Always Was Read online

  “Thanks,” Sammy said and rose as the nurse beckoned her to follow.

  “Hey, I’m her goddamn son. She isn’t even family.” Clare’s son-in-law hoisted himself to his feet.

  “She’s been here every day. And you are?” the nurse asked, frowning as the man rushed to follow.

  “Her son,” he repeated.

  Son. Hardly. He was Clare’s son-in-law, connected by marriage, not blood. Ex-son-in-law, actually, since Clare’s only child, a stepdaughter, had married, divorced, and then widowed this scum of a man. A son should allude to a grateful child, striving for the devotion and care from his good parents. Not to announce his presence when a depletion of Clare’s finances threatened his livelihood.

  “This way please.” The nurse led them to Clare’s room, another attendant already there assisting the slender woman to an impossible-to-achieve comfortable position. A doctor stood at the foot of the bed, perusing the images on the monitor in front of him until he glanced up. Smiling, he let the extractable screen fold away slightly and reached for Sammy’s hand.

  “Samantha, I’m glad to see you could make it.”

  “Wouldn’t have missed it.”

  Too many things would be decided today. With a fresh scan of Clare’s bones, they would learn how much, if any, chances existed for Clare to walk again.

  “Mother! How are you?”

  Clare smiled at her hardly seen son-in-law, simply because she was the kind, gentle-souled sweetheart who would never be so malicious to scowl or roll her eyes at the jerk. Clare’s delicate good nature only fueled Sammy to stand up for her even more.

  After they’d sat in the chairs, Clare exchanged a glance with Sammy, as though to say good grief at the man’s false and poorly acted upon concern for her well-being.

  The doctor began an explanation of how the multiple pins in Clare’s hips were used to piece her back together. At hardly a hundred pounds, Clare was no Humpty Dumpty. But Sammy fretted if all the staff in the hospital could render her whole again. Having heard the procedures and references to osteological terms in previous visits and chats with the specialist, Sammy wished the doctor would get on to the recovery plan and ignore the son-in-law’s constant questions.

  As predicted, the doctor announced Clare would need to stay in the hospital for at least another week to settle complications with the infection that kept cropping up at the site of her operation. Then immediately to rehab, where intensive physical therapy would commence. How intensive PT could be for a seventy-eight-year-old, Sammy couldn’t guess. But when the doctor deliberated on chances of her friend ever walking again—with or without a walker—Sammy’s throat tightened. After rehab, more therapy.

  “How long at this place?” the son-in-law asked.

  The doctor glanced at him. “At the rehab facility, or the therapy location?”

  “She’s got to go to two different places? Why can’t they do it all at one? That’ll cost less.”

  Selfish to a core. All he’d cared about was money. Just like Sammy’s estranged family.

  Gnashing her teeth, Sammy drummed her fingers on her knee, leaning forward on the edge of her seat, wanting to ask the doctor to remove the man from the room.

  “How long Clare stays in each place will depend on her willingness to participate and cope with recovery. It’s a long road ahead,” the doctor said.

  Lengthy journeys weren’t impossible, Sammy had learned. She’d fled over three thousand miles and wound up finding Clare, a proverbial pot of gold of friendship at the end of the rainbow.

  She’d help Clare with PT. Visit. Encourage her. Go along with the stretches and exercises. Deserting her friend wasn’t an option.

  “And then she can come home?” she asked.

  Her voice wasn’t loud, but Clare heard her, reaching for her hand and holding it. Cold, thin skin cooled Sammy’s fleshier, warmer hand.

  “Depends again on therapy and her progress,” the doctor said.

  “But she can’t live alone, right?” the son-in-law asked.

  Sammy dismissed her rule of avoiding drawing attention to herself and glared at the man seated next to her. Just how badly did he want to dump Clare in a home and leave her there to rot? Biting the hand that feeds?

  He flinched at her evil stare. “Hey, kid, it’s a fact. She’s old. She’s weak.”

  She’s right here!

  “If the doc says she can’t live on her own, then that’s it.”

  “No, that’s not it,” she protested, squeezing Clare’s hand tighter for support.

