“I can only imagine.” She pats me on the shoulder and smiles. “Well, I don’t want to keep you long, I just brought over these clothes that I collected from the neighbors last night—you know, clothes that might fit Sam.”
Mom opens the bag and looks in without saying anything, but soon she starts tearing up and Mrs. Sykes hugs her, and they hold on like that for what seems like forever. At first I don’t know why this is making Mom so emotional, but then I get it: Sam doesn’t have any clothes that fit him anymore. Only a closet full of clothes for an eleven-year-old boy.
“Thank you so much,” Mom says. “You’re an angel.”
“I’ll take these to Sam,” I say. “Okay?” Maybe it will feel more normal now, seeing him in the daytime.
“Thanks, honey,” Mom says.
I knock on Sam’s door. “Come in,” he says faintly.
Inside, he’s standing by his dresser, wearing the clothes he’d been wearing the day before. Maybe he slept in them. Even in the dim light I can see his piercings. I want to ask him about them, but then I remember what Mom said about not asking questions. They look a little ridiculous, because even though Sam is older, his face is still boyish and innocent-looking.
“The neighbors brought some clothes.” I set the sack down on the neatly made bed.
“Thanks,” he says, offering that polite, timid smile.
Even from a few feet away, I can smell his body odor—musky, the way the guys on the soccer team smell after a long practice. I wonder why Mom or Earl haven’t made him shower, and then I feel bad for even thinking that. He’s home now. It doesn’t matter.
Sam just stands there, unsure of what to do, so I pick up the bag and dump the contents onto the bed. “I don’t know if you’ll want to wear any of it,” I say, surveying the pile. I grab some jeans that look sort of acid-washed. “I mean, these are tragic.”
He looks at me, then at the jeans, and lets out a little laugh. To my surprise, I laugh, too. Sam comes over and starts picking through the pile with me. Some of it’s fine, but there are some other horrors, like a neon tank top and some pleated red shorts. I try to push back the thought that I don’t know what kinds of things Sam wears because I don’t know who he is anymore. I don’t know his style, what he likes, what he hates—I don’t know anything. I see his knapsack, sitting by his bed—the knapsack he brought with him from Anniston. What’s in it? I want to know, but I know I can’t ask him. Instead I just hold up a collared shirt with light blue vertical stripes. “This might look good on you.”
“You think?” he says, staring at it like it’s some strange costume. He picks it up and then walks to the small mirror above the dresser.
“Yeah, it looks great.”
He stands there for a bit, looking at himself. Then he walks to the window and peers out the blinds.
I keep going through the clothes, organizing things in piles—ugly shirts, decent shirts, hideous pants, acceptable pants, and then things that can’t be classified, like a pair of boxer shorts with pineapples on them. Sam just keeps standing there, clutching the shirt, staring outside.
Finally, Mom comes in. “Look at all these clothes,” she says. Sam still holds his gaze out the window. Is there something out there to see?
To me, she whispers, “Can you come talk?”
I nod. “We’ll be back in a minute, okay, hon?” she says to Sam.
She takes me to the den and we sit. I can hear Earl, still in the living room with that man, who has a really loud voice. “Sure, you can wait, sure. But there will be fewer opportunities the more time passes. People have short memories,” I hear him say.
“Who is that?” I ask.
“That’s what I want to discuss. His name’s Bud Walker. He’s a, well, like a lawyer. I mean, he is a lawyer, but he also helps people deal with stuff. Like the media and interviews, that sort of thing. We’re getting a lot of interview requests—it’s overwhelming. He fields requests, handles details, acts as our spokesperson, stuff like that. People want to know Sam’s story. Our story.”
“Why?” I ask.
“I guess because it’s . . . It’s a story that will give people hope.”
“Is that what that man says?”
“It’s what everyone says,” she says, bringing her hand up to my cheek and smiling. I can’t get used to this touchy-feely Mom. “Producers from TV shows have been calling.” She puts her hand back down. “And that’s what I wanted to tell you. We’re going to New York in a few days. All of us.”
“Seriously?” I ask, feeling a twinge of excitement. “Like, to be on Good Morning America or something?”
“Well, we’re deciding on the offers right now.”
“Wow,” I say. “What does Sam think?”
She looks at me, then down at the floor, like she’s embarrassed or something. “He wants to do it—we wouldn’t do it otherwise. He says he wants to help other kids.”
I have a ton more questions, but Mom keeps going: “Honey, this is a hard decision. Part of me just wants to move on and keep things private. And we will do that. But, they’re . . . well, they’re offering money. Good money. And we can use that, to pay for Sam’s college.”
College? Sam’s fourteen and he’s been gone for years and she’s thinking about college? Whenever I brought up college, she always told me that my only option was the University of Alabama. It was all we could afford, and I’d still have to get a job. But she never pushed me about college, like my friends’ parents seemed to do. She was too busy always thinking about Sam. And now that Sam is back, not much has changed.
“And your college, too,” she adds, because I must have made a face. “Okay,” I say, wondering if it’s an empty promise.
“You should start packing,” she says, patting me on the knee before she joins Earl and Mr. Walker.
I walk back to Sam’s room. He’s still peering out the window.
“What are you looking at?” I ask.
He drops the blinds quickly, like I startled him. After a few seconds he says, “They moved?”
“Who? The Kellers? Oh yeah, like, a few years ago. Across town.”
“Does he . . . does Josh go to school with you?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I see him, but we don’t really talk.” He’s on the tennis team—I see him almost every day as I walk to soccer practice. He’s not as tall as Sam is, but he’s not all shy and wimpy like he used to be.
Sam walks to the bed, picks up a T-shirt from the decent pile and holds it up. It’s gray with long dark blue sleeves. “I like that one,” I say. He drops it and looks over at me and then surprises me by reaching in for a hug. After a few seconds, I pull back.
He’s smiling at me, but it’s still the polite smile you’d give to someone you barely knew. He seems so fragile. He’s shy around us—which makes sense I guess. “Sam, are you sure you want to . . . to go on TV?”
He shrugs. “Mom says people want to know my story.”
“But what do you want?”
“I . . . I . . .”
But then Mom comes in. “You find any good stuff?” she says, gesturing to the clothes. It’s clear that only some of it is suitable. He’ll have to buy new things. New things for his new life.
===