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Sixteen weeks. The trial period. The amount of time it took for Pope to feel comfortable introducing his newfound relationship to Lena. It came as an accident, a meeting that was never meant to take place. Andrew had spent his time meticulously planned, dropping her off at school at exactly 6:43 in the morning, giving her enough time to get to her classroom and get set up before the rest of the kids got there. Something that she made a big deal of once she was given back to him. The foster family was juggling four other kids, it was a miracle that they were able to keep her in the same school that she was going to in Oceanside, getting her to school the allotted twenty minutes early simply wasn’t a priority to them.
It was something she had taken advantage of. Something she didn’t know was a privilege. Now that he had her back in his care he was going to make sure that everything worked in her favor, especially since he had to pack her up and move her across the country. Away from the beach that she grew up in, feeling the ocean before she could feel the ground beneath her chubby feet. Away from the house she begged him to stay with her in after her father was shot and killed. The brutality in which he died, blood staining the pavement she walked daily. Away from everything that she had known.
Which is why he kicked himself for allowing the time to slip by. It was now 3:53, five minutes past when she was let out for the day. He wasn’t even in the pickup line, despite his usual position in the front of the line. This time; however, he was caught up in his girlfriend’s apartment, fixing her water heater for her. Something about how her landlord wouldn’t get around to it and she had been taking cold showers for a couple weeks. Time passed quicker than he expected it to, and his phone rang with Lena’s ringtone. Distinct from the others, making him jump.
“Uncle Pope. Where are you? I don’t see your truck..”
“Lena. Shit. I’m sorry. I’ll be there in ten minutes, just go to the library until I get there.”
He stood up abruptly and Samira looked over at him, a curious expression. “Lena? Is everything okay?”
“I let the time slip by me. Need to go get her from school. Let’s go.”
“Both of us?”
“If you want to come, then come, but I gotta leave and-”
“I’ll come! It’ll be fun, I just. Didn’t think you wanted me to meet her yet,” She remarked, the unspoken weight of the conversations they had about how hard people were for Lena lingered. How attached she became to those around her, Smurf specifically. How hard it was to leave everyone.
How she couldn’t afford to lose anyone else.
He didn’t say anything in response, instead he picked up his tool bag and opened the door for her, allowing for Samira to lock the door behind them. His steps thundered down the concrete stairs, taking them two at a time the sound reverberated through the metal stairwell. Samira took short hurried steps, desperate to keep up with him. Which he realizes, stopping on the platform and staring up the steps, an apologetic smile crossing his lips. She puts a hand up, closing the distance between them before they take the stairs together. He beat her to the metal door, heavy and clanky as he pushed it open and ushered her through it, walking behind her to his truck.
His tool bag hit the bed of the truck with a metallic thump, and he promptly opened Samira’s door, waiting for her to buckle as he shut the door gently, with a quiet thud— jumping into his truck almost instantaneously, sliding the black belt across his chest and clicking it into place as he cranked the engine and put the truck in reverse. 3:55.
Andrew was silent for the ride, running over each moment he spent at Samira’s apartment. The turns of the wrench against the water heater, the water he paused to drink (paused to stare at Samira reading, the warm afternoon lighting filtering in through the windows, curtains drawn back.) He must have lost time somewhere between water and watching an episode of the show that Samira had put on– Love is Blind. It was something that he found incredibly stupid, but she was adorably into it so he sat down and leaned back, feeling her pressed into his side, running his fingers through her the curls that unfurled messily around her shoulders. She ran her fingers along his chest mindlessly as some blonde douchebag on the screen tried to flirt with a woman who was far out of his league.
Samira sang softly to the music that filled the truck cab, her voice floating through the air without effort. He felt at peace, even with the impending doom that layered through his chest– weaving a web of intrusion through his brain. Something bad was bound to happen due to his carelessness. His luck would soon run out and he would be right back to where he started in Oceanside. The anxiety loomed through his stomach, sloshing with the final turn into the middle school. He pulled in behind a Volkswagen Jetta and exhaled roughly through his nose. Samira mindlessly rubbed her thumbs over his tensed knuckles.
He appreciated how she never asked what was wrong. Mainly because he couldn’t verbalize what was running through his brain. The thoughts that would swirl darkly. The sticky trap that waited for him to fall into. Like a steel trap for himself, teeth open and barred, waiting to snap shut around him. He squeezed her hand three times and pulled away, replacing her hand with his phone from the spot where it rested in the cupholder.
Here. Behind a Blue Jetta.
don’t know what a jetta is
Just come outside.
kk <3
The line crept up, and Lena’s brown pony tail was visible from where they were sitting. Samira’s window rolled down and Andrew leaned over, his arm firm against the center console.
“Lena, over here!”
She bounded over to the truck and pulled on the front door, opening the door in one fell swoop.
“Who’s this?”
“This is Samira. Get in the back, we’re gonna go get something to eat. I was helping her fix her water heater and-”
“And that’s why you’re late?” Disappointment laced her tone and his heart fell.