  Sticking Clare in a nursing home would be a crime. A punishment of ageism simply because she was on in her years. And Clare’s worst nightmare. Sammy knew she wanted to return to her home. The cozy little townhouse apartment in the shabbier outskirts of Oakland, with her antique tea kettle, her teeny yapping pooch Ink, her homemade crocheted blankets and shawls, and most of all, her closeness to the library where she volunteered to read at children’s storytime.

  “She could have assisted living at her home,” Sammy said.

  “That’s insane!” the son-in-law shouted. “Do you have any idea how expensive that crap is? Of course you wouldn’t. You’re just a stupid kid. What do you know about bills and real life?”

  “That’s not necess—” Clare said.

  “I’m not spending a fortune just to let her dillydally in that musty apartment,” he declared.

  Sam let go of Clare’s hand and shot to her feet. Unruly brown strands freed from her messy topknot at the sudden movement, and she brushed them aside, wanting unobstructed clearance to put him in his place, or strangle him. “You’re not spending a fortune? You’re not? You’re not even working! You live off her income. Her royalties from her books. It’s her money to spend. Not yours!”

  “If it’s hers, then what’s it to you where she ends up?” He crossed his arms, the limbs hardly wrapping the girth of his pooch, like resting them on a large balance ball. “All we know is she doesn’t have enough. It’ll run out no matter how many rodents she writes about.”

  First, no one had the right to criticize Clare’s stories, least of all him. Second, who the hell was he to have the audacity to make decisions for her?

  Truth was—other than oftentimes ugly and difficult to find—unavoidable. He had a point. Clare had some decent funds, after this wretch took his share. God bless Clare’s generous soul, even if the son deserved not a cent. Clare could afford the costlier assistance at home, but not indefinitely, and surely not for long.

  Sammy couldn’t dare to wonder how many years her friend had left to enjoy. Countless, she adamantly believed. However many days remained, she knew Clare shouldn’t spend them out of her house. She’d fallen and busted her pelvic bones. It couldn’t be the end of the world. Bones healed.

  “I can contribute.”

  As soon as the words escaped her mouth, the weasel smiled, a bright optimism likely entering his mood, and Clare gasped. “Sammy, no, dear. Absolutely not. You have your tuition to pay, rent, bills…”

  “I’ll supplement with what I make at Pablo’s.” She faced her friend. “I’ll take on some extra commissions for larger tats. I’ll—”

  “Tats? Tattoos?”

  Sammy leveled her gaze at Clare’s son-in-law. “Yes. I contract designs for a tattoo shop.” What, is that beneath him?

  “That isn’t going to pay for all these bills!”

  Again, reality wanted to buckle her at the knees. Defeat wasn’t on her menu. Pablo didn’t pay a lot, hovered over minimum wage, in fact. But if she devoted her royalties and the last book advance towards Clare’s recovery, she might be able to eke out the basics for herself on her paychecks from the tattoo parlor.

  And maybe defer her loans until their next book came out. Perhaps she could grow a pair and navigate into waters of that scary concept called “confrontation” and contact their agent to request another, faster advance, or even speed up the release of the next book to generate quicker income.

  While
she was at it, maybe she could find the cure for cancer in a psychedelic lucid dream. End racism. Reverse the Nuclear Clock to twenty-two hours before midnight.

  Stalling her loans was impossible as her Social Security number would identify her as a Millson, a.k.a. a person from a family that earned billions, not from a low-income background that would make her eligible to procrastinate paying for school. It would be like Paris Hilton applying for food stamps. Fast-forwarding her and Clare’s next book? Improbable, because of some strategic agenda planned months prior by the publisher they produced for—something about staggering the releases to stimulate the most anticipation and demand for the next story due.

  Or…

  Sammy sank down on the chair at the head of Clare’s bed like a drunk surrendering to gravity.

  Or, she could stick to her original plan. Deal with Edgar and find a way to ensure her trust fund would be coming her way. She’d already made up her mind, regardless of what Clare argued. And now Adam was counting on her, too.

