Sam blinked back tears and smiled at the long windowsill filled with flowers from Susie and Marlee, Lisa and her family, Sam’s parents, Rolando and his wife, Mrs. Worthington, Mrs. Tardelli, and lots of other people. Sam, of course, trumped them all by having six bouquets sent. She breathed in the flowery fragrance, grateful Helene had so many fans.
The night before, Sam hadn’t wanted to leave Helene alone in the hospital when visiting hours ended, especially since Helene had woken up, and they had talked for a few minutes. Helene hadn’t remembered a thing about the accident, and seemed more concerned about Sam’s stitches than her own concussion. Typical of Helene, but this time Sam was going to play the role of nanny and take care of her.
She had been prepared to defy the visiting hours rule and camp out all night in Helene’s room, but the doctor and night nurse insisted Helene would rest better without Sam’s nervous energy in the room. Sam’s parents had long gone home. They’d left about an hour after Helene was situated in the private room on the ultra-quiet third floor. Lisa, Marlee, and Susie had stayed longer, but eventually they, too, had to go home. Susie drove Marlee and Lisa back to Clarksonville, and then came all the way back to East Valley. She stopped back at the hospital to make sure Sam was all right. Susie had even been willing to stand vigil all night with Sam but ended up driving her home a little after nine p.m.
Sam took another look at Helene in the bed. The early afternoon sunlight had crept up to the bottom of the bed making the room feel peaceful and cozy. Sam wished she could say Helene looked peaceful, but she didn’t. The pain medication the nurse had given Helene must not be working yet. The nurse told Sam that Helene’s body was recovering from the sloshing her brain had gotten in the accident.
Sam pulled out her phone and scrolled through the happy pictures of her and Helene at the lake house. She blew out a sigh and said a silent prayer to a God she hadn’t talked to in a long time.
A quiet knock on the door made Sam’s heart soar. The door opened and Lisa, Susie, and Marlee walked in.
“How’s Helene today?” Lisa asked in a whisper. She flew over to Sam and gave her a quick hello kiss. She wrapped her in a snuggly hug.
“The doctor said she’s going to sleep a lot while she recovers,” Sam whispered back.
Lisa let go of Sam and reached for the medical chart tucked in a box on the end of the bed. She scanned the entries.
Susie gave Sam a quick hug and asked in a quiet voice, “How long does she have to stay here?”
“The CAT scan showed there wasn’t any bleeding on her brain or anything like that,” Sam said.
“Thank God for that, eh?” Lisa blew out a sigh and stashed the chart back in the box.
“She has a severe concussion and needs rest, so they’re going to play it by ear. Three or four days at least.” Sam gestured for her friends to sit in the chairs Susie and Marlee had snagged from the hallway the night before. “Lisa, you should go to medical school. You love this stuff.”
“Medical school?” Lisa got a faraway look on her face as if she’d never thought of it. ”That’s going to be expensive, but I guess I could get a student loan or a scholarship or something.”
“Yeah, and your bio-dad gave your mom enough money to take a big chunk out of your undergrad costs.”
Marlee gave Sam the envelope she had been holding. “It’s a get well card for Helene from me and my mom.”
“Thanks, Marlee. That’s sweet.” Sam put the unopened card on the table next to Helene’s bed.
“Oh, geez,” Lisa said, “I forgot the cards in the van. The three musketeers made a whole bunch of get well cards for you and Helene before we went to church this morning.”
“We’ll go get them,” Susie said. “C’mon, Marlee, let’s give the lovebirds some alone time.”
Sam felt her cheeks get warm. It wasn’t like she and Lisa were going to get down and dirty right there in Helene’s hospital room, but it was kind of nice to have Lisa all to herself for a while.
“How ‘bout I call the three musketeers later? Let them know I’m okay.”
Lisa’s loving smile made Sam get warm all over. She pulled her chair closer. “You’re so nice to think of them. See? When you do stuff like that, it makes me want to marry you.”
“Ahh,” Sam said, “do you know that we can legally get married right now?”
“Right now? How? We’re both underage.”
