The Secret Life of Sam

by Kim Ventrella

“Nothing, I—” Except he didn’t finish, because he couldn’t think of a lie, and why couldn’t Edie just go away and leave him alone, because time was running out and Pa was trapped?

  “Why were you looking inside that tree anyway?” She moved toward the hollow, and Sam didn’t mean to do what he did next, but he needed to make her go away.

  “Don’t!” He jerked her arm, harder than he intended, and she fell, hitting the ground with a cry of surprise. Her glasses tumbled, striking a rock, and maybe, maybe, they cracked a little, but how was that his fault? How?

  She looked up at him like he’d just smacked her in the face, which he hadn’t. He hadn’t even meant to pull her that hard, but even so, he offered to help her up. She glared at his hand but didn’t take it. “What was that?” She stood shakily, examining her broken glasses.

  “I didn’t . . .” He couldn’t come up with an answer, because first of all, what could he say? And second of all, why wouldn’t she just go away?

  “Are you going to tell me why you’re out here? Is this some weird game?”

  Part of him wanted to explain, to say something that would make her understand that he didn’t mean to hurt her, but what?

  “Why did you say you wanted to work together in the first place? What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing. I do want to work together. I—” The wind shook the leaves, and for some reason he thought of shriveled strips of skin all dried out like potato chips. Time was running out. The hollow had to open. It had to. “There’s just something I need to do. Something important.”

  Edie’s purple hair slapped her face, turning her cheeks an even brighter shade of red.

  “About your dad?” Her face softened for a moment. “Miss J said you might need your space. I get that.” She stared down at her hands, rubbing her fingers. “But maybe I can help.”

  Sam swallowed the lump in his throat. He didn’t want to lie, again, and he didn’t want to hurt Edie, but he needed her to go back inside. Now.

  “Just do the project by yourself, okay? You can still have this.” He whipped the check from his back pocket and handed it to Edie.

  She took it from him, the thin paper lashing the back of her hand. “You’re giving me the money? Are you serious?” She drew in a deep breath, and then threw the check into the wind, where it caught in a tangle of dead branches. “Keep your money! I don’t want it!”

  “Edie, wait,” Sam said in a weak voice as she ran back toward the school building. He watched her until she disappeared inside, but didn’t follow.

  This was what he’d wanted, what he needed. He was doing this for Pa.

  3:52 p.m.

  No.

  Even if the doorway hadn’t already been closed, it would probably be too late now. Sam dug the multitool from his backpack and used the knife to cut into the soft wood at the back of the hollow, gouging out a dozen shallow wounds.

  “Let me in!”

  He tried the corkscrew next, stabbing again and again at the wood, then the screwdriver, then the scissors, before giving up and throwing the multitool as hard as he could into the wind.

  “Come out here, you creepy cat! Whatever you are! You have to let me in!”

  Beyond the tree, a shadow moved through the field of dead grass that led up to a small wood. Sam recognized that shadow. He ran, backpack forgotten, the tall blades whipping against his legs, and then his foot struck something solid, and the ground was rushing up to meet him. He hit the dirt, but who cares, because he got back up in an instant to face the shadow.

  As he watched, the shadow changed, from the cat to the Boy and then back again, settling on something in between.

  “I told you to say goodbye,” said the in-between thing, licking the dirt from his fingernails with a long, furry tongue. “Now it’s too late. These situations, when they do arise, are never permanent. Merely transitory spaces that exist for a time between worlds.”

  “Open the doorway.” Sam squeezed his fingers into fists to keep them from shaking. “I need to go back.”

  “Too late, I’m afraid. I don’t make the rules. I am merely here to assist.” He stopped licking his grape-soda hand and watched Sam with not one but two silvery eyes. Unlike before, he wasn’t smiling.

  “Help me, then.”

  “As I said, once the door is closed—”

  “I know, there’s no going back again. But you can open it. And don’t lie and say you can’t.” All around, the world had stopped, no wind, no sound, every blade of grass frozen midsway. “One more day, that’s all I need.”

  The Boy narrowed his eyes, and Sam could see his face reflected in their glassy surface. “To say goodbye?”