His first priority was always Lena. He let someone come before, let something affect her.
Like her father did so often. Something he promised he would never do. All of the months of her scared to leave her room, locking herself away after he forced her to go to school. The warning signs in Oceanside. The ponytail, the regression, the silence.
He was slowly undoing all of his hard work. All of the trust that he built with her, diminished in a matter of twenty three late minutes.
The steel trap inched closer, teeth closing in on him.
“Yeah. I’m sorry kiddo. I should have left on time. I should have been here.”
“Where are we going to eat?”
“Wherever you want.”
“Is Samira your girlfriend?”
He paused, glancing over at Samira who was smiling softly towards her lap, just observing the interaction. Similar to that of someone trying to catch a stray. Gentle and careful.
“Yeah, you could say that.”
“Cool! Finally! You needed a girlfriend, Uncle Pope.”
This earned a gruff laugh from his chest, rolling his eyes. “Oh really now?”
“Yeah. You just sat around trying to find stuff to fix in the house. That’s why we have new cabinets and new floors.”
“Real handyman, huh Andrew?” Samira lilted, looking up to meet her gaze in the rearview mirror. Brown eyes met and Lena smiled warmly.
“I’m Lena.”
“It’s nice to meet you Lena, I’m Samira. But you already know that. How old are you?”
“I’m twelve. Where do you work?”
“I’m a doctor. I work at the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center in the Emergency Department.”
Lena gasped and smiled widely, her hands folded in her lap “That’s so cool! So you like. Do stuff during an emergency?”
“Yup! Everyday.”
“That’s awesome! Uncle Pope, you're dating a doctor?!”
He squeezed Samira’s hand as warmth spread through his chest. Pride. “I am.”
“How long have you been dating?” She pried, leaning forward in her seat, resting her elbows against the center console.
That was a tricky question. They had been dating for four months, when he finally worked up the courage to ask her out… They had been friends for almost two years at this point, ever since they moved to Pittsburgh. He ran into her at the Library, returning Lena’s books, and couldn’t help but watch her move through the aisles. She physically ran into him, her nose into the book that she was reading. He assured her that everything was fine and that there was no problem, but she insisted on a coffee to make it up to him.
The rest was history.
“Four months.” Samira responded in lieu of the silence that had fallen over the vehicle, “But I asked him out for coffee almost two years ago.”
“She asked you out? Two years ago?!”
“Technically. Yes. But it doesn’t matter. Now what do you want to eat?”
“Can we get pancakes from Albert’s?”
“You and your pancakes. Yeah we can.”
Content silence fell over the car, Lena looked out the windshield as the road whipped by. Pope’s hand enclosed over Samira’s, his firm thumb rubbing over her knuckles as a silent thank you. He hadn’t brought anyone around Lena, not that he had ever had anyone else to bring around. Not that he really wanted anyone around.
He didn’t trust easily, but there was something about Samira that was different. She didn’t expect anything from him. She didn’t want anything from him. She just wanted him. She saw him as a human, not as something to be feared. Rather, something to be worked slowly, delicately. Something worth time. She knew where he came from. The arrangement with Lena. Smurf. She knew it all.
She knew about the job that Baz pulled on Smurf which delivered a bullet to his chest, a matching one for his wife. She knew about Cath, and the vendetta Smurf held against her. About the affair. She knew about the bank. About prison. About Julia. She knew it all. And she stayed. Told him that trauma can make people do strange things. That he was groomed into becoming an attack dog from the moment he could guard.
He had somehow figured out a way past himself and broke down the barriers he guarded himself with. He probably would never understand why she stayed but Samira held something deeply intimate with him. Something that no other person had held. She was the one person he had felt that he could trust outside of his family. Someone that showed him what trust could be. What love should be.
It took longer before he knew that Lena could come around. Almost two years before he knew that she wasn’t going anywhere. Certain. Lena was the final piece that he held, and now they were about to walk into a diner together, pieces of new and old becoming. Samira hopped out of the truck and opened Lena’s door before she could open it for herself, and smiled as she bounced out of the truck, jumping down over the step bar. Andrew walked beside his girls, opening the door for them once they reached the front of the diner.
He sat with his back to the wall, facing the room. Andrew refused to sit with his back to the door after years of training. Of being the danger that could break through. Samira sat across from him, Lena on the inside of his booth.
“Samira, what’s being a doctor like? I want to be a marine biologist when I grow up, back in California where I grew up at. I think that it would be good to work in the ocean. I love the ocean. My first house, it was on the ocean.”
“Being a doctor is really challenging, but in a fun way. I see something new every single day and I have to act fast and I save people’s lives. It’s worth every late night I work. And trust me. There are plenty of late nights.”
“Do people die?”
“Lena.” Andrew warned, his eyes cutting over to Samira who was unphased by the young curiosity.
“Sometimes. But I do everything I can to save them.” Samira responded, meeting his worried eyes with a calm glance.
