Little Sam

a short story

One time Daddy and Mommy and Little Sam went to visit at the hospital. Sam walked along between the grownups, looking at everything, taking big steps, both of his hands way up to hold hands with them. It was a very strange place indeed. Now and then there was a funny smell kind of like bathroom cleaner but it was so strong it made his stomach queasy. There were long halls where the floors were very flat and there were things made out of shiny metal, especially some funny beds with wheels and sometimes there were people on them and people pushed them in the halls. Everything sounded funny too and almost nobody was talking out loud.

They went in an elevator. There were buttons that lit up, and they went down another hall with lots of people all doing things. Now Sam was tired from walking so far with such big steps but nobody else was talking so he didn't want to say anything and he didn't ask to be picked up.

Then they went through a door, a big wide door, and into a room. It was kind of like a bedroom with a bed and chairs except there were some kind of curtains like bathtub curtains hanging from the ceiling and the bed had complicated kind of metal parts instead of legs. There was a lady he didn't know in the bed and she looked right at him without any kind of look on her face at all. That was a little scary.

But Mommy and Daddy kept on walking, around that lady's bed, on toward the window with the sky outside. For some reason Auntie Ethel and Uncle Jack were here, in chairs beside the window. Uncle Jack looked like he was going to cry, looking down at the floor, and Auntie Ethel was leaning over rubbing his hair. She looked up and saw Sam and smiled and nodded like she meant to say hello.

Then Sam suddenly realized who else was here. There was another bed and Nana Sarah was lying in it under a nice blue blanket, kind of sitting up. Nana Sarah and Mommy were talking and Mommy leaned over so they could hug and kiss. Nana looked at Sam for a moment and smiled like Auntie Ethel had done but she and Mommy kept on talking.

Where was Baby Jessica? Ever since Auntie Ethel and Uncle Jack had gotten Baby Jessica, Sam had always seen them together – always – so where was she now? He looked around in every corner of the room. That was scary too.

Then finally Daddy picked Sam up to let him talk with Nana. She was touching his arm and talking to him but her face was shocking. Her skin was the wrong color and her eyes were very yellow where they should have been white. Her breath smelled really bad. She reached out her other hand and he grabbed it and held on and just then he realized what was wrong. Nana Sara was very, very sick.

Sam had been sick one time when he was little. He didn't remember it much but he remembered lying on a pillow in Nana's lap in the rocking chair, hugging the little gray teddy bear. He felt really awful then, like everything was wrong inside him, but they rocked in the chair and she sang a song and wiped his forehead with a cool wet cloth and he finally went to sleep.

So now he reached out and touched her forehead like she had done for him, but her forehead wasn't hot; it was cold and he couldn't do anything for her. So he began to cry with big frightened sobs. Daddy held him tighter and whispered something. Mommy rubbed his hair. Nana touched his cheek very lightly with just her fingertips, right where his tears were running down.

"Samuel," Nana Sarah said, "there's something you should always remember. Will you promise to remember it for me?"

Sam couldn't stop sobbing but he nodded.

She said, "Always remember that we love each other very much."

* * * * * * * *

It did not happen that same night after the hospital visit. Maybe it was the next night or the night after that; in any case it was pretty soon. Sam was home from day care and he and Mommy were in the living room listening to music and doing stuff. Daddy was someplace else in the house

The phone rang and stopped. Then Daddy came in and told Mommy, "It's the hospital. They want to talk to you!" Daddy had a very strange look on his face. Sam would remember all the events of that night very clearly from then on.

Mommy went and sat on the sofa by the living room phone, picked it up and said "Yes, go ahead!" Then her face turned pale. After just a minute more she said "Thank you!" and put the phone down. Then she put her hands on her face and began to cry. Daddy sat beside her and hugged her and put his face next to hers.

Sam came over and stood there wondering what was wrong. Daddy very quietly told him, "Nana Sarah died!" He coaxed Sam over close and hugged him too.

There was something they had told Sam a number of times that he had never understood. Nana Sarah was Mommy's mommy. He understood it now. What if his Mommy died next? Mommy and Nana – a wave of unknown fear washed over him. He pried one of his mother's hands away from her face, forced his hands in around her arm, pressed his face against her shoulder and clung on tight.

It became a very long evening. After awhile Daddy and Mommy just sat on the sofa and Sam lay on a pillow at their feet. They played lots of music and talked a little.

Sam knew what dying was. One time at day care one of the mouses in the cage had died. Martha the tall girl saw it first and started yelling till everyone came over. People were poking it with their fingers through the wires but it didn't move. Its little pink feet with the knobby toes were curled up and its eyes were shut. The other mouses were still running around just like this one used to do. Its name was Elliot.

Sam never cared too much about the mice but this was important so he watched everything. Miss Patricia took the mouse, washed its face and feet under a dribble of water in the sink and gently wrapped it in a piece of cloth. She led the children out into the yard, took a garden spade and made a hole back by the corner of the fence. Next she unwrapped Elliot and held him out for the children to see. She told them that he had been a very good mouse. Finally she wrapped him up again, laid him in the hole, put in the dirt, set a rock on top and said, "Good-bye friend!" They never saw Elliot again and somehow Sam missed him.

And then there was the other time. He was walking with Daddy in the woods looking at all kinds of things. Daddy stopped and pointed at the ground. Sam didn't see the thing at first because it was partly under a big brown leaf but he squatted down to look and there it was, one of the speckled brown birds that hopped around the bushes in their back yard. Daddy picked it up. It didn't move, just like Elliot the mouse. Daddy rubbed its back and said how soft it was. He held it out and Sam took it in his hand like Miss Patricia did.

