Page 83 of Without You, Scotch and Sammy 2

I jog to the elevators, then exiting on the seventh floor, my excitement at seeing them turns to a heavy leaden ball in my stomach. I walk past dark room after dark room as the children up here are all but silent. Where are the crying kids? Where’s the giggling and the TV’s on the cartoon channels? I walk past door after door as the sound of heart rate monitors follow me. I reach Lily’s room just half a second before I break out in a sprint and manic rage. My heart stutters and stops when I find her asleep with breathing tubes and wires taped to her bare chest, then Sammy slumped in the chair beside her, with her finger in Lily’s hand and her face flat on the bed as she sleeps.

Sammy’s dirty and knotted hair is tied up in a messy bun at the top of her head. She’s wearing a black and white button up flannel shirt that I immediately recognize as mine, but I don’t mind she has it. As though she senses me nearby, her head snaps up and her eyes take in the room in confusion. Her free hand comes up to rub at her face, sniffling and wiping drool from the corners of her lips.

“Sam.” She blinks several times in a row. She keeps her finger secured in Lily’s tiny hand, but uses the other to swipe at her hair and straighten her shirt as she regains her equilibrium. “Hey.”

I hesitantly step into the room as my heart hammers in my chest. “What happened, Ricci?”

“She’s okay,” she assures me quickly. “We’ve had a rough forty-eight hours, but she’s okay.”

“What happened?”

“Umm…” Sammy’s voice cracks as she sits up tall and stretches her back. “Lil’s sensors went off a couple nights ago.”

“Sensors?”

“Breathing. She stopped breathing.”

I stop breathing as her words penetrate my mind. I step forward and hover over Lily’s tiny sleeping body. “Is she okay?”

“Yeah. Her sensors went off, so I went in and grabbed her,” Sammy’s voice cracks again as she looks up at me like a scared little kid. “Her lips were already going blue. I called an ambulance and breathed for her as well as I could. We had to learn that for work, but I never realized how much I forgot until I needed to help her.”

“What happened next?”

“Luc came and took her away.”

I frown. “Luc?”

She smiles quaveringly. “Not our Luc. But in my mind, I pretended he was. It made me feel safer knowing someone I know was helping her.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help you, Ricci.”

At my words, Sammy’s sad eyes blink clearer, her posture snaps straighter. She wipes her hand over her nose, then she clears her throat. “It’s fine. So it turns out Lily has a heart murmur. She’s been assigned to a cardiologist. She’s had echocardiograms, she’s been in for X-rays. In the end, they decided it’s ‘normal’ and will go away as she grows.”

“Why’s she still in here? What’s with all the wires?”

“She has a little cold, so she’s having trouble breathing. But we get to go home tomorrow, I think”

“So that’s why you packed up and left my apartment? You needed your things?”

She watches me for a long minute, and I study the freckles peppering her nose and the dark circles under her eyes. “No, I packed my things up a week ago, Sam. We were home for five nights before we came in here. I guess you haven’t been home then, huh?”

I clear my throat. “Umm. Nah, I’ve been around.”

“You can go back to your apartment tonight. We cleaned up after ourselves.”

“But what about--” I clear my throat again. “What about me helping you with the adoption?”

“I signed your papers. You don’t have to worry about us anymore.”

“Ricci--”

“You don’t owe me anything, Sam, but I’m asking you to please stop calling me that. I don’t like it.”

“You don’t like me calling you Ricci?”

She shakes her jerkily.

“What would you rather?”

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