  Eyeing Clare’s despicable semi-relation, the most deplorable in a basket of anything, she knew she had to do the unmentionable—follow through and break her avowed oath to never return to Concord.

  “I said”—she relaxed her clenched teeth—“I will contribute. You don’t need the details how.”

  It was either watch Clare crumble into sadness and become an inevitable flicker of her bright, beautiful self, trapped in a nursing home while her son-in-law tucked away as much of her money for himself as possible, or she personally could cast herself in the role of savior and tough out the bills until that trust fund provided the big bucks.

  Only twenty years old, Sammy hadn’t had an idea that assisted living at a facility could cost less than hiring the services of an RN to come to one’s residence. Those expenses didn’t normally fall under the radar of people her age. Coming from a lineage of prosperous, greedy, money-shitting Millsons, she’d accepted from a tender age that somehow those geriatric headaches would be taken care of.

  Calculating the numbers behind the options, her eyes had been stretched wide open. But it was possible. It had to be. Stuffing Clare in a crappy home would not be permitted on her watch.

  And to make that happen, it was quite simple in theory.

  All she needed to do was head home and face her demons.

  Chapter Three

  When Sammy ended up in San Francisco a year and a half ago, simply hitting the coast and not having any more options to travel farther west without needing an airplane, she had nine hundred dollars in her pocket—the maximum Jake could withdraw from the ATM in one day—a duffel bag of clothes, a grocery bag of protein bars and fruit snacks, and two cases of her most essential art supplies.

  Sketchbooks, paints, watercolor paper, charcoals, pastels, and pencils were deemed priorities over any other possessions she’d left at her dorm. With no encouragement from her parents—ever—to explore the boundless realm of possibilities on the 2D plane, it was safe to say she’d taken only her belongings.

  To up and leave, even for a week, she wouldn’t desert much at her studio apartment. A couple bamboo houseplants might be begging for water after her trip back to the northeast, but her lifestyle was still nomadic. Like a gypsy, only without the daring, fun-loving outgoingness they probably exhibited.

  After she left the hospital, her body and mind rioted. Her stomach cramped at the way Clare’s son-in-law cared nothing about the sweet woman. A headache spawned from the seriousness of the recovery ahead and the financial jam she’d need to extract them from. Resolute to give Clare the ability to return to her own home, Sammy listed the necessary steps leading her homebound.

  Walking on the sunny sidewalks of San Francisco toward Pablo’s tat shop, she prepared herself. Nomadic or not, she couldn’t just go like last time. She had to contact her profs and explain her leave. Most her classes were fine arts, and she was already ahead of schedule, having turned in multiple assignments ahead of time. The semester ended in two weeks, anyway.

  Sammy detoured at a deli near the tattoo parlor, where she ordered takeout. Asking Pablo for time off was the last task on her to-do list.

  No, not the last task. She still had to figure out how she could face Adam after so long. Frayed nerves were only the beginning of her mood. Instead of stomaching anxiety at the close interaction with a man, she was balanced with … anticipation, maybe even excitement at reuniting with a friendly face from years ago.

  Will he remember me? Better yet, what will he recall about me? Memories of their inside jokes and slight misadventures made her lips tip to a smile.

  “Yo, you taking your food, or what?”

  Jolted from her imagination of what an adult version of Adam could look like, she nodded at the person at the register who was staring at her a mite too closely for her comfort. Straightening, she grabbed the bags before she brought any more attention to herself.

  She bumped the front door of the tat shop open with her butt, holding the food in both hands. While the Bay kept the area chillier than most of California, it was warm enough for t-shirt and shorts. In her staple gray hoodie and baggy jeans, she’d worked up a sweat on the trek over.

  “’Bout time,” Pablo said from the receptionist desk where Sammy normally took her perch as his part-time assistant. He slid an extra barstool out for her.

  Ink rushed around the front counter, wagging her mini tail so hard Sammy wondered how the fluff ball could aim in a straight line. She crouched to pet her hello, blocking the dog’s way to the bags she momentarily set on the floor. “Thanks for doggie-sitting. Lotsa people stop in while I was out?”

  “Nah. With the construction at the corner, I’m sure foot traffic will be slow for the rest of the summer.”

