Twelve Days

by Teresa Hill

  Sam thanked her and hung up the phone.

  "Is my mom back?" Emma asked.

  He turned and studied her face, so hopeful, so trusting, as if she had all the faith in the world in the woman who'd deserted her. How could that be?

  "Is that woman your mother, Emma? The one who left you?"

  "Of course."

  "She's always been your mother?" he asked.

  "Yes. Why?"

  Sam shook his head back and forth. "I just can't see her leaving you like that, if she was your mother."

  "She didn't want to," Emma insisted. "She just had to see somebody."

  "Who?"

  "Somebody who could help us."

  "Help you? How?"

  "She was sick."

  As in... mentally ill? That was Sam's first thought. It was easier to think the woman had mental problems than to think she'd simply abandoned them.

  "What was wrong with her?" he asked.

  "I don't know. She didn't want to talk about it because it scared me. She was all we had left, and if anything happened to her, I didn't know what would happen to us. I was afraid I couldn't take care of us, and I—"

  "Okay," Sam said, carefully touching his hand to hers, wanting to soothe her if he could. "I don't do this to upset you, Emma. I want to help. I swear to God, I do. And if your mother's out there somewhere, we need to find her."

  "Do you think something happened to her? Something bad?"

  "I don't know."

  "Because she loves us. She wouldn't just leave us there like that—"

  "Emma, she did."

  "She wouldn't," the girl sobbed.

  "Tell me her name, Emma."

  "I can't."

  "Of course you can."

  "She made us promise not to tell."

  Sam did swear then. "Why?"

  "She said it was dangerous for us to tell and that no one could know where we come from or we might have to go back there, and I don't want to go. I just want to be with her."

  Ahh, damn. Had they been snatched away from their parents by a mad woman? "You love her?" he asked, having to know.

  "Yes."

  "And she takes good care of you?"

  "Yes. When she can. When she's not sick."

  "She gets sick a lot?"

  "Yes."

  "Emma, if she's sick now and can't come back for you, she may need help. If you tell us her name and where to look, we can find her. We'll help her. I promise."

  "They'll send us back," Emma said.

  "Back to whom?"

  "I can't tell. I promised not to tell that, either. But she loves us."

  "I never said she didn't."

  "But you think it. You all think she's a terrible person because she left us there, and she's not. She's a wonderful person, and she's coming back for us. You'll see. She's coming back."

  "Okay," Sam said. "I'm sorry."

  Emma looked even sadder. "She's going to be so worried when we're not there waiting for her."

  "She'll find you. The man at the motel knows where you are. The police know—"

  "She doesn't like the police. She wouldn't go to them. We're not supposed to go to them, either. Not ever."

  "Oh, Emma," he said. Everything she'd told him fit.

  No police. Being scared of having to go back to a place Emma was obviously afraid of. What could this woman have told Emma about her real parents to make her fear them? If she even remembered them now.

  "She'll be worried," Emma said. "I was supposed to take care of Zach and the baby, and I couldn't. But if I had, we'd still be there when she came back and everything would be fine. And it's all my fault that it isn't."

  "No, Emma. No," he said. "None of this is your fault. It was wrong of her to expect you to take care of your little brother and sister for days at a time all by yourself. And you couldn't help it that the motel manager found you all there and brought in social services."

  "I always take care of them."

  "I'm sure you do. But it's not right. Taking care of a baby and a five-year-old is a job for grown-ups, Emma."

  "I can do it."

  "But you shouldn't have to."

  Sam stood there and waited until she calmed down a bit, and then he sat down in the kitchen chair, so they were eye-to-eye. She looked so sad, so lost. If she belonged to that couple in Virginia, she would have been seven when she'd been taken away.

  Seven.

  It hit way too close to home to Sam, thinking of what it must have been like for her. She would have been terrified and lost and so very sad, and... He pushed the thoughts right out of his head, as he always did.

