Palomino

by Danielle Steel

  For their side, Norman Warren called the social worker, Martin Pfizer, who was unemotional, matter-of-fact, and not particularly exciting as a witness; there was Sam's own physician; Josh; and there had been a packet of letters from important people, like judges and doctors, about the marvelous work she was doing on the ranch. And then at last there was Sam herself. The fact that she was divorced was brought out, that she was not remarried and had no “prospects,” as the opposing attorney put it, at the present time, the fact that she was indeed irreversibly handicapped. The whole sad, long list was emphasized over and over until Sam almost started to feel sorry for herself. Norman objected and got that line of questioning stopped. In the end she wound up sounding like a kindly, interested do-gooder who wanted to help Timmie, but unlike his half-hysterical mother she did not shout “my baby” and have to be led from the room.

  The final witness was the hardest. It was Timmie himself, and his mother was asked if she could possibly quell her tears, or if she would like a recess during which she might compose herself once again. She chose to subdue herself then and there, still sniffing loudly as she listened while Sam watched the look of terror in the child's face. Everything that had previously been brought out was now tested. What his life was like with his mother, what his life was like with Sam, how his mother provided for him, what Sam bought him and gave him, how he felt about the two women, and then suddenly, “Are you afraid of your mother, Timmie?” But the question itself obviously frightened him so much that he shrank back in his wheelchair, holding his teddy, shaking his head violently.

  “No … no!”

  “Does she ever beat you or hit you?”

  There was no answer and then he shook his head and was finally asked to speak up. All they got was a hoarse “No.” Sam closed her eyes in despair. She understood what he was doing. There was no way he could tell the truth with his mother there. It went on for another half hour and then they were all sent home. The judge kindly asked them all to return the following morning. He said that he had all of their phone numbers, and that if, for some reason, he felt that he would not be able to reach a verdict that quickly, he would let them know. But if they did not hear from him that evening, they were to return to the same court the next morning, bringing Timmie—this was a glance at Sam—and the verdict would be returned. He felt that in the interest of the child, and to avoid any additional pain to all parties, it was best to have the verdict returned right away. With that, the judge rose and the bailiff announced that court was adjourned.

  On the drive back to the ranch Sam felt her whole body ache with exhaustion and Timmie fell asleep in her arms almost as soon as they left the curb. He had trembled with terror as his mother had begun to approach him, clutched at Sam's hand, and Norman had whisked him from the courtroom as Josh helped Samantha, and they got away as quickly as they could. She realized later as she held him what a brave thing Timmie had done by being willing to try to go through the custody hearings. If his mother won him back, she might do anything to get even, and he had known that better than anyone. But Sam understood it now too as she held him close. How on earth was she going to give him to that woman if she had to? How could she bear it? As she lay in bed that night she knew she couldn't, that it would kill her. For hours she lay there and thought of taking him and running away somewhere. But where and how, and what was the point really? Two people in wheelchairs wouldn't get very far, and then she thought of the secret cabin, which she hadn't visited since she got back to the ranch. But she knew that even there they would find her. It was hopeless. All they could do was believe in justice and hope for the best.

  Sam was awake long before sunrise the next morning. In fact, she realized as she looked at the clock, she had only slept for an hour and a half. But when she wheeled her way into Timmie's room, beside hers, she found that he was awake too.

  “Hi, sweetheart.…” She kissed him on the tip of the nose and reached for his braces. “Good morning.”

  “I won't go with her.”

  “Why don't we worry about that after breakfast?” Sam tried to sound lighthearted, but he burst into tears and clung to her. Thus had begun the day. They had eaten breakfast alone again that morning. The rest of the children had no idea what was going on, and only a few of the therapists and counselors had been told by Samantha. They were all trying to keep it as low-key as they could. But it was obvious when she left again with Josh and Timmie that something major was going on. As though they sensed something wrong around them, the children were unusually quiet as they boarded the bus to go to school.

  In Los Angeles Samantha and Josh and Timmie met Norman outside the courtroom, and they all looked grim.