“I looked it up. We’d need written permission from both sets of parents, though.”
Lisa laughed. “And you’d be able to get that real easy, eh?”
Sam rolled her eyes. “Not in this lifetime.”
“What’s the age we don’t need our parents’ permission?”
“Eighteen.”
Lisa nodded slowly as if scheming. “Guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
“Do you want to cross that bridge with me?” Sam asked shyly.
Lisa stood up and pulled Sam out of the chair. She swallowed Sam in her arms and seared her with a steamy kiss. When she let go, Sam was delightfully dizzy. She stumbled backward and sat down hard.
Lisa shot Sam a suggestive look. “Does that answer your question?”
“I’ll say.” Sam nodded slowly and fanned herself. Sam snuck a peek at Helene. She was still sleeping soundly, but this time her face looked more relaxed. The pain meds were probably kicking in big time. “For now we’ll have to make do with celebrating our four month anniversary.”
“On Wednesday.”
Sam nodded. “I’ll pick you up after play practice, okay?”
“Dinner at D’Amico’s?”
“Maybe.” Sam had actually reserved a table at Le Grande Bistro, a high end restaurant in Southbridge, but wanted to surprise Lisa.
“Did you ever look up the answer to that other question we had?” Lisa sat back down.
“What other—“
“You know.” Lisa blushed. “When you turn eighteen, and I’m still sixteen. Will you be in trouble if we, you know?“
“Oh, that question.” Sam leaned closer and said in low tones, “Yes, we will be in trouble then because we’re in trouble right now. Well, I am anyway.”
Lisa’s eyes grew wide. “Why?”
“You’re not seventeen yet. It turns out that we’ll be legal once you turn seventeen.”
“Even though at seventeen I’ll still be underage?”
Sam nodded. “The website I went to said anybody under seventeen years old is incapable of giving consent to, you know, have, uh, intimate relations.” Sam blushed at the last two whispered words.
“Oh, I’m more than capable of consenting.” Lisa waggled her eyebrows.
“Believe me, I know.”
The door opened wide, and Susie and Marlee rushed back in. Marlee held up the plastic grocery bag filled with crayon-drawn get well cards from Lisa’s brother and sisters and handed it to Sam.
“Thanks, you guys.” Sam took the bag.
“Look at your cards later,” Susie said. “Move your chair over here. Marlee and I found something quite interesting in the lobby.” She held up a pamphlet.
Sam couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “STDs and You? Why do you have that?”
“Just get over here,” Susie hissed through gritted teeth.
Sam shook her head, but did as bidden. “What is so exciting about STDs?”
“Shuddup. I’m giving you guys a quiz.”
Sam rolled her eyes dramatically and then snuck a peek back at Helene who was still sleeping soundly. “Okay, but we can’t wake up Helene.”
“Sí, claro, gringa. So, I assume you guys took Health in ninth grade, like me and Sam did, right?”
Lisa and Marlee nodded.
“Let’s see how good your memories are. Name some STDs.”
“Syphilis,” Marlee said with a snap of her fingers.
“Yes.”
“Gonorrhea,” Lisa offered.
“Good. What else?”
The room was stock st
ill. The only sounds that could be heard were the quiet noises of the medical staff moving in the hallway outside Helene’s room.
“See,” Susie said, “it’s not an easy quiz.”
“Wait, now,” Sam said, “I remember something weird about warts, you know, down there.”
“Oh, yeah,” Marlee said. “Can you imagine how awkward that would be?”
“Uh, how about herpes?” Lisa said.
“Bingo!” Susie said. “But there are a couple of biggies you haven’t said yet.”
After a few moments of wracking their brains, Susie let them off the hook. “HIV is an STD.”
“Yeah, I guess it would be,” Sam said. “Any exchange of bodily fluids, right?”
“Right. Hepatitis B, too.” Susie added. “Aay, mierda. Check this out. It says one in every five Americans has an STD.”
Marlee’s jaw dropped open. “One in five?”
Susie nodded. “Twenty percent.”