  “Fine.” Sam clenched his jaw, forcing out the words. “To say goodbye.”

  The Boy twisted his ragged tail between his fingers, considering. “Very well. The hollow will open again tomorrow, 3:45 p.m. You will have five minutes.”

  Sam’s throat seized up at his words, and he couldn’t tell if he was going to cry or choke. He opened his mouth to answer, but the world suddenly started up again, wind rushing, children shouting, grass slashing at his legs, and the Boy was gone.

  16

  SAM RETURNED TO THE TREE, staring into the shadowy center of the hollow. One more day. He had no plan, no way to rescue Pa, but he knew one thing for certain. He also had no intention of saying goodbye. He gathered up his things, the multitool, the duct tape, and the waterproof matches that had slipped out of his pack.

  “I called your aunt to pick you up.”

  Sam turned to find Mr. Redding, his stringy white hair dancing in the wind. Suddenly his argument with Edie rushed back to him, and he felt a pang in the pit of his stomach.

  “What about—?”

  “She decided to walk.”

  “Oh.”

  “Friends, Mr. West. When you’re old like me, you know how rare they are. The good ones, at least. Do you want some advice?”

  “Not really.”

  “Fair enough.”

  He started to walk away from Mr. Redding, but then sighed. Turned back. “Why are you here, anyway?”

  “I am responsible for you, young man,” Mr. Redding said, looking down at Sam’s hands. “You’re bleeding. What happened out here? Anything you want to tell me?”

  “Fell, I guess.”

  “You guess?”

  Sam shrugged.

  “Well, if there is ever anything you need to talk about, I’m always here.” Mr. Redding frowned a while longer at Sam’s hands before turning back to the road. “I’ve got a first-aid kit in my desk, if you—”

  “No, thanks.”

  “At least let me get you a Band-Aid.”

  “I’m fine. It’s just a scratch.”

  “Fair enough,” he repeated.

  They turned to face the gravel road. The wind picked up, sending that cloud of white bone dust blossoming on the horizon.

  “I told your aunt I’d wait with you, so looks like you’re stuck with me a while longer.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “No, but here I am.”

  Behind them, the branches of the dead tree snapped and clicked in the wind. Silence settled between them, and it wasn’t a comfortable silence, like with Pa, or the other kind of silence, like when Aunt Jo had come to pick him up. It was another kind of silence altogether.

  “But really. Have you ever seen a ghost?” Sam said, because he still hadn’t gotten a straight answer.

  Mr. Redding twisted his ring some more, and Sam noticed how his hands were so old and wrinkled they reminded him of gator scales.

  “Why do you think Willie came back to see Mary Lincoln?” Mr. Redding said, eyes staring at the cloud of rising dust. “Assuming you believe he did.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “I’m just curious.”

  Sam thought about Mary Lincoln waking up and finding her dead son standing at the foot of her bed. It was a grape-soda question. “Because he missed her. Why else would he
come back?”

  “But he was dead. Why not stay that way?”

  “I told you, because he missed her.”

  “But what was he, really? Even if we believe this, even if we want to believe more than anything else? What was he? A shadow, an echo, a ghost? A fading memory that couldn’t touch or speak or affect anything around him? Have you considered that, Mr. West? All he could do was watch. Not much of a life, if you ask me.”

  Sam thought back to that awful night with Pa, the way he’d fallen apart minutes after they’d stepped back into this world, the way all the pain of the accident had returned. But Pa hadn’t been a ghost, had he? Besides, it wasn’t the same. This was Pa, not some dead kid from a million years ago.

  “How do you know what it was like for him? You’re not that old.”

  “No, Mr. West. I’m not that old,” Mr. Redding said, sounding almost amused. “I’m asking you. Why would Willie Lincoln choose to stay?”

  “For her, his mom. She asked for him.”

  “She missed him?”

  “Of course she did. He was her son,” Sam said, the heat building in his chest. “Who wouldn’t miss their own son?”

  “She couldn’t let him go.”

  “Why should she let go?” Sam’s voice had grown louder, angrier, but he didn’t care. “It wasn’t fair the way he died. Why should she have to let him go?”

