Heart Bones

by Hoover, Colleen

  “I know. I’ll be there. But what can I do today? Is there anyone I can call for you?”

  There’s a pause on his end. I’m not sure he heard the question, but then he sighs and says, “No. There’s no one.”

  God, I hate that. P.J. and I really are all he has right now. “I don’t think my father is going to bail you out. He’s pretty upset.”

  “It’s not his responsibility,” Samson says. “Please don’t ask him to do that.”

  “I’ll figure something out, though.”

  “I’ll be here for a while, Beyah. I really fucked up.”

  “Which is why I’m going to help find you a lawyer.”

  “I’ll be entitled to a public defender,” he says. “I’ve been through this before.”

  “Yeah, but they’re overworked as it is. It wouldn’t hurt to try and find a lawyer who has more time to prepare and fight for your case.”

  “I can’t afford a lawyer. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m not actually rich.”

  “Good. You know your money was my least favorite thing about you.”

  Samson is quiet, even though it feels like he has so much to say.

  “I’m going to spend the rest of today applying for jobs. I’ll start saving up to help you hire another lawyer. You aren’t alone in this, Samson.”

  “My mistakes aren’t your responsibility, either. There’s nothing you can do. Besides, the court date won’t be for several weeks. You’ll be in Pennsylvania by then.”

  “I’m not going to Pennsylvania.” He’s insane if he thinks I’m going to abandon him. Does he really think I’m going to leave him to sit in jail while I move across the country as if I didn’t grow a heart bone over the summer? “What about Marjorie’s son? What kind of lawyer is he?”

  He doesn’t respond to my question.

  “Samson?” I pull my phone back and the call has been dropped. “Shit.”

  I press my phone to my forehead. He probably won’t get to call me back. I’ll have to wait and talk to him in person tomorrow. I have so many more questions I already need to add to the list.

  But I also have work to do, so I walk across the street, straight to Marjorie’s house. I beat on her door until she opens it.

  I forgot it’s still super early. She’s in her nightgown, tying her robe together when she opens the door. She looks at me from head to toe. “What in the world has got you so worked up?”

  “It’s Samson. He’s in jail.”

  A flash of worry floods her eyes, and then she steps aside to let me in. “What for?”

  “The house he’s been staying in doesn’t belong to him. He was arrested this morning because the owners showed up in the middle of the night.”

  “Samson? Are you sure?”

  I nod. “I was there. He’s going to need a lawyer, Marjorie. One who can spend more time on his case than a public defender can.”

  “Yes, that’s a good idea.”

  “Your son. What kind of lawyer is he?”

  “He’s a defense…no. No, I can’t ask Kevin to do that.”

  “Why not? I’m getting a job. I can pay him.”

  Marjorie looks torn. I can’t say that I blame her. She admitted to me the first time she met me that she barely knew Samson. I’ve got more at stake here than she does, but she can’t ignore all that he’s done for her. One of Marjorie’s cats climbs up onto the kitchen counter next to her. She picks it up and brings it to her chest.

  “How much did Samson charge you for all the work he’s done here?”

  It takes her a minute to catch up to my question. Her posture sinks a little. “Nothing. He wouldn’t take any money from me.”

  “Exactly. He’s not a bad person and you know it, Marjorie.” I hand her my cell phone. “Please. Call your son. You owe Samson this favor.”

  She sets the cat on the floor and then waves a flippant hand at my phone. “I don’t know how to use those things.” She walks to the kitchen and picks up a landline telephone, then begins dialing her son’s number.

  Kevin agreed to get in touch with Samson, but only because he knows how much Samson has helped out Marjorie over the last few months. He didn’t agree to take him on pro bono, or take on his case at all, but I’m one step closer than I was before I walked into Marjorie’s house.

  Now that I’m walking out, she’s stuck me with two pounds of pecans. “I’m getting almonds next week,” she says.

  I smile. “Thank you, Marjorie.”

  When I’m back inside our house, I drop the nuts on the table and grab both backpacks my father brought over this morning. I’m walking upstairs when he comes out to the hallway. “Beyah?”

  I keep walking. “I’ll be in my room the rest of the day. I’d rather not be disturbed; I’m going to bed.”

  “Beyah, wait,” I hear him say.

  When I make it to the top of the stairs, I hear Alana say, “She asked to be alone, Brian. I think she means it.”

  Alana is right. I do mean it. I don’t feel like lectures from my father about what a terrible human Samson is. I’m too sad for that. And too tired.

  I maybe got two hours of sleep last night at the most, and even with the adrenaline that’s been pumping through my veins since I woke up, my eyes are beginning to grow heavier by the second.

  I drop our backpacks by the bed and fall onto the mattress. I lie on it, staring out the glass balcony doors. It’s so bright out there. So warm. So happy.

  I stand up and snatch the curtains shut, then crawl back into bed. I just want today to end already and it’s not even lunchtime yet.

  I toss, turn, and stare at the ceiling for over an hour. I just can’t stop thinking about what’s going to happen. How long will he be in jail? Or does this mean he’ll actually be sentenced to time in prison? If he truly does have that many charges against him, what kind of time is he looking at? Six months? Ten years?

