followed by a tugging on his arm, and there was Pa pulling him tight against his chest.

  When they were done hugging, which wasn’t for a while, Sam turned and saw that the hollow had closed up. Just like that. It had all been . . . so easy. Almost like the Boy had let them escape.

  He looked at Pa, and he never wanted to stop looking, because here he was, back in the real world, and Sam could feel him and smell him and he wasn’t a dream or even a ghost. Pa reached in his pocket and took out his knife, the one with a green enamel gator on the handle. He whittled away at their duct tape handcuffs till they split apart, then Sam set to tearing off the rest.

  “Best to do it in one go, like a Band-Aid,” Pa said, and Sam ripped at the tape, only wincing a little when it peeled off the tiny hairs on his arm.

  Pa stood up, wobbly-legged, and took in the field and the school and the gravel road sending up clouds of white dust. “Never thought I’d come back here,” Pa said, rubbing the side of his neck. “I never asked, but how’s your aunt Jo?” He looked down at his hands, picking some of the grit from beneath his nails. “Guess I’ve got some things to tell you about your aunt, why she stayed away. Don’t know how much she’s said, but I owe her an apology. I was no better than Pops, when it comes right down to it. I never should’ve treated her like that, even if she did . . . well, maybe we’d better head on into town. A conversation like this requires adequate refreshment.”

  “I already know, Pa. She told me.” Sam thought back to the memory the Boy had shown him of Pa and Aunt Jo, a brother and sister against the world. He’d been wrong before. Pa wasn’t just some stranger to her. They really were family. “And she forgives you.”

  Pa thought on that a while, chewing his lip the way he did whenever he was trying not to cry at sad movies. “All right then. What now?” Pa looked up at the sky and out at the great expanse of grass, like he was seeing it all for the first time.

  What now? Sam had a million questions, like why hadn’t Pa ever told him about Mama or the Colonel, and how did it feel to be dead, and why hadn’t Pa trusted Sam enough to tell him the truth? About his stories, Aunt Jo, everything. Instead, he squeezed Pa’s hand again, double-checking he was real, and said, “Guess we head back to the diner. Aunt Jo’s probably wondering where I am.”

  “And me? She’ll likely have more than a few questions if I wander in off the street, good as new.” Sam hadn’t considered that. He hadn’t thought about anything beyond getting Pa out of the tree and back where he belonged. His palms prickled at the strange reality of what had happened, and he fought against the sick feeling that at any moment he could lose it all.

  “Maybe you should wait outside, till I get a chance to explain.”

  “And how do you plan on doing that? Not that I’m questioning your abilities, but that’ll be one mighty strange conversation, don’t you think?”

  “True. Maybe it’s best if she sees you for herself.”

  Pa let out a long breath, but nodded. “Better to rip off the Band-Aid, huh? All right, let’s get this over with.”

  With Pa’s arm around his shoulders, they headed back toward the diner. Even though Pa was here and everything had worked out, Sam’s heart hadn’t stopped pounding. They made it over the first hill, and then Pa stopped, overlooking the dinky playground with its rusty rocking horses and beat-up jungle gym.

  “Pa, you okay?”

  “Yeah, just let me catch my breath.”

  Except Sam could tell that Pa wasn’t okay. He doubled over, clutching his chest and wheezing, but the air wouldn’t go in.
Then Sam saw the curve in Pa’s neck, like someone had twisted it around too far and then tried to smooth it out again. It hadn’t been like that before, he would swear to it. It hadn’t been that way since the day of the accident.

  Pa sank to his knees, eyes shiny with fear, and Sam couldn’t do anything but watch as cuts and bruises appeared on Pa’s skin.

  “No, Pa! What’s happening?”

  He held onto Pa’s shoulders as Pa slid to the ground, shaking and scared, and Sam didn’t know one single thing to do about it.

  The cat slithered past Sam’s arm and changed in one smooth motion into the Boy. “He can’t come back. Not the way he used to be.” His feline features were gone, and he looked exactly like twelve-year-old Pa, except with no trace of his signature grin. “Unfortunate, I know, but that’s life for you. Well, to be more accurate, that’s death. I thought it would be more convincing if you saw it for yourself.”

  “He’s hurting! Make it stop.”

  “The doorway’s open. One-way access only. You can send him back any time you like.” The sunlight shifted, making the Boy look older than he had before, the shadows cutting deep lines down his face.

  Pa moaned, and Sam didn’t stop to question or mourn his loss. Pa was in pain, and he had to make it stop. “Come on, take my arm.”

  Using strength he didn’t know he had, Sam lifted Pa to his feet and half dragged him back to the tree. He could tell the doorway was open again because he could smell home on the other side.

  “Just him,” said the Boy. “Until tomorrow.”

  Sam didn’t argue.

  “No,” Pa pleaded, but then the pain grew so intense his plea gave way to a scream.

  “Please, Pa. Just go!”

  Pa cupped Sam’s face, pressing their foreheads together for one impossible moment, then he turned and climbed shakily back into the tree. Sam felt it the instant the hollow closed, because the air turned dry and empty, and the connection he had felt between him and Pa, the feverish prickling in his palms, had broken.

  “You’re evil,” Sam said, turning around, half expecting the Boy to have disappeared, but there he was.