  “That stinks.” For him. Low customer flow might make her trip more forgivable.

  In a single heave of his meaty shoulders, her boss shrugged. First he set his salad—sans dressing—in front of him. Then he opened a carton of steamed carrots to the left of the bowl. And a tub of Brussel sprouts with brownish specks of spices mixed in. Finally, he removed the cover from a tray of turnips resting atop a bed of … fondue noodles?

  Vegan? No. Sammy was convinced the mountain of a man was in fact a mammoth rabbit. Hispanic ethnicity gave him his darker skin tone, his childhood in a huge and loving family gave him his generosity and wide smiles, and his pretty, flora-themed diet could not have given him his bulk, muscles, and gigantic body frame.

  “Problem?” he asked.

  She raised her brows, breaking her stare of confusion at his choices. “How many protein shakes do you drink a day?”

  He snorted. “Like you should talk.” He pointed his fork at her untouched salad—heavy on the French dressing, fried chicken bits, and loaded with cheeses, croutons, and boiled egg halves. “Scrap of a girl. Little bitty thing like you should be a thousand pounds eating that garbage all the time. Don’t you know you are what you eat?”

  So he was a root vegetable? Organic, of course.

  A higher-than-average metabolism and petite bone structure gave Sammy the tendency to lean toward the slim in the spectrum of body shapes. Throughout her childhood, as Jake and his buddies teased, she had been a bean pole. Not Adam, though. He’d never seemed bothered by her size, not as they competed in hot-dog eating contests, or who could handle the hottest jalapeño popper. Mother nagged her to eat healthy for clear complexion and to put some color in her pale face. Then once she’d hit the pre-teen years, she was forbidden to indulge in fats, carbs, or anything perpetuated by some kind of a fried-food Satan. Basically anything delicious was a no-no. No need to get chubby, she was warned.

  Once on her own, in a culturally diverse setting like San Fran, she’d given her taste buds free rein. Another knee-jerk reaction to her stringent nutritionist’s restrictions all her life in the Millson Mansion. Sammy ate what she wanted, when she wanted. And it was heaven. Gustational utopia.

  “Not hungry?”

  Needing to explain
a return to Concord was upsetting, but not enough for her to punish herself with starvation. “What do I owe you?” She dragged her container closer to her and dug in.

  “Ha.”

  He’d never let her pay for lunch. Ever. Still, she had to try. Meeting Pablo was the first sign the universe gave her that it might be possible not all members of the male species were assholes to be wary of. Of course, his tattoo-covered flesh and his grim, bouncer-like aura had scared the crap out of her at first. Even someone who hadn’t been as traumatized as her would be nervous around a figure like Pablo. But that was only before she took the canyon-size leap of faith to befriend him.

  “How would you feel if I took a few days off, maybe … next week?” she asked as they lunched.

  “Finally.” He wiped at his mouth before he grinned.

  Sammy scoffed with a mouthful of greens anointed with proper parts of lardy dressing and greasy—range-free—chicken.

  She’d refused to take any sick or vacation days since the start of her employment, despite his constant suggestions to let loose and go have some fun for a change. All work, no play made Sammy a very dull… Yeah, well, dull and boring were her ideals. They were safe.

  Let loose—she’d rather walk over a pit of burning embers. Her life was fun—fine the way she wanted it.

  Hidden. Anonymous in a large city of millions.

  “Something’s, uh, come up.”

  Pablo’s fork clattered to the polished onyx countertop. “Clare? Fuck me, sugar pie. I forgot to ask how she’s doing. I’m such an asshole.”

  Sammy rushed to reassure him. “Oh no, no. She’s fine.”

  Fine. Fine. Fine. Excessive use of that word which meant anything but. Guilty. She mentally raised her hand in admission. Sammy was nothing if not a deflector of facing trouble.

  Of course Clare wasn’t just peachy. The seventy-eight-year-old sweetheart had slipped in her shower, fell to the porcelain-tiled floor, cracked her brittle pelvic bones into five—five—compound fractures, knocked her brilliant head against the sink, and wound up in the ER.