  I’m not going to be able to fall asleep without some kind of assistance. My mind is racing too much. I open my door and wait until it sounds like the kitchen is clear. I walk back downstairs and go to the pantry. I know there’s a section in here where they keep their medicine. I thumb through the bottles, but find nothing that might help me sleep.

  Maybe they keep it in their bathroom. My father and Alana should be on their way to work by now, so I go to their bathroom and open their medicine cabinet. There’s nothing in here but toothpaste and spare toothbrushes. Some sort of ointment. A container of cotton swabs.

  I slam the door to the medicine cabinet shut, but startle when I see Alana standing behind me in the mirror’s reflection. “Sorry. I thought you were at work.”

  “I took the day off,” she says. “What are you looking for?”

  I turn and look at her desperately. “I just need NyQuil or something. I need to sleep. I haven’t slept yet and my mind is racing.” I wave my hands at my face, trying to push back the tears that have been miraculously kept at bay since last night.

  “I can make you some tea.”

  Tea? She wants to make me tea?

  She’s a dentist, surely she has a prescription for some horse-strength tranquilizers somewhere in this house.

  “I don’t want tea, Alana. I need something that works. I don’t want to be awake right now.” I bring my hands up and cover my face. “It hurts so much to think,” I whisper. “I don’t even want to dream about him. I just want to sleep and not dream or think or feel.”

  It all starts to hit me in the center of my chest.

  Everything Samson said on the phone slams into me so hard, I have to lean against the sink for support. His voice echoes in my head. “I’ll be here for a while, Beyah.”

  How long do I have to go before I’m happy again?

  I don’t want to go back to who I was before I met him. I had nothing inside of me then but bitterness and anger. No feeling, no joy, no comfort. “What if he’s gone for so long, he doesn’t want to be part of my life when he gets out?”

  I didn’
t mean to say that out loud. Or maybe I did.

  My tears start falling and Alana immediately responds. She doesn’t say anything to make me feel bad for feeling sad. She just wraps her arms around me and tucks my head against her shoulder.

  It’s a comfort that’s completely unfamiliar, but one I desperately need right now. The comfort of a mother. I sob against her for several minutes. It’s everything I didn’t know I needed in this moment. Just a small morsel of sympathy from someone.

  “I wish you could have been my mother,” I say through my tears.

  I feel her sigh. “Oh, sweetie,” she whispers sympathetically. She pulls back and looks at me gently. “I’ll give you one Ambien, but it’s the only one you’re ever getting from me.”

  I nod. “I promise I’ll never ask again.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  I slept way too hard. It feels like my brain is compressed to the right side of my head.

  I sit up in bed and look outside. It’s almost dark now. I look at the time on my phone and see that it’s after seven. My stomach is growling so loud, it may be what woke me up.

  I left the ringer on my phone set to high, but it never made a noise and I have no missed calls.

  Fourteen more hours until I get to see him.

  I reach to the floor and pick up Samson’s backpack. I dump the contents of it onto my bed and begin sifting through everything.

  Literally everything he owns is on my bed right now.

  There are two pairs of shorts and two of Marcos’s branded T-shirts. He was wearing the other set when he was arrested, so does that mean he only has three changes of clothes? I noticed he wore the same shirts a lot, but I assumed he was doing it to support Marcos. He probably washed them regularly in hopes no one would notice.

  There are toiletries in a bag. Toothpaste, deodorant, a toothbrush, nail clippers. But no wallet.

  Did he actually lose his wallet before we went to get tattoos, or did he never even have one? If he’s been on his own since his father died, how would he have even gotten a driver’s license?

  I have so many questions. There’s no way our visit tomorrow will be long enough for him to answer them all.

  In the bottom of his backpack, I find a plastic Ziploc bag. The bag is filled with what look like folded up pieces of paper. They’re all a little faded with a yellow tint to them, so they’re obviously old.

  I open the bag and pull out one of the pieces of paper and unfold it.

  Little Boy

  Bitten by frenzy like me

  Exhaustion in his eyes

  He’s growing angry at the sea

  More tired than he should be

  So tired of being free

  -Rake Bennett

  11-13-07

  Samson mentioned that Rake used to write poetry. I stare at this poem and try to make sense of it.

  Is it about Samson? Are all these notes from his father? It’s dated when Samson would have been about twelve years old. A year before the hurricane hit.

  So tired of being free.

  What does that line mean? Did his father think Samson was tired of living life on the ocean with him?

  I pull out the rest of the pieces of paper, needing to read every single one of them. They’re all dated from before Hurricane Ike, all written by his father.

  She lives

  When you were born, so was your mother.

  As long as you live,

  she too will be alive.

  -Rake Bennett

  08-30-06

  Gone

  I met your mother while she was standing on the beach,

  her feet buried in the sand.

  I regret not falling to my knees to scoop up some of the granules

  into the palms of my hands.

  I wonder if any of what we touch has ever been stepped on by her feet.

  Or has every grain of sand she ever came across

  already washed back out to sea?