“Oh, man. There are five people in this room right now. That means one of us could have an STD. Holy crap.”
Sam’s eyes grew wide. “Wait a sec. Are we counted in that one in five? Do lesbians have the same risk?” She whispered the word lesbians, still not comfortable saying the word out loud. “I thought we were immune to that stuff.”
“I think we’re at risk with any kind of exchange of bodily fluids,” Susie said, “but I really don’t know. And if your school is like ours, they only talked about hetero sex. Am I right?”
Sam and Lisa added their nods to Marlee’s.
“They do their best to scare us into abstinence in ninth grade,” Marlee said, “but, seriously, what STDs do we have to worry about?” Marlee asked the question before Sam could.
Susie shrugged. “I have no idea. Sam, give me that fancy phone of yours, and I’ll look it up.”
“No way,” Sam said. “You’re not looking that up with my phone. What if my parents saw it?”
“True that.” Susie nodded.
“I use the school computers in the library for that kind of research.” Sam winked at Lisa.
“Check this out, you guys.” Marlee grabbed the pamphlet from Susie’s hand. “It says here you can lower your chance of getting STDs by using a latex male condom or, get this, a female condom.”
“Aay, a female condom?” Susie asked. “You made that up.”
“I did not. See?” Marlee pointed to the pamphlet.
“I’ve never heard of a female condom. Have you guys?” Susie asked.
Sam and Lisa shook their heads. “Get back to us after you do your research, Sus,” Sam said.
“Why me?”
“’Cuz you’re the one who brought that stupid thing in here,” Sam said.
“Okay, whatever. I’ll use a computer at the college, because my mother will have a heart attack if she finds out I’m researching anything about sex.”
“Can I read my get well cards now?” Sam stood up.
“Sí, claro, class dismissed.” Susie grinned.
Sam moved her chair back next to Helene’s bed. She leaned down and kissed the back of Helene’s hand. Sam sat in the chair and smiled as she picked through the pile of hand-drawn get well cards. Bridget had drawn a picture of Sam with purple hair sticking straight up in the air. Lawrence Jr. drew a couple of transformers destroying a city, and Lynnie had written a get well poem under the flowers she had drawn. They had also made cards for Helene, which was sweet because they had only met her once at a softball game.
“Hey, you guys,” Sam said. “Let’s hang these on the wall where Helene can see them.”
“Good idea,” Lisa said. Sam handed her the cards.
“Do we have any tape?” Lisa looked around the room.
“They probably have some at the nurses’ station.” Susie stood up.
“Wait, wait,” Sam said with a laugh. “Have you ever seen Helene’s purse? It’s enormous. I’ll bet she has some.” At Lisa’s doubtful expression, Sam said, “I’m serious. She keeps everything in there.”
Sam went to the cupboard on the other side of the bed and pulled out Helene’s purse.
“Oh, man,” Marlee said, “that thing could hold a bowling ball.”
“Told ya.” Sam walked back to her chair and placed the heavy bag on her lap. Rifling through it, she found what she was searching for. “Here you go.” Sam handed a roll of scotch tape to Lisa.
“That’s incredible.” Lisa shook her head in disbelief. She stood up and she, Susie, and Marlee hung the get well cards on the painted cinderblock wall.
Sam, meanwhile, stumbled upon her birth certificate in Helene’s purse that they’d needed to renew her passport. For some reason, she had never seen it before. Now was her chance. She pulled the folded certificate out of the yellowing envelope and silently read her name and date of birth.
“Phoenix,” Sam mumbled confirming her place of birth. “Gerald Fitzpatrick Payton.” She smiled at her father’s aristocratic middle name. “Helene Frances Bouchard.” In confusion, Sam’s eyes darted back over the spot where the mother’s name was supposed to be. “Helene?” Sam couldn’t make herself move. Was she reading it right? Where was her mother’s name? Sam scanned the document frantically looking for the words Miriam Lily Payton. She couldn’t find them. She went back to the entry for the mother’s name. It hadn’t changed. Helene Frances Bouchard.
