It was brutal. But it wouldn’t be for long. “The doctors told me he’s got weeks. Maybe a month at the longest,” Julie said. Sam had no reason to doubt her. Not until he watched Saul hang on for weeks, then a month, then months, plural, shouting at the nurses, screaming at the physical therapists who’d been brought on board, at one of the more optimistic doctors’ urging, to help improve Saul’s strength and mobility. “Why should I walk?” he thundered. “You think I’ve got anywhere to go?”
The nurses quit and were replaced by new ones, who quit and were replaced in turn. The therapists left, and so did the aides, sometimes just walking out at lunchtime without giving anything resembling notice. Julie even had an entire agency quit on her, refusing to send any more of its staffers for Saul to abuse. After six months of this, Sam was convinced that Saul had been pickled in his own nastiness, that he was too awful to ever die.
In spite of this—maybe because of it—Sam was spending most of his nights at the mansion. The agencies tried to send male aides, because they were the ones who could lift Saul and maneuver him without risk of injury, but there were only so many men doing that work, which meant that, at least once a day, Sam would end up wrestling his girlfriend’s father in and out of bed, or rolling him from one side to another. “You’re so good to me,” Julie would say. “I don’t deserve you.” Sam would kiss her and tell her the truth: that it was no big deal; that he was happy to help. Julie and Connor needed a defender, a champion, someone who spoke to them kindly and treated them well and could stand up to Saul’s curses and bellows, and Sam was happy to play that role.
Sam did his best to ignore Saul’s abuse. He settled into what had been Julie’s childhood bedroom and found his own routines within a household that moved to the rhythms of Saul’s sleep, Saul’s therapies, Saul’s needs. He’d get up early to start a pot of coffee, exchange good mornings and updates with the nurse who’d had the overnight shift, and make Connor his lunch. He’d bring Julie a cup of coffee in bed, and she’d sit up, propping her back against the headboard, wrapping her hands around the mug, gazing up at him, saying, “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
After six months, he knew he wanted the three of them to be a family. He discussed it with his own parents—“if you’re happy, we’re happy”—and with Sarah, who’d come through her own wars with Ruby, who was, by then, a senior in high school. “Being a stepparent is a lot to take on, but if you love her, it’s worth it.” Finally, he’d talked it over with Connor. “How would you feel if I married your mom?”
Connor considered it carefully. “You’d be my dad, then?” he asked, his voice hopeful.
“Stepdad,” Sam said.
“But you’d be here? Every day and every night? You wouldn’t leave?”
“No,” Sam promised. “I wouldn’t leave.”
“That’s good,” Connor said. That was all he’d said, but that night, when Sam went to bed, he saw that Connor had taken his most prized possession, his Lego Millennium Falcon, and left it on Sam’s pillow, as a gift.
He’d taken Julie out to dinner, then for a drive in Malibu. They were at an overlook, with the ocean crashing underneath them, when he gave her the ring. She’d said yes, then she’d cried, then hugged him, then asked if he was sure, then cried some more. “I’m so happy,” she’d said, and wiped her eyes. “Boy, did I get lucky that day I forgot my wallet. Best mistake I ever made.”
“Do you think—should I ask your father for your hand?”
Julie looked stricken. “Oh, God. Please don’t. What if he says no?”
“Do you think he would?”
Julie gave him a long look. Then she sighed. “He’s ninety-one years old. He can’t eat solid food, he can’t smoke cigars, he can’t golf, he can’t drive, and he can’t chase women. Tormenting people is the only joy he’s got left.”
“I’m still going to talk to him,” Sam decided, and Julie gave him a thin smile and said, “On your head be it.” The next morning, after he’d brought Julie her coffee and seen Connor safely into the morning’s carpool car, Sam made his way across the vast living room. Mornings were usually Saul’s most lucid period. By late afternoon, he’d be raving, yelling at Julie, or at a long-dead assistant or travel agent or wife.