Lane didn’t know how his psyche meshed with Sam’s. He was not only with Sam, he was so connected to her that he
was
Sam, getting lost in her own painful memories. If he was going to help her, he couldn’t let that happen.
Girding himself, he reached out and took Sam into his arms, allowing himself to slide back into her mind, her memories.
#
“We have bible study every week, right here in the kitchen.”
This house was bigger than the last, a sprawling 1970s ranch, but it still didn’t feel big enough for all the kids running around. The shag carpet and the wallpaper were reminiscent of old sitcoms on re-run, but this world was real. Everything felt dirty. The toys were run down.
“Doesn’t that sound like fun?” the social worker asked, “They do lots of activities together.”
Sam, gangly and awkward as a thirteen year old, nodded. She wanted to be liked, wanted to fit in. But the way the children were watching her, predatory, distant, made her worry that she wouldn’t. This house didn’t feel like it was filled with love or happiness, like in those TV shows. It felt like a jail, all of the kids just doing their time until they could break free.
#
They sat at a table crammed with at least four other kids, of various ages and skin tones. The food was in the middle of the table, and every time she reached for something there was another hand there, grabbing it first. When she finally did get a hamburger, she put it on her plate to reach for something else and a ten-year-old boy with dark skin leaned over, grabbing it right off her plate. “Hey!” she yelled.
“That’s hers,” the teen sitting next to her said. Reaching around, he deftly hit the younger child on the back of the head and grabbed the burger. He put it on Sam’s plate with a slick smile. Immediately, Sam broke eye contact, looking down. When he reached for her leg under the table, she tried to pull away, but there was nowhere to go.
Lane came up for air. A different part of the loop, but no difference. He had to think, he had to try and figure out how to break the cycle. When the replay started over, he reached out and tried to find a way in without being part of Sam. He fought to keep his own sense of self separate, unique.
I AM HERE
, he thought.
For a second, just a second, the instant replay changed. In a kitchen, one-year-old Samantha, a triangle of sandwich in her hand, turned wide-eyed towards him before she was pulled back into the parental drama unfolding before her.
Damn it
, Lane thought,
you saw me, didn’t you
? And Lane, straining with the effort of keeping himself apart, waited and watched.
#
This memory didn’t seem so bad at first. They were in Dad’s kitchen, cooking dinner. Her father grabbed a fork and a potato, doing a little dance with the two. It didn’t quite work the way it did in the movies, but it was funny to her, all the same. She laughed, and they talked, and after they ruined dinner, they threw it in the trash and he pulled a carton of ice cream out of the fridge. Mint chocolate chip, Mom’s favorite. And when she mentioned that, he nodded, “I know.” He said, “I know something else, too.” He took a bite.
“What?”
“It was your fault.”
She paused, spoon half in and out of her mouth, “What?”
“That she died. It was supposed to be you. But enjoy it, honey.” And he stood up from the table, leaving her to sit in the kitchen by herself, alone with her tears.
“It’s not. God, Sam, it’s not your fault,” Lane said.
The little girl looked towards him with teary pixie eyes and said, “I know that.”
#
The sound of the TV blaring greeted her as she opened the front door. She watched him as he watched the TV, his back to her as he sat on the couch. As she quietly shut the door, he turned and smiled, “Hey, there’s my all-star student!”
That look in his eyes was the second sign. She smiled in response, sidling along the wall towards the stairs.
“Want to watch TV with me? This is your favorite show, isn’t it?”
She shook her head.
“C’mon, it’ll be fun. We can order pizza.”
“I have a lot of homework,” Samantha choked out, “But thanks, anyways.”
“Sam, come here when I tell you to.” He grinned, “You have to learn to relax.”
With visible reluctance, she took a step towards him. And that’s when she caught sight of the shotgun lying on the couch next to him.
#
Lane watched as she tore into the bedroom, panting and fearful. Saw her bracing the door, pleading with the phone to hurry. He placed his hand on her shoulder and she looked back at him. She was young, painfully young. She couldn’t have been more than twelve, now. The scenes were so similar, and he imagined how many times this had played out for her in only a few short months.
“Who’re you?”
“It’s Lane.”
She started to shake her head and paused, staring at him. Lane saw his chance, “Sam, you’re trapped here.”
“I know.” She nodded earnestly. “But I don’t know how to stop it.”
“Try changing it. Think of something else. Something you want to do. What do you want to do?”
A familiar look of determination stole over the young face. “I want to fight back,” she said.
#
He stood in the corner of a darkened room, blue shag carpet under his feet. There were two sets of bunk beds. The shape curled up in one of them was a long and gangly adolescent, clearly too tall for the bed already. A door opened quietly, and a shape moved deliberately towards her.
It was the boy from dinner. Young as he was to Lane, he was still older, and bigger, than the girl on the bed. He leaned over where Samantha slept and her eyes flew open. They glittered in the dark like a lioness, “Try anything, and I’ll cut your privates off.”
The boy looked down. Sure enough, a small steak knife—smuggled from dinner—was pointed at his nether-regions. He backed up and quietly left the room.
Samantha rolled over in bed, propping her chin on her hands, knobby elbows pointing out. “See?” she said, “I told you I can fight back.”
“Then keep trying,” Lane whispered.
#
The door broke down. Two shots rang out. Her father crumpled in the doorway. Twelve-year-old Sam cringed and burst into tears. And an officer moved forward, swept her into his arms and carried her out of the room: “It’s OK, it’s OK, it’s OK”
Sitting on a kitchen chair, Sam’s eyes locked with Lane’s. It wasn’t OK. Her life had been derailed over and over again. This time for good.