  “You’re right. It was her choice. She chose to believe that Willie was still with her because the alternative . . .”

  Mr. Redding took off his ring and examined it in the light. The sun swam across the golden surface, forming a tiny ocean of gently rolling waves. He drew in a deep breath and returned the ring to his finger.

  “I don’t know anything for certain. There is so little certainty to be had in this world, but I know that sometimes when people die, we have to let them go. Not stop loving them, not forget about them. Just let them go.” His eyes suddenly looked faraway, like he was remembering something painful from a long time ago. “If you were Willie Lincoln, what would you want?”

  “What do you mean?” Sam said, his anger churning in his stomach.

  “For your mother to spend her life in the shadows talking to ghosts? Or for her to live?”

  Sam wanted to punch Mr. Redding, because what the heck did he know about anything? Willie Lincoln was different. Pa wasn’t even a ghost, not really. He could think and feel and touch. Then again, maybe Willie Lincoln had been like that too once, only he’d stayed in the real world too long. No. No way. Besides, it didn’t matter, because Pa couldn’t stay, not if it meant he had to die all over again, and Sam wasn’t giving up on life. He just wanted to live it with Pa, and where did Mr. Redding get off saying he was wrong? Maybe Mr. Redding should just shut up and stop talking before—

  “I believe your ride is here, Mr. West.”

  Sam hadn’t noticed the sound of tires crunching over gravel. Aunt Jo rolled down her window and waved.

  “I didn’t mention your little excursion this afternoon to your aunt, but I trust you’ll consider what I said. About friendship.”

  “You still haven’t told me if you believe in ghosts.”

  “Didn’t I?” Mr. Redding said. “Oh, and promise me you’ll do something about those hands.” With that, he turned and headed back toward the school. It took every ounce of willpower to stop Sam from running after him and punching that grape-soda mustache right off his grape-soda face.

  “What happened to you?” Aunt Jo said as soon as he got in the car. She made him turn his hands over and show her both sides, even though it was just a few scrapes and, what was he, some crybaby?

  “I tripped. It was no big deal.”

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, you call that a few scrapes? You keep this up, you’ll be nothing but bandages. Just like your pa. If there was something to trip over within a mile radius, he’d be sure to find it.” She shook her head and started up the incline. Clifton Chenier was crooning from the speakers, and Sam recognized Pa’s favorite song, “The Cat’s Dreamin’.” He wondered if she was playing it just for him, or if maybe Pa’s tastes were starting to rub off.

  Back at the house, Aunt Jo ordered Sam to sit down at the kitchen table so she could wrap his hands, again. She heated up two mugs full of turkey chili, the canned kind, but it was still pretty good, and they ate with the sound of the fridge humming in the background. The really annoying thing was, now that Sam knew tomorrow was his last day here—it had to be—he felt kind of sad leaving Aunt Jo behind. Even her grape-soda house and her ugly yellow kitchen and the chipped mugs she used as dinner plates no longer seemed so bad.

  He didn’t know how, but he was leaving it all behind. He wouldn’t be like Mary Todd Lincoln, asking her son to come back, despite the pain, and turn into some kind of faded-out specter. He’d go with Pa; he’d find a way.

  “You done?” Aunt Jo said, offering to take Sam’s cup.

  “Sure.”

  “What’s all that, anyway?” Sam said when they were done washing and drying the dishes, nodding at the ten white boxes stacked up on the counter.

  “Donuts for tonight. We’ve got meetings here three times a week, four during the holidays. You wanna help me set up? Edie can’t make it. Said she might be coming down with something. Did she seem okay at school?”

  Sam gulped down the last of his Orange Crush. The fizz stung his throat. “She seemed okay to me.”

  “But if your hands still hurt, you just say the word. Come to think of it, you’d better rest up. Leave it to me and the crew.”

  “No, it’s okay. I can help.” Even though his head was still throbbing, even though he had ghosts swimming around inside his brain and he didn’t know what to do about Pa, he thought helping might take his mind off things. Besides, if this really was his last night with Aunt Jo, he’d better make the best of it. He tried not to think about Edie, and how she’d probably never speak to him again, and how her not speaking to him would last forever, because she’d be here and he’d be on the other side with Pa.

