Chapter 45

The next few days were, interesting, to say the least. Tyler and Samantha navigated through building their relationship. Tyler made an appointment with his own therapist, who was helping him navigate his feelings and the challenges of a teenager with her own issues and Samantha had an appointment with Dr Freud where she told me after her appointment that she'd told him about what had happened the other night at home. She came out of that appointment smiling. I took that as a good sign.

At the end of the week, Samantha's social worker came by for a visit and Samantha was engaged and enthusiastic about showing Marie what we'd done with her room, and when we were asked about any issues, Samantha told her about the incident. Marie was impressed with her candour and asked her if, despite that, she felt safe with us. She hugged me and said she couldn't remember when she'd felt safer.

Marie told us that either we could take Samantha to her old house to get a few things, or she could give Marie a list and Marie would arrange to get the items to her.

Samantha looked a little wary and asked Marie to get her things for her.

"I don't want to go in there ever again," she said. "That's Stanley's house and I don't want anything to do with him."

"Okay. So, get a list to me by Monday, and I'll make arrangements and bring them by on my next visit next Saturday," Marie said.

"I really just want my hippo, a picture of my mom and maybe the t-shirts in my dresser?" Samantha said.

"How many?" Marie asked.

"All of them," Samantha said. "There are only about seven anyway."

"Why so few?" I asked her, thinking to the growing collection of t-shirts in her dresser now.

"Stanley only let me have one for every day. I had to rewear them until he'd let me do laundry," she said. I didn't want to ask how long she would have to go between washings.

Tyler and Josh both frowned. I probably did, too. Marie shook her head.

"I'm sorry it took so long to get you out of there, Samantha," she said. "I wish the system worked better for kids like you."

"It's okay," Samantha said quietly. "It's not your fault."

Marie smiled.

In the middle of our visit with Marie, Samantha's phone beeped. Marie raised an eyebrow when she pulled out her phone and read the text that had come in.

"Can Jill come over later?" She asked, looking as though she knew the answer would be no.

"Sure," I said. Tyler smiled and nodded.

"Who's Jill," Marie asked.

"My friend from school," Samantha said.

"And how is school going?" Marie asked.

Samantha shrugged.

"There's this boy, Adam who's kind of a jerk, and his friends. But everyone else seems okay."

"Besides Jill, are you making friends?"

"Yep," Samantha smiled.  Marie did, too. Samantha had mentioned a few other kids' names during the week when we asked about school.

"Samantha," Marie said. "Do you mind if I talk to Tyler and Jenna alone for a minute?"

Samantha's face clouded over and she looked a little worried.

"Hey, kid, let's go downstairs, I'll teach you to play the drums," Josh said. Samantha looked from him to Marie to us. I nodded and she followed Josh downstairs.

"She's almost a completely different child," Marie said, once Samantha and Josh had gone downstairs to Tyler's studio.

"It's amazing that it's been just under a week. She still struggles a little with her insulin dosing. I mean, she takes the right dose but it sometimes takes a few minutes for her to convince herself that she can do it. We haven't really had to encourage her as much. And she's testing with almost no problem," I said.

"I'm really impressed. I see she's been seeing Dr Freud still."

"She's only had two sessions but she seems comfortable with him," I said.

"And how are you handling her diabetes?"

"We're taking some diabetes education classes through her endocrinologist's office. We had our first class on Thursday and Sam has an appointment with him on Wednesday. We took her to her paediatrician on Tuesday and she had blood work done, we're taking her to the dentist on Monday after school and we'll book her an appointment with an eye doctor probably next week for as soon as we can. Apparently she's never seen an eye doctor."

"In just two weeks, you two have done more for that girl than her father has done in the past five," Marie said. "Of course, he managed to do a lifetime of damage in that period of time. But Samantha really seems happy, much healthier, and comfortable."

"She still has nightmares," Tyler said. "But they're getting better. The first couple of nights she woke us up screaming. Now more often than not, we wake her up from them when we go check her blood sugar at night."

"What do you mean you check her blood sugar at night?" Marie asked.

"We read that type one diabetics should check their blood sugar in the middle of the night to make sure they're not going low. Her endocrinologist agreed. So we set an alarm and one of us goes in around 2 am to check her sugar and treat a low if we need to," I said.

"Really?  I don't think her father ever did that. How do your treat a low if she has one?"

"We keep juice boxes in her room and we bought glucose tablets. She carries a tube of them to school and we keep a bottle here in her bathroom. If she's low, we either give her a juice box or some of the tablets, sit with her for 15 minutes, test again and treat again if we need to. That's only happened, what, once?" I looked at Tyler. He nodded.

"You really went all in, huh?" Marie smiled.

"Hey, we were serious when we said we wanted to keep her safe and healthy," Tyler smiled. "When we offered, asked to adopt her we meant it. Her and everything that comes with. The good and the... harder stuff."

"Well, I'm happy to say that I see no reason why this adoption won't be able to be finalized soon. Her father has no say, since his rights have been terminated, everything has been cleared. I expect we'll be able to get a court date before the end of the month," Marie said.

"What could stop the adoption from being finalized?"

"Not much, really. A relative suddenly coming out of the woodwork could throw a wrench into things, but Samantha has no living relatives that would be capable of taking care of her. Her mother's family is mostly deceased. I think she has an uncle somewhere who she's never met. There is no way a judge would allow her to go to a relative she's never met. And on her father's side, he was an only child and his father, while still alive, technically, is in a nursing home with Alzheimer's."

"But, her uncle could come and claim her?" Tyler asked.

"I honestly don't think he even knows Samantha exists," Marie said. "Samantha's mother was estranged from her family from what we know. I really don't think you have anything to worry about. I'm going to file my recommendation on Monday to proceed with the process and we should have a court date by the end of the week."

"Do we need a lawyer?" I asked.

"No. It's really just a formality. You'll go to the courthouse, I'll present the judge with the adoption certificate. He or she might ask you all some questions or if there are any questions from any of you. Then, unless he or she has any reservations, and they'll have all the records from my visits, your paperwork, everything, so unless you suddenly become homeless, the judge will sign the adoption certificate and you leave the courthouse as a family."

"It sounds so easy," Tyler said.

"It is. Relatively,"

"I just worry that this uncle could suddenly decide to look into his family and see what happened to his sister," I said.

"No one even inquired about her after she died.  Stanley never informed them and in all the years since, there's never been a record of inquiry with the police. Considering DCS has been involved in one way or another since Samantha was about nine, we get police report access sometimes."

I sighed. Things were moving along.

We called Samantha back upstairs when Marie was getting ready to leave and she came upstairs smiling and laughing.

"She's a pretty decent drummer," Josh said.

"See you next week, Samantha," Marie said.

"See ya," Samantha smiled.

Marie left, and Samantha called her friend.