  Except this time, they wouldn't stay buried. This time, though he resolved to simply think of something else, he kept looking up and into her teary eyes and thinking not of himself, but her, and he thought maybe he did have something to give this child. Maybe he could help her after all. Maybe he was the only one who could, because he truly understood.

  "Emma, when I was a little older than Zach, one of the neighbors came to pick me up from school and said my parents couldn't come get me that day, that I couldn't go home, either. And they were upset. Everybody was upset, and nobody wanted to tell me anything. I think maybe I was afraid to ask because I already knew something terrible had happened.

  "The next day, they took me to my house, and my parents still weren't there. My great aunt and her husband were. I didn't know them that well. They lived fifty miles away. And they told me my mother and father weren't ever coming back. That they'd gone to live with God, and that I had to live with my great aunt and her husband. And I did. I never saw my parents again."

  "My mother's coming back," Emma insisted.

  Sam waited, thinking she might see some parallels between his story and hers, fighting off his own memories of that time. He'd been six and terrified. Everything familiar in his world, he'd lost. From that point on, no place he'd ever been had felt like home. He'd thought for a while he'd find that with Rachel. Not that it mattered now. This was about Emma.

  "You've never been through anything like that?" he asked carefully. "You don't ever remember living with anyone else?"

  "No." Emma eyed him suspiciously. "She's always been my mom."

  But Emma was hiding something. He could tell. As sad as she was, she was also very nervous. She'd also cried her eyes out. Yesterday, he'd done this to Zach, and today he'd done it to Emma. Would the baby be crying because of him tomorrow? Was he going to terrorize all three of them?

  "All right." He sighed, letting it go, and got to his feet. "I'm sorry I upset you. I'm just... I do want to help you. Rachel and I both do. And I know how scary it is, to have to go live in a new place where everything is different. I've done it so many times, Emma. That's why I know this is a good place for you. Rachel is a wonderful person, and she'll take good care of you and your brother and the baby."

  "Okay," she said miserably.

  "Try not to worry so much, okay?" he said, feeling about a hundred years old at the moment.

  "Okay."

  And then he heard the baby going, "Muh, Muh," which Rachel thought was Grace's attempt at saying Emma. When he turned around, there was Rachel, the baby in her arms.

  The baby grinned at Emma, but Rachel was staring at Sam, what might have been shock and surprise, probably even hurt in her eyes.

  He turned away, not able to even look at her then, thinking, What had he said? But he remembered. He'd told Emma about losing his parents, about all the other places he'd been. And that was something he'd never told his wife, something he never told anyone.

  * * *

  He couldn't explain anything in front of the children, just said that they had to rush to get to the doctor's office, Miriam's orders. They fed the children and left for Dr. Wilson's.

  Zach was uneasy. Emma tried to comfort him. Sam pulled Rachel aside and told her quickly about the couple in Virginia and what Emma had said. Rachel hugged the baby closer and asked, "What about Grace?"

  "They don't
know. Miriam said it may well be nothing, that people who've had children snatched away from them look at a lot of photographs of children and always want to believe they've found theirs."

  "It's so awful." Rachel rubbed her cheek against the baby's head.

  "Miriam said not to borrow trouble. To just wait for the test results."

  Rachel nodded and she looked so sad. Sam found himself wanting to reach out to her in a way he hadn't in a long time. She was still his wife, he reminded himself. He still had the right. So he did. His hand cupped her cheek, and it was every bit as smooth as he remembered, every bit as soft to touch. He came a step closer, ran his thumb along her cheek, and fought the urge to take her mouth beneath his, to comfort her. There'd been a time when she'd found comfort in his arms, in his kisses.

  "We'll get them through this, Rachel. We can do that for them."

  "I know," she said. "Sam?"

  "Yes?"

  "What you said earlier? To Emma. You moved around a lot, to lots of different homes after your parents died?"

  "Yes," he admitted.

  "But... I thought... it was just your grandfather. I thought your parents died and then you came here to be with him."

