Background
Sam's wife has had multiple miscarriages. Then Sam befriends a pregnant drug addict with great consequence.
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Sam couldn't wait to lock down his house and fumble upstairs to sleep away his depression. He held hope that his friend, Doctor Reed, would forget to look him up for church next morning. There was a blistering pain in his deformed leg. He figured if depression didn't keep people away, then he always had a bum leg as a default.
At the top of the stairs in his country house, vertigo added to his woes. He grabbed the banister and caught himself before falling down the stairs. He knew his wife wouldn't miss him for days. He wondered what his wife ever saw in him in the first place. His DNA wasn't worthy of having a kid. He refused to pray, because he knew anger would rise against his Lord. His faith seemed weak, much like his bad leg.
Stumbling through the door of the bedroom in his empty house, he plunged into bed, as if it was comforting quicksand. Still clutching his cellphone, he put it in silence mode, then tossed it on the end table. He could barely breath with his face buried in the smashed pillow but managed a smirk when thinking about how his wife needed to be away from him after the last miscarriage, and now he wanted sink into bed and disappear from the world.
Somehow, Sam managed not to suffocate. He couldn't remember much about curling into an embryo and dreaming about when he was tucked inside his mother's tummy. In his dream, he heard her having a conversation, as if he was in her fluid, much like the sounds you hear when swimming under water. He was close to his mother, and who wouldn't be, in his condition. He wasn't supposed to survive. He was her miracle baby. His mother knew how to move mountains with prayer.
The unspoken irony was how Sam Townes, unable to have children, and yet, himself wasn't supposed to live.
The doorbell blasted through the house like the closing bell at Junior high school where he worked as a janitor. As he bolted upright, he clutched his chest and could hardly breathe.
His eyes fluttered awake. The only thing more urgent was the need to go to the bathroom. Light was coming in through his thin curtains. The sun was shining but darkness followed his thoughts.
Stumbling into the bathroom and nearly falling from vertigo he cursed when whoever it was wouldn't take his finger off the doorbell. It was loud enough for his distant neighbor to hear it. He refused to yell and give himself away.
After surviving the bathroom, he looked down from the stairs and saw the shadow disappear, he expected to hear the motor start soon. He wanted to crawl back in bed, but he decided to find something to eat and check the time. As he fought his way down the stairs with the kitchen to his right, he could see the clock on the wall. It was 10AM! He must have slept fourteen hours into Sunday morning.
Clinging to the railing, he made it to the bottom. He listened but hadn't heard the car motor. The house was deathly quiet. Then he heard footsteps crunching behind the house on the frozen ground. His heart pinged with fear. What if it was someone trying to determine if he was home? Then he breaks in, knowing he can have his way with the place.
Sam limped over and grabbed the poker in the fireplace. He didn't own a gun. He shuffled near the sliding glass door and got himself close enough to crack a skull. A shadow formed on his back deck. Somehow, this person shoved the slide open!
Sam brought the edge of poker down just missing his head. "Doctor Reed!" Sam screamed as the doctor managed to duck.
"Smokes, Sam! Is that anyway to treat a friend. I guess it's not every day a black man shimmies open your back glass door." He smiled wide enough for Sam to see a gold tooth near his molars.
Sam dropped the fireplace poker. It clattered at his feet. "I forgot you told me you'd stop by. You should have called first."
"I called, several times. No answer. It went straight to voicemail. But you really should get that door fixed."
That's when Sam remembered he'd put the phone on silent. After rushing into the bathroom, he forgot to check his phone. "My bad. Better come in before the cold gets us both."
"Wait a second. I brought both of us coffee from Dunkin." Doctor Reed reached outside on the railing. "Here, this one is marked for you."
Sam beckoned him in and then shut the slider. "So, you are trying to get me to go to church with a cup of coffee?"
"If you don't go, then I will call my wife and tell her I can't make it. I'm not leaving you right now."
"Don't do that to Michele. She doesn't want to sit in those cold hard pews alone. Why can't I just have a break from people? I've always been faithful. Ever since we moved here and joined, we haven't missed a Sunday. You of all people should understand what I'm going through."
Doctor Reed passed the coffee to Sam where they sat down in the family room. Sam saw his reflection for a moment in the glass of the fireplace. He tried to tame his disheveled hair with his fingers, then took a sip of his coffee. His friend sat in the other chair between the couch where his perfect posture was something to envy. Sam, on the other hand, caved into his chair.
"Sam, I need to know if you have any plans beyond helping Taylor getting medical care she and the baby will need."
Sam perked from his chair. "Call it a coincidence of timing, but maybe, just maybe she's a God sent to help me get over what's happened between my wife and her loss. What's so wrong with that? And that's all there is to tell."
Doctor Reed held the coffee to his lips and sipped, then set it down on the end table. "Nothing, if you agree with me that this is a vulnerable time right now. Your judgement might be skewed, especially if your separated from your wife."
Sam couldn't recall if Doctor Reed was told she moved in with her mother. He leaned over. "You know about her being gone?"
It's obvious Sam. Let me just say this both as a doctor and a friend. "The last thing you need right now as to get too involved with a drug addicted pregnant girl."
"I'm the weekend director at the shelter. It was my job to care."
Doctor Reed put up his hands. "Yes, and you likely saved her life. You did the right thing. But I'm taking it from here. Your wife needs time, and you need time without this girl clouding your life."
"I never asked her if I could take her baby. If that's what you mean."
"Forget I mentioned it then."
What his friend didn't know was how Sam couldn't stop wondering if just maybe there could be something more. Just maybe someone like him should save the unborn child. If not him, then who? "Is Taylor, okay? Is the baby, okay?"
"Some of the testing that's been done doesn't indicate any deformities. The biggest concern right now is avoiding a premature birth and the very real consequence that the child will be born addicted to meth."
"What about Taylor?"
"She's okay, Sam. She's high maintenance in the hospital, but she's getting the initial treatment. She doesn't know it yet, but we hope to turn her over to Hutchins when released from the hospital where she can finish treatments in a locked facility to keep her off the streets."
"I just hope she doesn't bolt before then." Sam fell back into his chair. He tried not to look like his mind was heavy on Taylor and her unborn child.
"By the way, the sonogram show's she's having a boy. Baring a premature birth, the child could be born around Christmas. I will keep you updated on her progress, but please don't dive too deep after what you've been through Sam, for your sake and Ruth. Take time out for yourselves."
"Okay then. Tell me this. Are you talking to me as a doctor or friend?"
Doc leaned over his chair. "Neither. I'm talking to you as a brother of a different color."
Sam folded his arms. "Well brother, you might want to call Michelle and let her know you're going to be late for church. I'm still not moving. I'm in healing mode."
Author Notes
I need to confess: "I'm a schizophrenic writer. I go back and forth between my western and modern family thriller because I'm split. I love both genres and can't focus on one project.
In this story, I choose to put into the fiction true life characters to help it's realism. In fact, Doctor Reed is not a made up person, but someone who runs a remarkable clinic in Syracuse. And as mentioned before, Sam's character is taken from a friend and teacher from my college days who experienced some of what I plot through.
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