Jack Ketchum - I'm Not Sam

“We’re going to test something.”

“Like in a quiz?”

“Nope. There’s a machine that does the testing. All you do is lie down and watch a bunch of pretty lights.”

“You too?”

“No, just you this time. I already had my test, a long time ago.”

Concussion. I slipped on the ice six or seven years back.

“Did you pass?”

“Yep. And so will you.”

I’m trying to sound nonchalant but secretly I’m very worried about how this is all going to go down. For an MRI to work you’ve got to lie perfectly still — not an easy thing to get a kid to do. The machine is noisy as hell and if you’re at all given to claustrophobia this will definitely bring it out in you. An MRI can be a scary creature.

I’m worried about how Lily’s going to take it. All sorts of scenarios flit through my head. Lily screaming, crying, banging on the tubing, refusing to lie down, scrambling off the table, hiding. Lily in tantrum.

I know how bad this can get. My first clear childhood memory is of me doing pretty much all of these things when faced with my first hypodermic needle. The doctor was not pleased. I doubt that a radiographer will be either.

Ignorance being bliss though, she doesn’t seem at all concerned. She’s gazing out the window at the cows and horses out to pasture, the corn stalks, the fields of soy and wheat. We pass a produce store, a used-car lot selling car-ports, the RoundUp Grocery and the River Winds Casino.

Yep, gambling and wheat fields, that’s us. There are any number of Indian-owned casinos out here, with names like Buffalo Run and Stables. They’re wildly outnumbered by the churches, of course.

But attendance-wise the smart money’s always on the Indians.

When we pull in to the parking lot of Baptist Regional Health she’s singing along to the Kinks’ MISSING PERSONS.

She can remember these songs. But she can’t remember me.

We find our way to radiology and the room is packed. Almost entirely older people. I’m wondering if there’s an Early Bird Special on MRIs and CAT-scans these days.

A young woman in Admitting hands me a clipboard and a pen and we find a seat. While I’m filling out the papers Sam’s fidgeting, openly staring at all the people around her like she’s never seen this kind of crowd before. Fascinated, just short of rude. Across from us a skeletal white-haired woman smiles at her, a little flustered by being stared at you can tell, and Sam smiles back like this woman is her very best friend in the world. The woman hides inside her magazine.

“What’s that?”

She’s pointing to a guy about my age seated by the wall to our left, wearing overalls and work boots and cradling his right arm up into his chest. Luckily he’s talking to the woman beside him — presumably his wife — so he doesn’t notice.

“A sling. The man hurt his arm. But it’s not nice to point, Lily.”

“It’s pretty.”

She’s right. The sling’s a deep burgundy, some sort of paisley print.

“You’ve got one a lot like it. Only yours is blue.”

“I have a sling?”

“It’s a scarf. You make a sling out of a scarf. Normally you wear it around your neck. Or over your head.”

“Can you show me when we get home?”

“Sure.”

I finish the paperwork and bring it to the desk. Sam’s sort of baby-stepping along behind me. The woman in admitting smiles. “You can go right in,” she says.

“Excuse me?”

“They’re expecting you. Right through this door.”

I knew that Doc had clout but this is amazing.

I open the door for Sam and we’re greeted by the radiographer, a short slim guy in hospital scrubs who introduces himself as Curtis. First or last name, I don’t know.

“Mr. Burke. Lily. Right this way, please.”

Lily?

Samantha was what I wrote on the chart. Talk about greasing the skids. The Doctor has outdone himself this time. He leads us down a corridor and opens a door to our right.

Sam steps inside ahead of me and her eyes go wide.

“It’s all white!” she says.

Which it is. The whole room looks like it’s made of porcelain. Walls, scanner, scanner bed, chairs, stretcher, linens. Everything except a long wide window directly ahead of us — Curtis’ monitoring station.

“Are you wearing any jewelry, Lily?” he asks.

“No.”

“What about the ring?”

“Oh, that.”

She tugs off her wedding ring and hands it to him.

“Good. Then all you have to do is lie down on your back here and relax.”

“She doesn’t have to change? No scrubs?”

“Nope. She’s good to go as-is.”

She hops up on the scanner bed. Curtis plumps her pillow. She lies down.

“It’s going to be a little noisy,” he says. “Want to listen to some music?”

She nods, smiles. He produces a pair of headphones.

White.

I hear faint muzak coming from them as she puts them on. Sam would have died.

“Would you like to stay, Mr. Burke?”

“I think I’d better, yes.”

I’m still apprehensive as to how she’s going to take this.

“Then I’ll need your watch and your ring. Anything else metal? Any change in your pockets?”

“No.”

I hand him the ring and the watch and he turns to Sam again.

“I’m going into that room now, Lily. I’ll be able to see you and talk to you and you can talk to me if you need to and I’ll hear you — but only if you really, really need to, okay? Otherwise try be real quiet. Like pretend you’re sleeping. Try not to move at all, you know? Make believe you’re asleep.”

She nods again and smiles. This guy is pretty good.

He exits the room. I sit in a chair. A few moments later Sam begins to move. Head first into the belly of the beast.

She’s a fucking trooper.

Not a wiggle out of her. A half hour later we’re back in the car headed home. And our timing’s perfect because as we turn onto the driveway, the long clay road that cuts through our forest, there’s a UPS truck just ahead of us.

Or maybe it’s not perfect. The driver’s going to meet Lily.

Anyway, our toys are here.

The driver’s a woman of about forty who I’ve never seen before, not our usual driver, very pretty even in her baseball cap and oversized drab brown uniform. ‘Mornin’, she says as she gets out of the truck and we both say ‘mornin’. She hauls open the back.

“I’ve got nine for you today, Mr. Burke, Miz Burke.”

“I’m Lily.”

“Glad to meet you, Lily.”

“What’re these?”

“We ordered them, remember? On the computer.”

“Toys!” she says.

The driver says nothing but it can’t possibly be lost on her that this is not the voice of your normal thirty-something woman. We help her unload. The silence is pretty thick except for Sam, who’s humming IT’S NOT EASY BEING GREEN. And I can’t help it, I’m embarrassed for her. Or maybe for me, I’m not sure. Either way it sucks.

When we’ve got them all inside and I’ve signed for them the driver gives me a smile as she climbs back into the truck but she won’t meet my eyes.

“You have a good afternoon,” she says.

And I can almost hear her thinking she’s so pretty, too bad she’s retarded. And too bad for him too.

She pulls away. I almost want to throw something. But I don’t.

Lily wants to open everything right away but it’s way past lunchtime so I make us some tuna sandwiches and a pitcher of lemonade and we take them outside to the old stone barbecue and eat at the wooden table there. The sun is glinting on the river. There’s the scent of earth and trees and grass growing. It’s a relaxing, Saturday-or-Sunday kind of thing to do and Sam and I have done it many times. But Lily just wolfs it down. She really wants at those packages.