  "Not exactly," he said, not liking at all the look in her eyes.

  He'd expected pity, and he knew what that looked like. No matter where he'd lived before, people always found out. The grown-ups, when he was smaller, fussed over him and did that fake, cloying kindness bit he found so humiliating. Kids were mostly curious and asked all sorts of questions he didn't want to answer. Later, when he was older and—granted—much angrier, they'd been wary of him and sure he was trouble. The worst had been coming here at fifteen to live with his grandfather, who had to have been one of the most miserable human beings on earth. Everyone had hated his grandfather. God knew, his grandfather had hated him and his mother, too.

  "But, Sam..."

  His hand dropped to his side. He didn't want to touch her anymore, and he certainly didn't want to talk about this.

  "Not now, Rachel," he said. "Not here."

  Chapter 8

  Rachel held Zach on her lap trying to comfort him after the prick of the needle scared him and maybe hurt him, too. Surprisingly, Emma cried a bit, too, both at the needle and the DNA swabs the doctor took of her and Zach's cheeks. Grace, watching the two of them, dissolved into tears herself, and Rachel wished she could join them, but she was the grown-up here. She was supposed to cope.

  Still... she was a bit dazed by it all. By what might have happened to the kids and by what she'd overheard Sam say.

  They drove home in a tense, miserable silence broken up only by Zach's sniffling and Emma's soothing words to him. Rachel made sandwiches for lunch, and they ate in somber near silence, even Zach having nothing to say.

  Sam disappeared before anyone else was even done eating claiming he had work to do. Rachel held Grace close and rocked her until she was asleep. Zach lay on the rug in front of the fire, supposedly watching a video but looking as if he might drop off at any moment, and Emma hovered close beside him. Rachel left them there like that, Emma promising to listen for the baby and to keep an eye on Zach, and went to find Sam.

  He was in his office with his back to her standing by the narrow window, simply staring at the snow, and he didn't turn around when she called his name. He was closing her out yet again. So often of late, that was his answer, to close her out. To be fair, she'd done the same thing to him.

  What did one more secret really matter when he was leaving her anyway? she asked herself. But it did. It felt like such a betrayal. He'd been her husband for twelve years, and she thought she knew him, as someone can only know a person after years together. How could he not tell her something that obviously hurt him so much?

  "Is it true?" she asked. "What you told Emma?"

  "What did you hear?"

  "That your parents died when you were in kindergarten. That you lived with an aunt for a while and a lot of other places over the next ten years before coming here to your grandfather."

  "That's true," he said bleakly.

  "Sam! I thought it happened right before you came here. That you had your parents until you were fifteen." That until then, he'd had a good life, a good loving home.

  "I never told you that, Rachel. I didn't lie to you."

  She paused, considering exactly how she'd come to her mistaken conclusions. He hadn't ever wanted to talk to her about it. Oh, he'd told her about his parents. It was obviously painful to him, and she'd taken his reluctance to talk as that—memories that were too painful. But if he'd only been five or six, how much did he even remember? How much more had he lost than he'd ever explained to her? How much was he holding deep inside?

  "Maybe you didn't lie," she said. "I suppose I heard stories around town, and you let me go on believing them. But you certainly didn't tell me the truth."

  His life must have been so much more chaotic than she'd ever imagined, so much worse. And he'd never let her inside even enough to tell her.

  "I suppose I didn't," he admitted. Then, "Does it matter?"

  "Of course it matters," she cried, thinking of every bad thing they'd ever gone through together. "I always thought you were so strong, and I always admired that. God knows, I needed it, too. But there were times, Sam, when I wondered, too, if you just didn't care that much. I'd look at you, and it seemed like you were never upset, never hurt, never scared, and I'd think, maybe it just doesn't matter to him. Maybe nothing does."

  "It's not that, Rachel," he whispered, looking every bit as stern and untouchable as she'd ever seen him. "It was never that."