  “Take it easy, Sam.” Norm gently touched her arm. She was wearing gray slacks and a gray cashmere sweater, and Timmie was wearing the same suit as the day before, this time with a red and white plaid shirt.

  The judge began the proceedings by asking to have Timmie in the room, and then addressed himself to the boy, explaining that he had listened to all the evidence and had tried to make a good decision that would make Timmie happy for a very long time. He smiled at him like a benevolent grandfather and then asked him if he could wheel himself to the front of the room, explaining that it was only a formality, because he was the most important person there, after all, and all of this was about him. Timmie looked questioningly at Sam then and she smiled and nodded, and he rolled himself front and center as the judge had asked.

  With that, the judge turned his attention to Sam, explaining that he understood that what she was doing was not only admirable, but saintly, that he had talked to several people about the ranch, and that he was impressed beyond anything he could describe to her. Once again he favored her with a warm smile. But then he went on to say that although there was no doubt that her intentions were excellent, and that she could certainly materially provide better for Timmie than could his mother, and although Timmie had certainly had a difficult life with this young woman who had tried so hard to find the right road for herself and her handicapped child, he did however feel certain now, particularly after talking to Father Renney, that Timmie's mother had found her feet at last. Therefore, he beamed down at Timmie, he had found that Timmie belonged with his rightful mother. “And now”—he gestured to the startled young girl in the pink blouse and with the tousled hair—“you may reclaim your son.” And then with an official bang of his gavel that felt like Sam's heart hitting bottom as she stared, he announced in a booming voice, “The court finds in favor of the natural mother.” He got up then and left the room as Sam tried desperately not to scream. Timmie's mother, however, did not restrain herself in a similar fashion, and ran to him, almost knocking him out of his chair. All Sam could see was Timmie flailing wildly, trying to move away from her, and his chair being firmly held by the lawyer as he was embraced by his mother shrieking loudly all the while, “My baby … my baby …”

  “Sam … Sam!” It was a plaintive wail that almost tore her asunder and instinctively she turned toward him and tried to push her wheelchair past Josh and Norman to reach the child. But Josh grabbed the handles on the back of the wheelchair and Norm blocked her, the two men had instantly understood each other without a word. It would do no good now. The mother was all over her child.

  “Stop …” Sam pushed at Norm. “I have to see him.”

  “You can't, Sam!” He spoke quietly but firmly, and Josh wouldn't let go of the chair as she pushed.

  “I have to, dammit…Josh, let go!” She was beginning to sob now, but already Timmie's mother's lawyer was pushing his little wheelchair from the room as in anguish Timmie turned back toward Samantha, waving his little arms with a grief-stricken face.

  “Sam … Sam!”

  “I love you!” she called out. “I love you, Timmie! It's okay!” And then he was gone. And as though the last ounce of strength had left her, she dropped her face in her hands and began to sob. For a long moment neither man knew what to do, and then Norman knelt be
side her.

  “I'm so sorry, Sam … we can appeal it.”

  “No.” She could barely speak as she reached for her handkerchief and shook her head at Norm. “No. I can't do that to him.” He nodded and stood up and then signaled Josh. There was no reason to stay there. It was all over for Samantha and Timmie. The boy was gone.

  For the rest of the week Sam stayed at the big house, never leaving the building, and for the first day not leaving her room. Norman had come to pick up Timmie's things to return them to the social worker for Timmie, but Sam had refused to see him. Josh was taking care of everything for her. Twice that morning Norman had knocked on the door. He had even tried to call her. But she didn't want to see anyone, except Timmie. She had just lost the last love of her life.

  “Will she be all right?” Norm asked Josh with a look of sorrow, and the old man shook his head with tears in his eyes.

  “I don't know. She's tough, but she's lost a lot. And this … you don't know how she loved him.”