  Sam started to get up, but Aunt Jo shook her head. “No, siree. You sit down and rest those hands. You’ll be on donut duty.”

  Aunt Jo got out cups and napkins, and then headed to the living room to start on the folding chairs.

  “I thought I told you to rest,” Aunt Jo said as Sam followed her into the living room.

  “I did. All better.”

  Aunt Jo frowned, but she let Sam help her drag the chairs out of the closet, and together they set up over twenty of them, shoved in here and there, wherever they would fit.

  “Does it ever hurt?” Sam said, as he helped Aunt Jo scoot the couch back so they could squeeze in a few more chairs. He was impressed by how easily she moved stuff around, like it didn’t even matter that one of her legs was made of metal.

  Aunt Jo didn’t have to ask what he was talking about. “Sure it does. If you ever see me pucker up my face like I just swallowed a lemon, you can bet it’s my leg.”

  “What did it feel like when it happened?”

  “That should just about do it,” she said, grabbing the last three chairs all at once and handing one to Sam. “Apart from hurting like heck, it felt . . . unreal. Like I couldn’t believe the rest of my leg was missing.” They finished and then Aunt Jo plopped down on the couch, Sam sinking into the spot beside her. “Strange thing was, it was my foot that hurt the worst. You know, phantom pains? And it wasn’t just a tickle or an itch, it was straight-up pain. I used to stay up nights wondering how something that wasn’t even there could hurt so bad.”

  “But it’s not so bad anymore?”

  “Not most of the time, but I still have those nights. At first I thought I’d never get used to having a big hunk of plastic rubbing against my skin.” She tapped on the top of her prosthetic leg. It almost sounded hollow. “I was sure my life was over, full stop, that was it.”

  “So what happened? How’d you move on?”

  There was a knock on the door. Aunt Jo stood up
with a groan. “I kept going. One day at a time. Every day got a little easier. Of course, I had dark times too—that’s why we’re here—but I kept at it.” She ignored the knocking for a moment and her eyes met Sam’s. “I’ll never get my leg back, not the way it used to be, but all in all, life’s good. It’s not the way I expected, but I can live with it.”

  He heard more cars pull up the drive. The knocking got louder. She pulled Sam into a hug, and this time he hugged her back.

  Edie didn’t show up that night, even though Sam had secretly hoped she might, and so he was on his own. He served donuts and washed dishes and listened to people’s stories. No matter where they were in their journeys, the speakers all sounded a lot like Aunt Jo. According to them, it was all about taking it one day at a time and keeping on, even when you’d rather dig yourself a hole and go hide in it.

  One speaker, a lady with huge gold earrings shaped like lions, said how she’d accidentally set her house on fire by falling asleep on the couch with a lit cigarette, and how that had been the worst day of her life, because it was the day she hit rock bottom. But it was also the best day, because her house burned down and it meant she had no choice but to start from scratch. Door closed. No going back.

  When the speakers were done talking and mingling, and Sam finally had the kitchen spotless, he headed upstairs, leaving Aunt Jo behind to see out the last of her guests. He closed the door to his room and collapsed on the bed, head buzzing with questions.

  He thought about what Mr. Redding had said about Mary and Willie Lincoln. Had Willie come back because he wanted to, or because Mary wouldn’t let him go? Did it even matter? Pa couldn’t come back, not like that, which meant Sam wasn’t the one holding on. Besides, maybe Mr. Redding had it wrong. Maybe it wasn’t just Mary who’d been clinging too tight to the past, but both of them. Maybe they both wanted life to go back to the way it had been.

  What was so bad about that?

  And he wasn’t asking Pa to stay. He was going. He thought about Aunt Jo downstairs, and about Edie. Was he selfish for leaving without bothering to explain? Was he giving up his life like Mr. Redding had said? Then an even worse thought crept in. What if he couldn’t leave? What if there wasn’t a way for him to stay with Pa, and the Boy was right? What if he went back through the hollow tomorrow and had no choice but to say goodbye?