While the officers were talking, the two nurses on duty had come to the kitchen, where they stood to hear the news. The three of them were standing there, motionless, speechless, when Sam heard the front door swing open, and heard Connor’s happy shout. “Sa-am! I’m ho-ome!” followed by the unmistakable tootle of a kazoo. Connor came skipping into the kitchen, carrying a paper gift bag full of party favors, with the instrument in question in his other hand.
“Maya’s mom says that Rexton’s parents were sadists for giving us kazoos, but she wouldn’t tell us what a sadist is,” he announced breathlessly. Then he turned and saw the police officers and went immediately still.
Sam felt the horror of what had happened settle into his bones. I have to tell him, he thought. Oh, God. How do I tell him? Connor’s dark eyes swept the room—the two police officers, the nurses, Sam with a dish towel twisted in his hands, his grandfather braying “What’s happening?” from the living room and being, for once, ignored.
“What’s wrong?” Connor asked, in his husky voice.
Sam hunkered down, so he could look Connor in the eyes. My God, he thought. How do I do this? What do I say?
“Connor,” he said, and cleared his throat. “I have bad news.”
“Is it Mom?” Connor asked, his voice rising. “What happened? Just tell me!”
“There was a bad car accident,” Sam said. “I’m so sorry, honey. Your mom is dead.” He watched as Connor’s eyes got big and saw the moment the news landed. He held the boy while he cried and, after a murmured conversation with the nurses, dispatched one of them to give Saul the news. “What?” he heard Saul shouting, as Connor sobbed, “No! No! No!” and pummeled Sam’s shoulders with his fists. “Who?” Then “I’m going to sue those sonsofbitches! Get me Abrams on the phone!” Meanwhile, Connor clutched at Sam with panicky arms.
“Are you going to stay here? Please don’t leave, Sam.”
Sam swallowed hard. He felt dizzy, his brain overloaded. He could smell salmon, and garlic, and could hear his father-in-law shouting, and could see the table he’d just finished setting for three. Julie’s yoga mat stood, curled up by the front door, her rolled-up grippy socks beside it. Her favorite coffee mug rested in the drainer; the olive-oil cake she’d baked two days ago was still in its pan, covered in tinfoil. Everything was here, except Julie. It didn’t feel real.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Sam promised Connor. “No matter what.”
That night, after Connor had been coaxed to eat a few bites of macaroni and cheese, after Sam had struggled to answer question after question about where his mommy was now, and what would happen to her, and had it hurt when the car had hit her, and was she going in the ground and what would happen to her there and was she going to watch over him from heaven, because that’s what Logan P. at nursery school told Connor people did after they died, Sam had tucked the boy into bed, made his way downstairs, and poured himself two fingers of whiskey. He’d decided to sleep in Connor’s room, on the floor beside Connor’s bed. He couldn’t even look at the room he and Julie had shared; couldn’t imagine sleeping in their bed without Julie beside him.
He was hunting through the closet for his sleeping bag when the phone rang.
“Sam? Hey, hi. Is everything all right? Are you okay? I got the strangest feeling this afternoon.”
That old twin ESP, he thought, and cleared his throat. “Julie’s dead.”
“What? What?” his sister cried, then, “Oh, God, you’re kidding me. What happened? Oh, my God, that poor little boy.” Sarah had started to cry. “I mean, poor you, poor Julie, but my God, my God. Poor Connor.”
Sam was crying. He’d held it together for Connor, but now he couldn’t have stopped the tears if he’d tried.
“Come home,” said his sister.
“Sarah, I don’t know if I can. I can’t leave Connor, and his father is here—”
“Oh, like he’d give a shit,” Sarah said, her voice uncharacteristically sharp. “Like he’d even notice. And didn’t you tell me he’d be out of town for three months?”
“He’s playing in Branson,” said Sam. “But California’s the only place Connor’s ever lived. And,” Sam continued, “I don’t know if I’m even allowed to take him anywhere.” Sam called himself Connor’s stepfather, but he’d never officially adopted Connor. He had no idea what his legal standing might be.