Chapter Thirty

It’s dark, and Sam hears voices. He feels movement. He’s in a car. He doesn’t have a chance to feel worried because a rough worn hand squeezes his.

It grows darker. He grips the hand.

When Sam wakes up, he’s lying on a narrow bed. Too narrow, he thinks. The mattress is both softer and lumpier in places than his own. Sensing that he is not home, he has to force himself to open his eyes. He’s not staring up at his bedroom ceiling. This one is higher. The sheets that he is resting on are scratchier.

Someone lies next to him. Whoever it is coughs a lot. Sam wants to turn and face him, but he’s too weak to move his body.

The next time Sam awakes, the bed closest to him is quiet.

A woman wearing a white nurse’s uniform flits in and out. Her hand is soft when she touches his forehead. Her steps are light when she approaches his bed. But mucus blurs his vision and seems to cover the stranger’s face with a white gauze. Right after he opens his eyes, he feels himself overcome by sleep again. Glad to leave this strange place, he doesn’t fight the tiredness, just gives in.

He dreams fitfully. In one dream, Mickey Kotov crumbles Sam into tiny seeds and scatters them by a basketball court. A tiny Sam-seed grows into a huge apple tree. Its tangled branches overhang the court. In another, Sam’s mother stands by his bedside. She is murmuring to him words that he can’t hear.

One morning, Sam’s eyes open wide. He’s still sleeping on the same lumpy, soft bed and staring up at the same high ceiling. But he realizes that he’s been asleep for a long time, and he’s doesn’t know where he is.

In panic, his head flops about. Thank goodness, his gaze lands on Miss Perkins. She is wearing a white dress, sort of like a nurse’s uniform, sitting in the metal chair next to him.

Miss Perkins answers one of his questions before he can form even a word to ask them.

“Hello, dearie. I bet you’re wondering what I’m doing all dressed up in my aide’s uniform, with this little hat on my head.” She points to a white hat that he hadn’t noticed. “I had to get a job here. Actually, it’s a decent place to work.”

But Miss Perkins fails to answer his most urgent question.

Then Sam realizes: he hasn’t forgotten the answer to this question. He’s never known it.

“That way I can be here all the time.”

Miss Perkins says the word ‘here,’ so casually.

Where is here?

“I’m on duty in the ward, so I can’t stay with you for long.” In a gesture that Sam has witnessed thousands of times, Miss Perkins pulls a Kleenex out of her pocket and blows her nose. Only Sam is not reassured.

Ward? He must be at a hospital, but why would Miss Perkins get a job at a hospital? If Sam’s in a hospital, he ought to be able to leave some day soon. No one lives in a hospital. But what if he’s at Principal Cullen’s special school?

One of the many problems with not liking to talk is that people—even Miss Perkins—assume so much. He’ll never get used to it.

“But at least you’re better, dear.” Miss Perkins smiles. “I’ll bring you some broth. You’ve lost so much weight. I can carry you easily now. I have to go help with lunch, but I’ll be back.” Her lips graze his forehead before she disappears.

Sam stares again at the strange gray ceiling.

Having spent much of his life lying on his back and looking up, Sam is an expert on ceilings. He has identified three circus animals in the gray discolorations—an elephant, a monkey and a skinny crocodile—when he hears a cough and realizes that he’s not alone.

He struggles to flip over and to stretch his head. A gray woolen lump lies in the bed next to him. He guesses that the blanket hides a kid.

On the side of the blanket facing him, he reads: ‘Mannville Institution.’’

He flips onto his back again and gazes upwards. The circus ceiling is less worrisome.

Sam must have fallen asleep again, because when he opens his eyes, a lady with golden hair smiles down at him.

“I’m Nurse Beck.”

He recognizes her green eyes from his dreams.

“You must be a very special boy to have Miss Perkins so devoted to you,” Nurse Beck says.

After any illness, even a cold, Sam’s voice box feels far away. Following this long illness, it has sunk to his toes. All he can do is stare at her dimpled mouth.

“I’m told that we need to fatten you up. When your mother comes again, we want her to be able to recognize you,” Nurse Beck says cheerfully.

Sam notices that she uses the word ‘again.’ Perhaps, Sam’s vision of his mother wasn’t a dream.

“So try to stay awake long enough for me to get you some food,” Nurse Beck says.

Sam nods.

“Now I want to turn you.” Nurse Beck helps him turn ever so gently onto his side. He should be able to do this by himself, but he is so weak. He faces the bedside table.

My Early Life, by Winston Churchill, lies there, alongside an open card.

He can’t read the front, but the inside bears his mother’s handwriting. She won the penmanship award in third grade, and every word is perfectly formed:

Get Well For Me. I’ve Gone to Europe but Will Have Some Exciting News Soon,

Love,

Mom

Tears begin to dampen Sam’s cheeks. He longs for Ann. Yes, I can cry, he wants to tell her.