  Norman nodded sadly. “Yes, I do.” For the first time in his career, as he left the courthouse the previous evening, he had stepped on the gas as hard as he could in his Mercedes, and as he drove home at eighty miles an hour he had cried too. “I'd like to see her when she's ready. And I want to talk to her about an appeal. I think it would be worth it. This is an unusual case, because what she has against her is the fact that she is both single and crippled. But it's absolutely incredible that the court should find for a prostitute and a drug addict because she's a natural mother against a woman like Sam. I want to take this one all the way to the Supreme Court.”

  “I'll tell her.” Josh looked as though he approved. “When I see her.”

  And then suddenly Norman looked worried. “She wouldn't do anything crazy, would she?”

  Josh thought for a while. “I don't think so.” He didn't know she had tried that once before in the hospital in New York. But this time she wasn't suicidal. She just wished she were dead, but some faint, irrational hope that one day she might get Timmie back kept her from doing anything truly crazy. Instead, she just lay in bed, without moving, without eating, only dragging herself to the bathroom, for two whole days. She just cried and slept and then cried some more when she awoke, and at the end of the second day she awoke to hear someone pounding on her door. She lay silently in bed, fully intending not to answer, and then she heard glass breaking and knew that someone had just come through her front door.

  “Who is it?” She sounded frightened. Maybe it was a burglar, she wondered. But as she sat up in bed with a look of confusion and terror, the lights in the hall suddenly went on, and she saw Jeff with his shock of red hair. His arm was bleeding as he stood there and then he looked suddenly embarrassed, and as always he flushed beet-red. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to see you. I couldn't take it anymore, Sam. I haven't seen a light on in here for two days, and you didn't answer the other times when I came to the door … I thought maybe … I was afraid … I wanted to know if you were all right.” She nodded, smiling at him for caring, and then the tears came again and suddenly he was holding her tightly in his arms. The odd thing was that as he held her it was a familiar feeling, as though he had held her before, as though she knew his arms and his chest and his body, but she knew that it was a crazy thought and she pulled away from him and blew her nose.

  “Thanks, Jeff.”

  He sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at her. Even after two days of just lying there, she looked lovely. And for just an instant he had a wild urge to kiss her, and as he thought of it he flushed bright red again. But as he did she was suddenly laughing through her tears and he looked at her in confusion. “What are you laughing at?”

  “When you get embarrassed, you look just like a radish.”

  “Thanks a lot.” He grinned. “I've been called carrottop, but never radish-face.” And then with a gentle smile, “You okay, Sam?”

  “No. But I will be, I guess.” And then another trickle of tears coursed down her face. “I just hope Timmie'll be okay.”

  “Josh says your lawyer wants to appeal it, all the way to the Supreme Court.”

  “Yeah?” She looked cynical and angry. “He's full of shit. He doesn't have a chance of winning. The fact is that I'm a cripple and I'm single. They probably don't even care if I'm single, but I'm a cripple. That's enough. Prostitutes and drug addicts make better mothers than cripples, or didn't you know?”

  “The hell they do.” He almost snarled it.

  “Well, that's what the judge decided.”

  “The judge sucks.” She suddenly laughed at the outrageous comment and then realized that she smelled beer on his breath. She frowned as she looked at the young redhead.

  “You drunk, Jeff?”

  He looked embarrassed and blushed again but he shook his head. “I just drank two beers. It takes more than that.”

  “How come?”

  “It just does. I usually don't get tight till five or six.”

  “No.” She laughed at him. “I mean how come you drank the two?” She didn't like the men to drink around the kids and Jeff knew it, but she knew from the darkness outside that it was after hours.

  “It's New Year's Eve, Sam.”

  “It is?” She looked surprised and then counted backward … the hearing had been on the twenty-eighth, the verdict on the twenty-ninth, that had been two days ago. “Oh, shit. So it is. And you're going out partying?” She smiled gently at him.

  “Yeah. I'm goin' over to the Bat Three. Did I ever tell you I used to work there?”

  “No, but you seem to have worked on every damn ranch in the West.”

  “I forgot to tell you about that one.”

  “Are you taking a date?”

  “Mary Jo.” This time he turned fire-engine red.

  “Josh's girl?” She looked amused and he grinned at her.

