Mom got to visit whenever she wanted, and sometimes Sammy went to lunch or dinner with her all alone. The only thing Sammy wasn’t allowed to do was spend the night with Mom, and she was okay with that.
Sammy was being very…realistic about her mom’s recovery. Maybe it would last. Maybe it wouldn’t. But she was going to enjoy this time Mom was clean while she could. And itwas easier, knowing that Mom’s last relapse had been more complicated than just wanting to get high.
Therapy helped too, she guessed.
And Lia. Who was like having a…not another mom, but someone just as important. Just like Gard. An anchor. A foundation.
Sammy didn’t know why they hadn’t moved in together yet, but sometimes Lia stayed at their house in Bent. Sometimes Lia had Sammy spend the night with her—just her, and Lia loved those nights when it was just the two of them.
But she loved every time it was the three of them too. Or the four of them. Sometimes in her life, Sammy had felt fully and completely alone.
She almost never did these days.
Sammy had let her real hair color grow out since that night—so it was a dirty blond right now, but Lia had convinced Gard to let her dye it purple. Which he was really going to have to approve of, because when Sammy opened her gift from Lia, it was a certificate to a hair place in Fairmont.
Sammy thanked her with a big hug.
What more could she want?
“I think that’s it,” Sammy said, looking around the debris of all the presents. Her heart still felt too big in her chest, like this was all too much. Like she didn’t deserve it, but Matilda said she wasn’t supposed to worry aboutdeserving.
She was supposed to work on gratitude, and Sammywasgrateful. For everything in this perfect moment.
“Notquite,” Gard said, getting to his feet. He walked away from the little pavilion much to Sammy’s confusion. She looked at Lia and Mom, who were both grinning.
Then she heard ayip. Her heart just…stopped. Gard reappeared with a little ball of fur in his arms.
Tears filled Sammy’s eyes. Fell over her cheeks before she even touched the puppy. But they were happy tears. The best, most wonderful happy tears.
Gard put the dog in her arms, where it wriggled and licked excitably.
Grateful didn’t begin to cover it.
“Happy birthday, Sammy,” he said, running a hand over her hair while she cradled the wriggling puppy to her chest.
“What’s his name?” she asked in between totally embarrassing sobs, but she didn’t care when the puppy licked the tears off her face.
“It’s a her, and she’s yours to name.”
Sammy gave it a lot of thought as she went through the rest of her party. She consulted Sarabeth and Izzy and never let the puppy out of her sight.
As people started to leave, and Gard, Lia, and Mom started to clean up, Sammy still hadn’t made a decision, but she held the puppy’s leash and led her to a patch of grass when Izzy told her that it looked like she was ready to go to the bathroom.
Izzy was an expert. The puppy had come from one of her dad’s dogs, so she was bred to be smart.
“You’re going to be a genius, aren’t you?” Sammy cooed at the dog. She turned back toward the pavilion where all the adults in her life cleaned up. She kind of felt bad she wasn’t helping, but Gard had said it was her birthday so she didn’t have to.
She had gratitude for that too.
He was over cleaning the grill while Mom and Lia picked up trash and packed up leftover food. As Sammy walked past them, she heard a little snippet of their conversation.
“Thank you,” Mom was saying, low and serious. “For being what she needed. What sheneeds.”
Lia reached out and gave Mom’s arm a squeeze. “Aren’t we lucky that she needs us both?”
Hearing that made Sammy want to cry again, because it was true and she knewshewas lucky that Lia understood how much they both meant to Sammy.
Which just meant that this birthday party shouldn’tonlybe about her. She made a beeline for Gard, the puppy chewing on her leash as she did.