  She supposed it wasn't, now that she knew his big secret. How could she have hoped to understand him without knowing that?

  In her family, if someone was upset everyone knew about it. Sorrow and joy were shared with equal abandon. There were many tears and much laughter, and there had never been any doubt that anyone had to go through anything alone. Help was there, given as freely as the love. She'd never doubted that she was loved, that they'd always be here for her. She'd always believed Sam would be, too, but at the same time, so often she'd doubted his love, never quite able to tell if it was her own insecurities talking or simply his lack of feelings for her. Or both. Maybe it was both.

  Finally she understood at least a part of it. This distance he kept, the way he could close himself up so tight and not let anything get to him. Because he'd been hurt too much over the years. He didn't have to tell her that part of it for her to know without any doubts. Her big, strong, so-capable husband hid a world of hurt inside.

  And for the first time in a long time, she wondered if maybe he did love her. Maybe she'd read him all wrong. Maybe it was just the way he was, what he'd been taught, shuffled from place to place over the years.

  "I thought I knew you," she said, despite the fact that she was talking to the wall again. Sam was so good at the wall. "But I can't imagine what you must have gone through—"

  "Don't," he said. "Don't do that."

  She backed up a step, bruised by the harsh tone, even knowing it was simply him trying to protect himself and why he did it now. Even now, he wasn't going to open himself up to her.

  She sat there simmering with anger and so much hurt, ready to scream at him to pull some kind of reaction from him, when his phone rang.

  "Don't," she said. "Please."

  But he picked it up, and she could tell from the part of the conversation she could hear that it was a work problem. She intended to sit there, to not let him out of this room until they talked about this. But the next thing she knew, Zach showed up in the door to Sam's office, a big smile on his face for Sam and a slight frown when he saw Rachel sitting there.

  "Hi," he said tentatively.

  "Hi, Zach," she said. "Does Emma know where you are?"

  He shook his head back and forth, caught but clearly not regretting it too much. He seemed inexplicably drawn to Sam and kept sneaking out here to find him, disappearing fro
m the house and worrying her and Emma both.

  "What did we talk about earlier, Zach?"

  "I'm not s'posed ta come out here without telling you first?"

  "Right." She looked from the boy to Sam, only now realizing the powerful connection between the two. They'd both lost their mothers, lost everything familiar to them, around the same age.

  Sam, she thought, looking at Zach, imagining her husband nearly as little as Zach and just as lost. She wondered if Sam had ever ended up in foster care, wondered what might have happened to him there. When they'd discussed foster parenting and possibly adopting through the program, he'd said, "How could we ever know what had happened to a child there? What kind of damage that might have been done?"

  What in the world had they done to her husband?

  She let go of the anger that he hadn't been able to tell her then his true fear, that he was afraid of looking down into a little boy's eyes, hearing what the boy had been through, and being reminded of all he'd been through himself. He'd been worried about seeing someone exactly like Zach. It was almost too painful for Rachel to bear, because she loved Sam so much.

  He probably wouldn't believe her if she told him, and she didn't think she'd said the words to him in a long time, something that made her sad all over again. But she loved him. She'd loved him her whole life.

  "Miss Rachel?" Zach asked.

  Turning back to him and forcing a smile across her face, she said, "Yes."

  "I'm sorry," he said sincerely.

  "What?" And then she remembered. He'd come out here without asking. "It's all right, Zach. I'm not mad at you. But I bet Emma's worried, if she's figured out you're gone."

  She glanced back at Sam, still talking on the phone. This wasn't the time for the discussion they needed to have. They didn't need an audience, and she needed to calm down.

  She turned back to Zach. "I think you'd better come back to the house with me. Sam's busy. Okay?"

  He nodded, waved shyly at Sam, and then slipped his small, cold hand into Rachel's.

  "Forgot your gloves?" she said as they walked back to the house.

  "I guess. Can we play in the snow later?"