  “Yeah.”

  “What did Josh have to say to that?”

  “That he'd kick my ass if I got her drunk. But hell, she's almost nineteen. She's legal.”

  “I'd watch out though, if I were you. If Josh said he'd kick your ass, he means it.” And then her face grew sober again. “How is he?”

  “Worried about you.” Jeff's voice was gentle in the quiet room. “We all are, the ones who know. Your lawyer was here yesterday.”

  “I figured he would be. To pick up Timmie's things?” Jeff hesitated and then nodded. “Did he get all his Christmas stuff?” She began to cry again. “I want him to have all of it.”

  “He has it, Sam.” And then, not knowing what else to do for her, he took her in his arms and held her, and she lay her head against him and cried. He wanted to tell her then that he loved her, but he was afraid to. He had loved her the first time he saw her, with that incredible pale gold hair. But she was nine years older than he was and she never acted like she was interested in any man. He wondered sometimes if she could still do it, but he didn't even care, he just wanted to hold her and tell her he loved her one day. They lay like that for a long time, and then the tears stopped.

  “Thank you.” She looked at him for a long, quiet time, stirred by his strength and his youthful beauty. “You'd better get out of here now or you'll end up spending New Year's Eve with me instead of Mary Jo.”

  “You know something?” His voice was deep and sexy. “I'd like that.”

  “You would, would you?” Her eyes were teasing but she could see that his were not. But she didn't think what she was suddenly feeling was what Jeff needed. He didn't need an older woman, and a cripple yet, on his hands. He was young. He had his whole life in front of him, filled with girls like Mary Jo. But she was suddenly so desperately lonely that she wanted to reach out to him, and before she did something foolish, she wanted him to go. “Okay, kiddo, go celebrate New Year's Eve in style.” She sat up in her bed and tried a smile.

  “And you, Sam?”

  “I'm going to take a hot bath, make myself something to eat, and come
back to bed. I guess maybe tomorrow I'm going to have to come out of my hole and face the world.”

  “I'm glad to hear it. For a while there you had me scared.”

  “I'm tough, I guess, Jeff. Time does that to you.” Time, and heartbreaks, and loss.

  “Does it? It sure makes you beautiful too.”

  “Go on, Jeff.” She looked worried. “It's time for you to go”

  “I don't want to leave you, Sam. I want to stay here.”

  But she shook her head as she looked at him, took his hand, held it to her cheek, and then kissed the fingertips gently as she let it go. “You can't stay, Jeff.”

  “Why not?”

  “I won't let you.”

  “You don't believe in ranchers and ranch hands mixing?” He bridled like a young stallion and she smiled.

  “No, nothing like that, love. It's just that my life is behind me now and yours isn't. You don't need something like this.”

  “You're crazy. Do you know how long I've wanted you?”

  She put a finger to his lips. “I don't want you to tell me. It's New Year's Eve, people say things they shouldn't on nights like this. I want us to be friends for a long time, Jeff. Please don't spoil it.” And then, with tears in her eyes again, “I need you right now. You and Josh, and the children, but especially you and Josh. Don't do anything to change that. I just… I couldn't take it… I need you too much.” He held her once again then, kissed the top of her head, and then stood up and looked down at her.

  “I'll stay if you want me to, Sam.”

  She looked up into the brilliant green eyes and shook her head. “No, babe, it's okay. You go.” He nodded slowly then and stood looking at her for one last moment in the doorway, and then she heard his cowboy boots echo in the hallway and the front door close.

  “Sam? … Sam?” It was six o'clock in the morning on New Year's Day and she was dressed and in her kitchen, making coffee for the first time in three days, when she heard Josh pounding on the door. She smiled to herself. One by one they would all break her door down if she didn't come out now. She still felt the terrible emptiness of Timmie's loss, but she knew that she couldn't let herself go. She owed more than that to the other kids. Slowly she wheeled her chair to the front door and opened it, looking out into the gray light before dawn as Josh stood in his heavy jacket on the front porch.