“I wish you could have been my mother,” I say through my tears.

I feel her sigh. “Oh, sweetie,” she whispers sympathetically. She pulls back and looks at me gently. “I’ll give you one Ambien, but it’s the only one you’re ever getting from me.”

I nod. “I promise I’ll never ask again.”

TWENTY-SIX

I slept way too hard. It feels like my brain is compressed to the right side of my head.

I sit up in bed and look outside. It’s almost dark now. I look at the time on my phone and see that it’s after seven. My stomach is growling so loud, it may be what woke me up.

I left the ringer on my phone set to high, but it never made a noise and I have no missed calls.

Fourteen more hours until I get to see him.

I reach to the floor and pick up Samson’s backpack. I dump the contents of it onto my bed and begin sifting through everything.

Literally everything he owns is on my bed right now.

There are two pairs of shorts and two of Marcos’s branded T-shirts. He was wearing the other set when he was arrested, so does that mean he only has three changes of clothes? I noticed he wore the same shirts a lot, but I assumed he was doing it to support Marcos. He probably washed them regularly in hopes no one would notice.

There are toiletries in a bag. Toothpaste, deodorant, a toothbrush, nail clippers. But no wallet.

Did he actually lose his wallet before we went to get tattoos, or did he never even have one? If he’s been on his own since his father died, how would he have even gotten a driver’s license?

I have so many questions. There’s no way our visit tomorrow will be long enough for him to answer them all.

In the bottom of his backpack, I find a plastic Ziploc bag. The bag is filled with what look like folded up pieces of paper. They’re all a little faded with a yellow tint to them, so they’re obviously old.

I open the bag and pull out one of the pieces of paper and unfold it.

Little Boy

Bitten by frenzy like me

Exhaustion in his eyes

He’s growing angry at the sea

More tired than he should be

So tired of being free

-Rake Bennett

11-13-07

Samson mentioned that Rake used to write poetry. I stare at this poem and try to make sense of it.

Is it about Samson? Are all these notes from his father? It’s dated when Samson would have been about twelve years old. A year before the hurricane hit.

So tired of being free.

What does that line mean? Did his father think Samson was tired of living life on the ocean with him?

I pull out the rest of the pieces of paper, needing to read every single one of them. They’re all dated from before Hurricane Ike, all written by his father.

She lives

When you were born, so was your mother.

As long as you live,

she too will be alive.

-Rake Bennett

08-30-06

Gone

I met your mother while she was standing on the beach,

her feet buried in the sand.

I regret not falling to my knees to scoop up some of the granules

into the palms of my hands.

I wonder if any of what we touch has ever been stepped on by her feet.

Or has every grain of sand she ever came across

already washed back out to sea?

-Rake Bennett

07-16-07

Dear Shawn,

Every child eventually craves a new place to be.

I decided your first home to be a boat, but now I wonder,

Is this boat the home you’ll flee?

If so,

that grave mistake is all on me.

Because when a man says I’m going home,

he should be heading for the sea.

-Rake Bennett

01-03-08

There are at least twenty poems and letters in the bag. Only a few are written directly for Samson, but based on all the sheets of paper as a whole, I get the impression what Samson told me about his father was true. Rake lived on the water, but the part Samson left out was that he lived on the water with Rake, too.

TWENTY-SEVEN

“Beyah Grim?”

I practically jump out of my chair. My father stands up too, but I don’t want my father going in with me to see Samson. “You don’t have to come.”

“I’m not allowing you in there by yourself.” His statement is final, like there isn’t any room for negotiation.

“Dad, please.” I don’t know that Samson will feel like being honest with me if my father is sitting across from him. “Please.”

He nods tightly. “I’ll wait in the car.”

“Thank you.”

I follow the guard as he leads me to a large, open room. There are several tables and almost all of them are full of people visiting with other inmates.

It’s depressing. But not as depressing as I thought it would be. I assumed I’d be on one side of a window made of glass, unable to touch him.

My eyes immediately seek out and find Samson sitting alone at a table on the other side of the room. He’s wearing a dark blue jumpsuit. Seeing him in something other than his usual beach shorts makes this all feel more real.

When he finally looks up and sees me, he immediately stands. I don’t know why I expected his hands to be cuffed, but I’m relieved to see they aren’t. I rush to him and fall right into his arms. He pulls me against him with tightened arms.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“I know.”

He holds me for a moment, but I don’t want to get him in trouble, so we separate, and I sit across from him. The table is small, so we aren’t that far apart, but he feels a world away.

He takes one of my hands and holds it in both of his, resting our hands on the table. “I owe you so many answers. Where do you want me to start?”

“Anywhere.”

He takes a moment to figure out where he should begin. I bring my other hand to his until all four of our hands are in a pile on the table. “Everything I told you about my mother was true. Her name was Isabel. I was only five when it happened, but even though I didn’t remember much of my life before her death, I knew it changed drastically after she was gone. Rake is my father; I did omit that. After my mother died, he seemed lost when he wasn’t on the water. It’s like he couldn’t imagine being anywhere she wasn’t, so he pulled me out of school, and we lived on his boat for several years. And that was my life, until Darya took him from me.”

“So that’s what you meant when you said Darya broke your heart?”

He nods.

“Where were you when the hurricane hit?”

Samson’s jaw hardens, like that’s not a memory he wants to relive. He stares at our hands as he speaks. “My father dropped me off at a church. It’s where a lot of the residents took shelter, but he refused to stay with me. He wanted to make sure his boat was secured since it was our entire life. He told me he’d be back before dark, but I never saw him again after that night.” He brings his eyes back to mine. “I wanted to stay on the peninsula, but there was nothing left after the hurricane. It was hard for a thirteen-year-old to hide there, or even survive at that point, so I had to leave. I knew if I told someone my father was missing, I’d get thrown into a group home, so I just spent the next few years trying to be invisible. I ended up working with a friend in Galveston doing odd jobs like mowing yards. He was the guy you met at the restaurant. We were young and did some stupid shit. It eventually caught up with us.”