“What made you want to be a doctor?” Her young, curious voice asked from across the table, a pained expression crossing Samira’s face on instinct– before she could possibly wipe it away.
“My dad died when I was about your age. The hospital didn’t run the tests that they should have and they missed a heart attack. I decided then that I would go into medicine.”
Lena leaned forward, a small look which came from finding community on her face, “My dad died too. When I was eight.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Lena.
“You get it.”
“I do.”
A thin woman walks up to the table, smelling of old coffee and stale cigarettes, the faint tint of red lipstick stuck on her lips. Her red-orange hair is tied back in a frizzy ponytail, and her voice is raspy both with age and nicotine staining.
“My name is Sandra, I’ll be taking care of you today. We have Coke products, coffee, lemonade…”
“I’ll take a lemonade, please!” Lena pipes up, glancing for approval at Pope.
“A coffee. Please.”
“Water, for me, please.” Samira finishes with a kind smile, glancing up at Sandra who didn’t bother to write down the drink order before she walked off without much more than a nod.
“So Lena, how was school today? What did you learn?” Andrew asks her, the same way he does each day after school– despite her usual response of fine and nothing.
“Good! Today in English we read more of The Giver. It’s pretty good.”
His lips pulled up into a proud expression before returning to the softened version of his natural demeanor that he wore around Lena– and more recently Samira, “Oh yeah? What else did you learn?”
Lena glances over at Samira, who was leaning into the conversation from across the table.
“I learned about how to divide fractions. It’s kind of like a puzzle. My friends think that it’s hard but I think it’s kind of fun.” A sheepish smile appears on her face, glancing between Samira and Pope.
“You learned a lot today.” Pride laced his voice, a softness that was only found when he was talking to Lena was present.
“Yeah. It was a good day. And I already did my homework so I don’t have to do any tonight!”
“You still need to do your silent reading, twenty minutes, every night. You know the drill.”
“I know, I know” Lena groaned, drawing out the last syllable of her sentence.
Samira huffed a soft laugh as she looked between Andrew and Lena, observing the dynamic playing out. Andrew, soft yet stern with love at the forefront of his methodology. Lena, comfortable and content despite her best attempts at annoyance. Andrew glanced at her, noticing the eye contact which lingered a moment too long on the side of his head.
“What?” He asked, turning his head to face her, a playful grin ghosting the muscles around his lips, begging them to twitch into a smile.
“Nothing! Nothing. Just looking at you, is that a crime?”
“No.”
“Then I don’t see the issue with it.”
Lena giggled from across the table as Sandra came and sat their drinks in front of them, dropping a bowl of creamers at the table which would go untouched.
“Are you all ready to order?”
“She will take the pancakes with a side of bacon, and I will get the two eggs, scrambled, and toast, with a side of hashbrowns.”
“And for you?” She directed at Samira, who was still glancing down at her menu.
“Can I just get an order of French Toast please? And a side of fruit if you have it.”
Without a word she went off again, leaving the table in silence. Samira leaned forward towards Lena, a curious expression on her face, “So. Marine Biologist, huh?”
“Yeah! I love the ocean! I think that whales are the coolest animals in the ocean, there are so many different species of whale. Baleen whales are whales that usually stay alone, like Uncle Pope. They are in small pods if they pair up at all. Then there are toothed whales and they’re really dangerous, but really beautiful. My favorite kind are Orcas because they’re so smart. And, did you know that dolphins are technically whales?”
“I did not! What kind of whale are they?”
“Toothed whales! Technically Orcas are also dolphins! They’re the largest dolphin species.”
“That’s really cool, I didn’t know that at all!”
Andrew leaned back in the booth as the two go back and forth sharing ocean facts that Lena has learned from the encyclopedias and hours of research she has dedicated to learning about marine life. He enjoyed listening to them talk, as if they’ve known each other for years. The care that Samira laced through her tone was deeper than simply the way she would talk to a child at work, but the way that she would talk to a niece of hers. As if Lena was already holding a piece of her heart. Tender. Purposeful.
More so he enjoyed how Lena took to Samira. She took after him in more ways than one, her love for solitude weighed heavily, preferring to spend her time watching T.V. or reading a book in her room. She never really enjoyed playing with other kids, she wasn’t into going to the park to play anymore– especially not since moving to Pittsburgh. The only children she was ever really around were in the foster home, and they still talked. But with Samira she seemed so open. So free. She warmed up almost too quickly, opening her little heart to Samira with the knowledge that she would protect it. Welcome her back.
For once, Andrew was sure that he had made the correct choice. He had spent the last few years wondering, ruminating on the choices that he could have made. The choices that he did make. Taking Lena from Smurf. Running from his family. Getting away. For once that felt correct. Sitting here, Samira by his side, Lena across the table talking to Samira in a way that he had never heard her talk to anyone outside of himself before.
A Lena that he hadn’t seen in years sat across from him, the missing piece clicking into place with her french toast.
For once he was certain that he had done something right.