Chapter 19

Jenna called us in for dinner just before six.

"Test and insulin, missy," she said to Samantha.

I watched her test. She was still shaking when she tested outside of the times her dad would let her, but she did it without hesitating as much.

"104," she said.

"Is that good?"

"It's a bit high. Are you using bottled dressing?" She asked Jenna."

"Yep. Want to see it?"

"Yes please," she said. "And do you use pre-made garlic bread?"

"I do. I'll grab you the wrapper."

Jenna got the package for the bread, the dressing bottle, the tin for the sauce, and the package for the pasta.

I watched Samantha's fingers move as she calculated carbs and then her insulin dose.

"What dose do you need?"

She told me what she should be taking.

"Okay. Let's see that," I said.

She put a pen needle on her insulin pen and turned the dial. I looked at the number. It was a good number of units below what she'd said. She stared at the pen, dialed it back, and tested that the needle would administer cleanly, then turned the dial to the first number. She stared at it with trembling hands. I put my hand on her shoulder.

"You can do it, Sam," I said.

She took a deep breath and turned the dial to the dose she told me.

"Good job, kiddo," I said. She smiled, then gave herself her shot.

"Awesome job," I said, helping her clean up her kit and tossing her test strip in the garbage and the re-capped pen needle in a sharps container Jenna had gotten and put on the counter.

Jenna started getting everything to the table and served the food.

Samantha took two pieces of garlic bread, a good helping of salad, and a small, but appropriate, amount of pasta.

"So," I said to Samantha as we ate.  "School. With everything that's gone on, Jenna and I completely blanked that you should be in school. So you have a choice. Either you can go back to your old school, wherever that is. I suspect if you ran here from your dad's place, you live fairly close by. So I suspect your school isn't too far. Unless you go to some elite private school."

Samantha choked when I said that.

"Uh no. My dad wouldn't send me to private school. He wouldn't waste the money." She said.

"Okay. So you go to public school. So, you can either go to our local school which is a couple of blocks away, or you can go back to your old school. The choice is entirely yours. Either way, we'll drive you and pick you up. And, since you have a phone now, we can text you and let you know if we have to change who is picking you up."

"Do I have to decide right this second?" She asked.

"No. Not right away. But you should go back to school on Monday. We'll let you take tomorrow off, too," I said.

Just then, my cell phone rang.  I frowned. Who'd be calling now?  The caller ID was blocked.

"Hello?" I asked. It was Samantha's social worker asking if she could move her visit up to tomorrow in light of Samantha's dad's escape and subsequent arrest.

"Sure, I said. We'll be home," I said. If already spoken to the social worker while we were at the hospital, so I knew she knew the address. She confirmed it with me and we set a time.

"Okay. Your social worker wants to come by tomorrow instead of Monday. We'll also find out if we can take you back to your old house so you can pick up anything there that you need."

"I don't have anything there. Just some clothes and my school bag." Samantha said.

"No favourite stuffed animal? Pictures? Computer?"

"I don't have a computer. My dad would never let me have one. But yeah. I have Henry Hippo. Maybe I could get him. And a picture of my mom."

"Alright. We'll see what Marie says." I said. "You know she's going to ask you about school, right?"

Samantha nodded.

"I'll think about it tonight," she said.

We finished dinner and Jenna asked Samantha to help clear the table and put away the leftovers.  I started doing the dishes.

"What are you doing?" Samantha asked.

"The dishes. Jenna and I help each other out cleaning up from dinner. What? Did you think we were going to make you do everything?"

"My dad did. I had to cook, clean, do the dishes, and put everything away before I could do my homework and go to bed."

"We'll, that's not how it works here. Here, we all help out. So, we might ask you to set the table, or dry the dishes, or empty the dishwasher, but we won't ask or make you do everything on your own. Cool?"

"Okay," she said.

She finished helping put the leftovers away and Jenna asked her to wipe down the table. She wiped up all the crumbs and opened the garbage can. She stared into the garbage can and I saw tears in her eyes.

"Sam, what's wrong?" I asked.

"I'm, I'm sorry,"  she said, still looking in the trash can. I went over to see what could possibly have upset her about garbage. I saw a broken plate.

"Oh. That. It's okay. You were upset. It's just a plate. I think we have an extra set somewhere. And if we don't it's okay. We don't use those plates that often. I doubt we'll miss one plate," I said, putting my arm around her shoulder and giving her a side hug. "Samantha, it's okay."

She looked at me and then at Jenna, who was smiling at her and burst into tears.

"Hey!  What's this about?" I asked, pulling her over to the table and sitting down so I was at her eye level.

"You guys are so nice, I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like, when are you going to get mad at me for being diabetic, or breaking a plate, or being a stupid girl?"

"Honey, being diabetic and being a girl is something you can't change. Why would we get mad at you for that? As for the plate, we'll, while we weren't thrilled you threw the plate across the kitchen, you were upset and we understand. Just, please don't make a habit of tossing crockery. We'll work on better outlets when you're upset. I mean, one plate we can handle. But if we have to replace the whole set, we might be upset."

Samantha leaned into me and cried a bit more. But she calmed down pretty quickly.

"Why are you guys so nice?" She asked. By this time, Jenna had come over and sat beside me.

"Because, sweetie, most people are nice. Your dad is not like most people.  There's something about you that Tyler and I just... I don't know. When you showed up in our back yard, and when we had to take you to the hospital, something about you made us both realize, you need us, and we need you."

"But, I'm just your foster kid. And you only got emergency approval. They won't let me stay here that long."

"Well, we'll see about that," Jenna said, a twinkle in her eye.

We'd already found out that Samantha had no other living relatives and that her father was likely going to have his parental rights terminated. We'd told the social worker we wanted to adopt Samantha if that was the case. Hopefully, tomorrow she'd be able to tell us whether we'd be able to make that a reality.

My phone rang again. Again, it was caller ID blocked.

"Hello?"

"Mr Joseph?" It was Officer Davis.

"Good evening Officer Davis. You know, we've spoken so frequently, you can call me Tyler."

"Okay," he laughed. "Are you guys at home?"

"We are. Why?  Is everything alright?"

"Oh, yeah. Everything is fine.  But the psychologist called and gave us some information about Samantha's mother's death, and I was wondering if I could come by and get a statement from Samantha,"

"At least one of us will have to be here with her," I said. "Should we get our lawyer?"

"No that shouldn't be necessary. If what Samantha told her therapist is true, she doesn't need a lawyer. Her dad, however..." he trailed off.

"Okay. You have our address, right?"

"I do. I'll be about twenty minutes."

"Okay. We'll make coffee."

"You don't have to do that. See you in 20."

I hung up. Jenna looked at me confused. Samantha looked a bit scared.