“Never,” he grunted.
I kissed Sam on the forehead, brushing a hand down his cheek. “Sweet dreams, Daddy.”
I swear I saw his mouth twitch.
My phone, surprisingly, was unharmed. There were a series of texts on there from an international number that I quickly discerned was Cora.
CORA: I’m leaving the house but I’ll have my cell on me, this is the number, please tell me Sam made it to your place?
CORA: Is he okay? Are you guys okay?
There were several more like that. I called the number. She picked up right away.
“Ellie!”
“He’s here, Cora. He’s okay.”
“Oh thank God.”
She took a shaky breath on the other end of the phone. “I’m sorry, I haven’t slept in 24 hours…”
“Can I call you later?”
“No. It’s okay. Did he tell you anything?”
“No. He’s passed out. He barely made it into the house. Is he okay? He looks like he spent the night in the woods!”
“He did.”
My stomach did a nosedive.
Then Cora told me everything. Their father had gone missing. Sam went to find him. His Mom hadn’t called emergency services until the next morning. She was confused and half out of her mind and thought Sam was taking care of everything.
Cora explained how Sam had somehow miraculously found his father in the middle of the night. He’d had a stroke sometime in the afternoon, and been unlucky enough that no one had come across him. Sam couldn’t risk taking him out of the woods so he’d spent the night there with him, using hissweatshirt to keep his dad warm. He managed to carry his father out into the road the next morning at dawn where an early-morning hiking group found them at the trailhead.
“I flew standby from Heathrow last night,” Cora said. Mom managed to call me after talking to Sam, but not 9-1-1. She said he’d done it. When you called me I’d literally just landed and made it home to pick up stuff for Dad.”
When Cora figured it out this morning she’d called, but Sam was already at the hospital.
“They told him he should stay, Ellie. He was in so much pain. But he was panicking about you. He said he needed to see you. He wouldn’t listen to anyone.”
I was crying now, fully sobbing on the stoop. I told Cora I was so happy their dad was okay, and I promised I’d take care of Sam. “I’ll get him to go back for whatever care he needs,” I said.
“I can’t wait to meet you Ellie,” Cora said. She was crying too. “I feel like I know you from how much Sam talks about you. But I always wanted a sister so?—”
“Me too,” I laughed through my tears.
We said our goodbyes just as Kit got out of her truck, slamming the door hard behind her.
She was crying too, but when she saw me, her face fell.
“Ellie!”
She’d missed the whole thing. I told her Sam was here. Gave her a truncated version of events.
“Oh my God!” she exclaimed.
We hugged hard, and when I released her, I asked if she was okay.