“Listen to me, honey.” The police officer tried to catch Samantha’s eyes. “It’s not your fault. Your daddy is sick. But we’ll take care of him now.”
“Is he dead?”
The officer shook his head no. Samantha shuddered and steeled her shoulders. She lifted her chin and looked up, wiping her tears away, “How can I make sure he never comes near me again?”
#
They told her she was brave to go to the hearings. To take the witness stand. But it wasn’t bravery, she knew. It was fear. Fear and anger and hatred. It was the need to hear the judge say those magic words. The words that told her she had won, that she was safe.
Life imprisonment.
“Now,” Samantha whispered to Lane, “We can go.”
Chapter
22
Lane woke up in the car. The sun was up, and looking up at the car window he could see slashes of blue sky through the tall evergreens that lined the freeway. His arm felt stiff, strange. It took him a moment to realize it was because Sam’s head was nestled in his armpit, snoring. Hunh. Interesting. He blinked and sat up. Not much had changed from the night before. Harry and Al were still up front. But he felt like he’d been asleep forever. Muttering, rubbing the crumbs from his eyes, Lane sat up, “What’s going on? How long have we been asleep?”
“Dude, you don’t want to know,” Al said.
“Oh.” Lane couldn’t seem to stop rubbing his eyes. No wonder they felt so sticky.
Harry glanced at Samantha, “Is she going to be OK?”
“Yeah, well, she’s been through a lot, you know.”
“And what about you?” Al asked, “You look like you got hit by a truck.
Hunh. Was he all right? He felt awful for fighting with Sam, angry that the chameleon had taken advantage of the situation. Yet now he knew what Sam had been keeping from him, and why. Knowing a person’s past brought you that much closer to seeing what made them tick, to understand what might set her off.
To Al, silence was just another chance to keep talking. “I can’t believe that guy looked so much like you that Sam believed in him,” he said, “I hope that doesn’t mess her up. It’s almost like you betrayed her.”
The words sank in. Of course. Audrey’s prediction had come true! Lane, or rather someone who looked like Lane—had betrayed Sam. Suddenly, Lane felt like a weight had lifted from him. It wasn’t him though, it wasn’t him. And, somehow, they’d still come out OK. They were alive.
Ha!
He thought,
I was right! Audrey was wrong
.
Harry looked closely at Lane, “Are you all right, dude?”
Smiling, Lane nodded, “Yeah, I’ll be OK. I think Sam will be, too.”
“Right. We were thinking of stopping for a late breakfast,” Al said, “Want some?”
At that moment, Samantha rolled over and groaned, “I wannafoodget.”
“That answers that,” Harry said, “Let’s go foodget.”
#
“So, Samantha.”
Sam, slurping her chocolate malt, looked up at Al.
“Whatcha want?” The only words she’d said since waking up were her order. Unless you counted the growl and slap she’d given him when he’d made the mistake of reaching for one of her fried cheese dippers.
Al looked down to make sure his hands were still far away from her plate, “You going to order anything else? Real food?”
Sam eyed the bottom of her glass, which she had just cleaned out, “Another malt. And onion rings.”
Appetizers, apparently, were Samantha’s comfort food. Burgerville, a local chain, promised healthy and organic alternatives to typical fast food. But Samantha totally bypassed anything remotely healthy and went straight to the Fun Snacks menu. Which was OK, Lane reasoned, because 10:45 was practically lunch anyways. Or maybe it was brunch. Whatever, she could eat what she wanted to eat.
“Lane?” Al tried again, “Are we sticking with the original plan?”
“No,” Lane said.
“That’s it?” Harry asked, “You’re just going to agree with her, just like that?”
“Yes.”
Harry stared at Lane, and Lane said nothing. The argument, as far as Lane was concerned, was over. The onion rings arrived, and this time Sam allowed the others to share.
#
Later, Sam stared out the window, half-awake. They were still driving. The new plan was to avoid stopping at all costs. They were going through Grants Pass, Oregon now. They should be able to make it to Seattle by late that night. Lane decided it was better to avoid stopping, even if it meant taxing Al’s reserves. Since everything happens when we stop, he said, the solution is not to stop. Sam, for once, agreed.
The general windiness of the mountain pass they were going through made it hard to get comfortable. Sam’s long-held fear of heights didn’t help, either. Lane was a good driver, she knew, but guts were guts, as Al would say.
But Sam liked looking at the trees, the dappled silhouette the evergreens made in the sky. And the sky here was so blue—bluer than she’d remembered from her childhood.
Her dreamy half-sleep was broken when a flash of movement caught her eye in the rear-view mirror: a single bright headlight cresting the hill behind them, going far too fast for this kind of high mountain road.
The hairs on the back of Sam’s neck stood up and her adrenaline jumped from zero to sixty. Her breath caught in her chest.
“SHIT.” Al’s eyes flew open and he sat up, “STOP! Pull over!”
“ERGLE.” Sam gripped her hair as an energy-related migraine exploded into her head. Squeaking in agony, she slid down in her seat. Behind her, Harry sat up and looked from person to person, “What’s going on?”
“Pull over!” Al said again, “Now, now!”
“I’m trying,” Lane said, “Why won’t it respond?”
A loud bang and clatter answered his question. The SUV listed sharply to the back right with a screech of metal on metal, and smoke poured from the back wheels. Lane swore a blue streak, trying to maintain control of the car and struggling to ease the strangely unwilling vehicle to the shoulder.