Sam looked at the injured woman lying in the bed. Scenes of her life with Helene flashed through her head. Helene bandaging a scraped knee, teaching her to read music, explaining the rules of ice hockey. “Helene took care of me like a...” Sam’s vision blurred and the room got dark as she slid from the chair. The last thing she heard before she hit the floor was her own voice saying, “mother.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Sleepdriving
THE NOISE LEVEL in the cafeteria rose steadily as students filed in for lunch. Mrs. Sherman, Sam’s fourth period ethics teacher, had let the class out early, and Sam sat alone at the lunch table she shared with Susie, Abby, and Rachel. Most of the time she bought her lunch, but she wasn’t hungry and didn’t have the strength to actually get up and navigate the lengthening line. She should have been hungry, since she hadn’t eaten anything since the day before when she’d finished Helene’s soup at the hospital. That was back when Helene was her nanny, and not her...
Sam couldn’t finish the thought. She couldn’t even think the word. It was too surreal.
“Hey, muchacha,” Susie tossed her paper lunch bag on the table, “how are you feeling?”
“I’m okay.”
“You scared the crap out of us yesterday.”
“Sorry.”
“Mierda, we turned around and you were out cold on the floor. What happened?”
“I told you; I don’t know.” Sam shrugged. “I think I freaked out about the accident and Helene being hurt.” Pick one. It won’t be the real reason, anyway.
Susie nodded. “Let me know if you feel faint again, okay, gringa?”
Sam smiled in spite of herself. “I will.” It was nice having friends who cared about her. While Susie got busy eating her sandwich, Sam stared back into nothingness.
The day before, when she woke up after fainting in Helene’s hospital room, she shoved the obnoxious smelling salts away from her nose. Once she’d recovered enough of her senses, she remembered. She kept her panic under wraps and assured everyone, especially Lisa, that she was okay. With relief she spotted the birth certificate under the chair and was pretty sure no one had seen it. Her friends had been too busy fussing over her. The secret was safe.
The medical staff ran Sam through some quick tests and determined that she was okay. They said her fainting probably had to do with the shock of the accident. She was in shock, but not from the accident. Later, after Lisa, Susie, and Marlee left, Sam snatched the birth certificate from under the chair and read it over and over again. No matter how long she stared at it, the information didn’t change. Sam snuck a peek at Helene, taking in her blond hai
r, remembering the times people said they looked like mother and daughter. Sam had always found that amusing.
Not so much anymore.
“Sam?” Susie put a gentle hand on her forearm. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” Sam blinked away the disturbing thoughts.
“You had a faraway look on your face.”
“I’m okay.” Sam groaned. Ronnie was heading right for their lunch table.
“Girlfriend,” Ronnie squealed pulling her back to the present, “what happened to your face? Rumors are flying.”
“Easy, Ronnie,” Susie warned.
Ronnie, usually one for a smart comeback, stayed silent. He sat on the other side of Sam. “Seriously, Samantha Rose, what happened?”
“She was in a bad car accident on Saturday,” Susie answered before Sam could.
Abby and Rachel arrived at that moment and sat in their usual spots at the table.
“Oh, my God, Sam,” Abby said. “Susie told us you were in an accident. Are you all right?”
Sam felt so numb inside she wanted to shake her head and then go to sleep forever. Instead, she simply nodded.
“How many stitches?” Rachel asked.
“Four.”
A few of Sam’s softball teammates and people from the play came over to form a crowd around the table. Bad news travelled fast apparently.
Ronnie put a gentle hand on her forearm. “Was everyone else okay?”
Sam had been dreading that question. Flashbacks of the accident raced through her brain. The pickup crashing into them, the paramedics pulling Helene out of the car, the birth certificate telling Sam her entire life had been a lie. Her eyes filled up with tears before she could stop them.
Susie answered when Sam couldn’t. “The driver of the car has a pretty serious concussion. She’s still in the hospital.”
Sam nodded. It was all she had strength for. She stared at the edge of the graffiti-covered table top.
Stealing Second: Sam's Story: Book 4 in the Clarksonville Series Page 18