He had never seen feathers actually on an animal before so he rubbed them with his finger one way and another. Its little legs were stuck out stiff like wires but its toes were curled up like Elliot's. Its eyes were shut tight too.

Then he noticed what was on the dead bird's face: tiny ants. A number of tiny black ants were running around in and out of its nostrils, around its beak. What were they doing inside its head? A sudden sick feeling came over him and he didn't want to know any more about this. He threw the dead bird down and stepped on it, trying to make it go away.

Now, lying asleep on the pillow at his parents' feet, he saw his Nana's face. She didn't move. Her eyes were shut tight. Countless ants were running in and out her nostrils and around her lips. The little boy awoke with a horrified choking gasp.

* * * * * * * *

Although the hour was late his parents lingered over bed time. They tucked him in with all his pet cloth animals then sat together on his bed and talked a little more. His mother laid a hand on his stomach and a hand on her own. She asked, "Remember what I used to say? It's the same thing Nana used to tell me when I was her little girl. There is a shiny silver string between you and me here in our tummies. It's true. And the string goes between us all, you and me and Daddy and Nana too, because we all love each other so much!" They kissed him then and left him in the dark.

Little Sam gathered his toy companions into his embrace and kissed their fuzzy faces, faces that seemed alive to him. His thoughts gradually wandered and slowly drifted into a kind of sleep. An hour passed without his noticing, and then a second hour.

Eventually a physical sensation seemed to appear in his restless dreams. There seemed to be something warm glowing in his stomach. For awhile he dreamed about hot soup for lunch on a cold day. But the sensation grew stronger and even more physical, a strange kind of gentle inside tugging different from anything he had ever known. So then he imagined looking inside himself and imagined the silver string glowing warmly and stretching off away to some other place. He imagined that someone was gently rubbing on the silver string to wake him and therefore he awoke.

There at the foot of his bed, in a glow of moonlight from the window, his Nana Sarah stood.

Little Sam held his breath and didn't move. The specter did not move. It stood in a way that Nana often stood, with its hands folded together. It seemed to smile at him with Nana's face.

That was more than he could stand. The horrid picture of the ants was unforgettable. He yanked the covers up and jumped down under them and he began to shout. His father was in the room at once and the bright light came on.

His father pulled the covers off, pulled him into his lap and held him close while the little boy trembled, panted and sobbed, his little legs making motions like running. His mother was there too. She said, "He's never had nightmares like this."

The panic slowly faded. Slowly he turned his eyes toward the place where the ghost had stood. There was nothing there but the window just beyond. With the dazzling light inside, the world outside the glass looked absolutely black.

The blackness caught Sam's attention. He didn't like being scared. He knew the world outside was safe enough even if it looked black now. So he wondered if he should feel the same way about that other place where Nana was. Nana wouldn't hurt him no matter what.

Suddenly his father was carrying him out of his room, down the hall, into their room. His mother got into bed and held back the covers then his father laid him down in the middle and got in too. They turned off the lamp and the moonlight from outside was visible again.

Lying there between the two big bodies, it was like the time when they were walking down the hallways of the hospital except he wouldn't get to see Nana here. And the world outside looked bright enough. Pretty soon Sam started struggling with the covers and squirming out from under. By the time his parents were sitting up he was crawling over his mother's legs and dropping down to the floor.

"Stay with us Sweetheart," his mother said.

The boy immediately answered, "No! Talk with Nana."

His mother was shocked. She threw the covers back and made to get up but her husband laid a hand on her shoulder, bidding her to stop.

"What did he say?" the husband asked.

"I think he said 'Talk with Nana.'" she answered.

"I thought so too. Let him go. I told you before that he's a gutsy little kid. Whatever that nightmare was, he's going off to face it. You have to go alone, you know. Leave him alone now and we'll look in later."

* * * * * * * *

Sam was soon back to sleep. The pets were scattered all around and the covers were all askew but he had the gray teddy in his arms and he'd found a corner of the blanket to pull up over himself.

Immediately he saw the ants again. There had been many times when he had squatted down to watch the ants scurrying this way and that. After long observation he had realized that they were busy. One time they had a pile of sand with a hole in the top. Some were carrying bits of things down through the hole and others were running out to go get more. It became a matter of fascination that such little animals behaved with so much purpose. They made him think about himself because he liked to do things that way too, really go-go fast. It was a new and intriguing thing for the little child to judge himself. He liked the ants. Whatever they were doing, it was probably okay.

He saw his Nana's face again. He thought her hair was made of soft brown leaves. He thought her eyebrows were feathers and her smiling lips were made of shiny wrinkled flower petals. Yes – whatever the ants were doing, it was probably okay.

So then he gently realized that she was back again.

Whether or not he opened his eyes, I cannot say. In any case he saw her there in the moonlight at the bedside, hands folded and smiling, her face like leaves and feathers and flower petals. She could see that he was calm now.

Then she reached out to touch his face very softly with just her fingertips and he reached out to caress her too.

* * * * * * * *

The woman and man awoke from restless dozing with their little boy crawling up between them into bed. The little body curled up and relaxed under the covers. Both of them touched him and saw that he was okay. The woman was about to ask some question but the little boy spoke first.

"Said good-bye to Nana."