  -Rake Bennett

  07-16-07

  Dear Shawn,

  Every child eventually craves a new place to be.

  I decided your first home to be a boat, but now I wonder,

  Is this boat the home you’ll flee?

  If so,

  that grave mistake is all on me.

  Because when a man says I’m going home,

  he should be heading for the sea.

  -Rake Bennett

  01-03-08

  There are at least twenty poems and letters in the bag. Only a few are written directly for Samson, but based on all the sheets of paper as a whole, I get the impression what Samson told me about his father was true. Rake lived on the water, but the part Samson left out was that he lived on the water with Rake, too.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  “Beyah Grim?”

  I practically jump out of my chair. My father stands up too, but I don’t want my father going in with me to see Samson. “You don’t have to come.”

  “I’m not allowing you in there by yourself.” His statement is final, like there isn’t any room for negotiation.

  “Dad, please.” I don’t know that Samson will feel like being honest with me if my father is sitting across from him. “Please.”

  He nods tightly. “I’ll wait in the car.”

  “Thank you.”

  I follow the guard as he leads me to a large, open room. There are several tables and almost all of them are full of people visiting with other inmates.

  It’s depressing. But not as depressing as I thought it would be. I assumed I’d be on one side of a window made of glass, unable to touch him.

  My eyes immediately seek out and find Samson sitting alone at a table on the other side of the room. He’s wearing a dark blue jumpsuit. Seeing him in something other than his usual beach shorts makes this all feel more real.

  When he finally looks up and sees me, he immediately stands. I don’t know why I expected his hands to be cuffed, but I’m relieved to see they aren’t. I rush to him and fall right into his arms. He pulls me against him with tightened arms.

  “I’m sorry,” he says.

  “I know.”

  He holds me for a moment, but I don’t want to get him in trouble, so we separate, and I sit across from him. The table is small, so we aren’t that far apart, but he feels a world away.

  He takes one of my hands and holds it in both of his, resting our hands on the table. “I owe you so many answers. Where do you want me to start?”

  “Anywhere.”

  He takes a moment to figure out where he should begin. I bring my other hand to his until all four of our hands are in a pile on the table. “Everything I told you about my mother was true. Her name was Isabel. I was only five when it happened, but even though I didn’t remember much of my life before her death, I knew it changed drastically after she was gone. Rake is my father; I did omit that. After my mother died, he seemed lost when he wasn’t on the water. It’s like he couldn’t imagine being anywhere she wasn’t, so he pulled me out of school, and we lived on his boat for several years. And that was my life, until Darya took him from me.”

  “So that’s what you meant when you said Darya broke your heart?”

  He nods.

  “Where were you when the hurricane hit?”

  Samson’s jaw hardens, like that’s not a memory he wants to relive. He stares at our hands as he speaks. “My father dropped me off at a church. It’s where a lot of the residents took shelter, but he refused to stay with me. He wanted to make sure his boat was secured since it was our entire life. He told me he’d be back before dark, but I never saw him again after that night.” He brings his eyes back to mine. “I wanted to stay on the peninsula, but there was nothing left after the hurricane. It was hard for a thirteen-year-old to hide there, or even survive at that point, so I had to leave. I knew if I told someone my father was missing, I’d get thrown into a group home, so I just spent the next few years trying to be invisible. I ended up working with a friend in Galveston doing odd jobs like mo
wing yards. He was the guy you met at the restaurant. We were young and did some stupid shit. It eventually caught up with us.”

  “What about the arson charge?”

  “Technically not my fault. The owner had some shitty electrical work done, but had I not broken into that house that night and turned on the power, it never would have caught on fire. So, on paper, it was my fault.” Samson threads his fingers through mine. “Once I knew I had another warrant out for my arrest, I chose to come back here one last time before turning myself in. I don’t know if I was looking for closure or hoping to find my father, but I ended up finding both. But I also found you and never wanted to leave.” Samson brushes his thumb across the top of my left hand. “I knew I’d be in jail for a while, so I was trying to stretch out my time with you before you left.” He sighs. “What else do you want to know?”

  “How did you know the alarm code for that house?”

  “The owner uses his house number as his code. Easiest password to guess.”

  It’s hard to judge him when that judgment would be extremely hypocritical of me. If anything, I admire his survival skills.

  “What about the Air Force Academy? Was any of that true?”

  He looks down, unable to meet my gaze. He shakes his head. “I wanted to go to the Air Force. That was my plan, until I fucked it all up. But there were things I lied about, like it being a family tradition. I’ve said a lot of things that weren’t true. But I had to back up my reasoning for being in that house with lies I never wanted to tell you. That’s why I wouldn’t answer your questions. I didn’t like being dishonest with you. Or anyone. I just…”

  “You didn’t have a choice,” I say, finishing his thought. I get it. I’ve been there my whole life. “You’re the one who said wrong decisions come from either strength or weakness. You weren’t lying because you were weak, Samson.”

  He takes in a slow breath, like he dreads what’s coming next. His entire demeanor changes when he looks me in the eye. The weight of this room begins to close in on me with that look. “Yesterday on the phone you mentioned you weren’t going to Pennsylvania.”