Chapter Text
December 1st, 1975
For the winter holidays of 1973, Teena had driven herself and Fox down to North Carolina. His mother had spent most of the past month in bed, but had ventured downstairs to request they go back to the Kuipers’ home for Hanukkah and Christmas. Bill had refused to go, had argued with her, called her a bitch in front of their son, and retreated to his office. Another time, his mother might’ve fought back to get the plane tickets. But she didn’t. With more gusto than Fox had seen from her since Thanksgiving, she packed the both of them in the car and drove.
The Kuipers’ century-old home was just outside of Raleigh and they arrived by late afternoon. Its columns and oppressive atmosphere had always intimidated Fox, but the sight of his grandmother - who had every curl in place since 1916 and never left her room without being fully dressed - was a comfort. Like any good matriarch, she took Teena out of the car and rocked her gently. She let Fox stay in a grown-up guest room, not the room with the twin beds.
His grandmother took him on drives. She bought him a Krispy Kreme donut and took him to a museum in Raleigh. When his mother spent the day in her pajamas and he felt tempted to do the same, she dragged him into their kitchen so that the two of them and the cook could prepare food for the endless train of parties and dinners ahead of them. It had baffled him that she had everything together. Her granddaughter could be dead, and she could still go from house to house, bringing babka and pimiento cheese to all her neighbors.
“I don’t do well sitting in my grief,” she said, one afternoon, after bringing him to a luncheon, encouraged him to put on a collared shirt and pants. “And I’m old, I’ve had to sit in it for years. She’ll come back,” she said, with such a strong sense of finality he nearly believed her for a second. “I have to believe that, or I’ll go mad.”
It took him several years to do so, but he was grateful for her presence in his life when everything else had fallen apart.
To his surprise, on Christmas morning, there were presents for him. Most noticeably, there was an unwrapped box wiggling and whining and a twinkle in his grandmother’s eye. Fox didn’t even think he wanted a puppy until that moment when he opened the box and saw a beagle eagerly awaiting him. The Kuiper matriarch had the right idea at the end of the day.
Next summer, his parent’s divorce was finalized, and the holidays became even more confusing and complicated, as the judge had allowed him to spend the majority of the year with Teena, but stated that Christmas would be at Bill’s. Christmas 1974 had been miserable, as his mother couldn’t bear to go to her ex-husband’s house (or look at him), but at least he’d been able to bring the dog he’d bonded to.
Now, it was nearly the end of the semester of his freshman year and winter break was approaching rapidly. The thought of going back to his father’s empty home in Massachusetts was enough to make his blood boil.
He’d gotten home from school and asked Teena if he could stay there, or if they could go back to North Carolina. His mother had just broken down, said there was nothing she could do, and retreated to lie in bed upstairs. So he’d gone to the woods.
The pair, teen and dog, had likely been gone for too long, but the only good thing about early December was that he could get away with just about anything. His mother wandered around the house like a ghost, unaware of anything her son was doing. So they’d gone to the graveyard in the woods, the old rotting cabin near it, and the creek, before heading back.
Fox blinked the sleep from his eyes as he turned the corner and walked down the street his mother’s house was on. Kimbo, the beagle, trailed behind him, his paws padding on the sidewalk. His dog didn’t need a leash most of the time. He trailed around Fox’s feet everywhere he went. So it was a genuine shock that Kimbo went running off at the sight of the house, running past the car in the driveway to the garbage cans on the side of the house, where the streetlight didn’t reach.
“Kimbo!”
The dog barked. A girl screamed in fear.
He yelled louder and dashed down the pavement, reaching into his pocket for his flashlight. The light beamed into the corner, showing him a girl in a pink nightie, her arms covered her face in fear as Kimbo licked her, his tail wagging. “He’s friendly! I’m sorry. He won’t bite, he just gets excited.”
Fox caught his breath.
“Kimbo, off.”
The beagle obeyed, retreating back. Hesitantly, the girl peered through her fingers and lowered her arms, showing the tracks her tears had made over her dirt-stained cheeks. She was wearing a nightgown covered in flowers, different from all the other ones he’d remembered. Her feet were bare, covered in dirt and scratches.
Fox felt like he was going to throw up.
“Samantha?”
Like lightning, he fell to the ground, pulling her into a hug as the tears flooded his eyes. Kimbo barked further as his sister, his sister , he was so sure it was her, wrapped her arms around him.
“I don’t know how I got here,” she sobbed, nearly incomprehensible, clutching onto him. “I was in the woods, and I, and I-”
He nodded. “We’re going to go inside. You’re freezing.”
Samantha was hesitant to let go, but she did when he took her hand and led her inside, through the garage and into the kitchen. From the overhead light, things became clearer - she was taller now, but he was too. Her hair was longer than it had ever been
“Fox?”
“Yeah?”
“Where is this?”
She looked around, wiping her face. Kimbo kept sniffing and licking at her bare ankles, but she paid him no mind.
It hit him then. She’d never been to this house, the one Teena had bought after the divorce in Connecticut. She didn’t even know about the divorce, about the arguments, about how much Dad drank, and the weeks where Mom spent half the day in bed.
“It’s… it’s Mom’s house, Samantha.”
She blinked, not understanding. “So where’s Daddy?”
Her eyes grew glossy again as he hesitated to answer. “ Fox, ” she said, the way she did a long time ago when she was dangerously close to a tantrum. It was as if the two years she’d been gone hadn’t even happened. He half-expected her to get mad at him again for wanting to watch The Magician.
“I’ll explain everything, Sam, I promise.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s just up in Massachusetts, he’s not that far.”
“But why isn’t he here?” she demanded, tears filling up in her eyes again. “Why aren’t we home?”
Before he could answer, a door upstairs creaked open and someone padded down the stairs quickly, turning on the lights as they went.
“Fox? Why aren’t you in bed? Why was the dog barking?”
Sure enough, his mother - their mother, again - stepped into the kitchen, wrapping her robe tighter around herself. She squinted at the light, not preparing herself for the force of a ten-year-old girl who had missed her mother running at her, clinging onto her, crying Mom repeatedly.
The air left the room.
“Baby?”
Teena took Samantha’s face in her hands, studied her cheeks and her nose and her eyes, and looked for the birthmark on her neck. A sob fell from her lips and she collapsed onto the floor, bringing Samantha with her. Kimbo barked at the commotion, tried to climb in between them.
“How did you get here?” she asked, and when her daughter didn’t answer, looked up to her son.
“I… she was outside,” Fox said, not wanting a lecture on how he shouldn’t be out this late without permission and was tracking mud into the house and Kimbo was too hyper. But his mother didn’t ask further and he was grateful. “Out by the trash cans. She hasn’t told me anything yet.”
Teena closed her eyes and a few more tears slipped out. She stroked Samantha’s hair, felt her forehead, and surveyed her body. “Are you hurt? Are you in shock?”
Samantha shook her head but didn’t speak. Fox could hear his own heart pounding in his ears as he tried to be useful, filling a glass of water. He kneeled next to his mother and sister and offered it. She took it and downed the entire thing.
“Do you remember anything?” her mother asked softly, a hint of panic in her voice. “Where were you?”
Samantha looked between her mother and him and finally accepted the affection from the dog. She stroked his fur with a soothing rhythm, lost in thought. “Fox and I were playing Stratego,” she said in a whisper. “And then I was in the woods. I don’t know how I got there.”
Teena looked at Fox, the color quickly draining from her face. “Fox… please go call your father. We’re going to the hospital.”