Chapter 31

At least this time, when I woke up, I didn't have any machines alerting me to the fact I was, once again, in the hospital. Instead, when I was able to look around the room, I could identify some of the things ... my laptop, some pictures and posters, and some Reds paraphernalia ... that made the room my own. The blinds had been lowered and the curtains drawn, helping to keep the room in near total darkness, but enough sunlight was peeking through the corners to let me know it was daylight outside.

The intensity of my headache from the night before had subsided long enough for me to fall asleep. I was guessing it wasn't much past five, yesterday afternoon when Sammie slapped me. I swear I actually saw stars and birds chirping around my head. Almost immediately, Mom helped me up to my room and forced me to take a couple of Tylenol before lowering the shades and closing the curtains.

Mom left for a few minutes while my head started to pound, but soon returned with a cool washcloth. After applying the washcloth to my forehead, she got into bed with me and we snuggled. Nothing was said between the two of us and, quite frankly, my mind was so much mush, I couldn't have carried on a conversation, anyhow. Occasionally, she would kiss or caress my cheek. Within a half hour, the pain began to ease up and I drifted off to sleep.

When I woke up, the first time, Mom was gone, but I wasn't alone. This time, Christy was snuggled against me, lightly snoring. I surmised that their game plan was to stay with me overnight, to keep an eye on me. My headache was back and beginning to strengthen; but they had that covered, too, as I spotted a couple of Tylenol and a glass of water on my nightstand. Thirty minutes later, still unable to put together a stream of cognitive thought, I was asleep again.

My headache the next morning was more of a dull ache. Just enough to remind me something had happened, but not severe enough to keep me from functioning. I sat up, causing my headache to surge, but within a minute or two of me rubbing my temples, it began to recede.

Maria walked in as I was rubbing my temples. She implored be to lay back down and applied a cold compress to my forehead.

"What time is it?" I asked.

"Just a little before eleven. If you are hungry, let me know and I'll fix you a little something. In the meantime, today you rest. You're lucky you aren't back in the hospital. Your mom was getting ready to take you, but the doctor gave her a strict list of instructions, so you got to stay home. If you don't follow the instructions, your mom has told me to take you in.

I groaned. Yet another day lying in bed, having to deal with this crap.

"Is anyone else home?" I asked.

"What's wrong? Is Maria not good enough for you anymore?" Maria looked suitably offended.

"No, Maria, I didn't mean it like that, I..."

"I know, Mr. Phil. I'm just teasing. Nobody else is here, although it took an act of God to get your mom and Christy moving this morning. They both wanted to stay and play nurse to you, but I told them Maria owns you during the day. They can have you again when they come home."

"What about Sammie?"

I was pretty pissed off with her. It seemed like nothing I did made a difference. I tried being nice and hoped I could get her to ease up on some of the anger she kept expressing, but the harder I tried, the more she resisted. It was instinct, more than anything else, causing me to get involved when Tony hit Sammie at Homecoming. I still considered her to be part of the family, and families are supposed to stand together and protect each other.

Maria frowned, "She's been grounded for two weeks and other discipline is coming. I took away her cellphone and she's only allowed on her computer to do things for school."

"Did she say why she slapped me and spit in my face?"

Maria nodded, "She told me and Carlos she blames you for Tony's death. If you hadn't gotten involved, Tony would still be alive."

That sounded like a ton of bullshit to me. "Maria, if we hadn't been there, something much worse probably would have happened to Sammie!" I was starting to raise my voice and was seriously pissed off, as I rose on my elbows. "I can't believe she said that!"

Maria eased me back in to bed and replaced the cold compress. "Shhh. I shouldn't have said anything. You need to think about getting better and this is not the way."

I struggled to calm myself down. I didn't know what I would say to Sammie the next time I saw her, but ungrateful bitch were the first words that immediately popped into my head.

"When your Mom gets home tonight, we'll explain what our plans will be. Carlos had a good idea, and we're going to see if that will work for everyone."

Maria brought me some soup and a sandwich for lunch, and I devoured it. I'm sure I lost some weight during my hospital stay, and Maria's cooking was exactly what I needed to help me regain some of my strength.

I heard Sammie come home around four, but she retreated to the room she shared with Christy and I didn't hear from her again until dinner.

Christy bounced in the door just after five, flashing a huge smile my direction. Since she had moved in, it seemed not a day went by that I failed to notice some aspect of her I hadn't noticed before. Her personality was simply infectious.

Mom arrived just before six, which was much later than usual for her. Then, I remembered she'd had a late lunch date with Dan Parker that afternoon. My mood soured a little bit, but I realized I was being petty and immature. Christy was right. Mom did deserve to be happy, and finding someone to be with in the future, would be important for her. I'm sure we both realized there would be a time when I would have to establish my own life and family. A life that would very likely include much less of her involvement.

Carlos arrived after six and Maria called everyone together for dinner. The table was barely large enough to accommodate everyone. Before this year, it was unusual to have more than three or four people at the table, usually consisting of myself, Mom, Maria and Sammie. Carlos and Christy were our newest editions.

Dinner was unusually quiet. What I had found and used to my advantage, was Maria's and Christy's propensity to fill the void with conversation. If I wasn't in a very talkative mood, I'd toss out a subject I knew Christy or Maria were passionate about and they would jump on it and completely devour it. Mom would occasionally look over at me, smile and shake her head, knowing I had done it on purpose. This evening, the atmosphere was a bit more serious. I was in no mood to hear the back and forth banter, anyhow.

Sammie and Christy cleared the table, but Maria called them back before they started on the dishes. Maria then turned it over to Carlos.

"I come from a big family, and with any big family, there are going to be problems, disagreements, and fights. My dad got tired of taking us over his knee, so he came up with another idea. He said that fighting among family members was disrespectful. You should cherish your family, even if you disagree with them. Because the fighting affected all of the family, my father laid the discipline at our feet. He still had final say, but it was up to us, as a family, to determine the discipline.

Sammie, Maria, and I, had a long talk last night. We hope we made some progress in helping Sammie understand what she did was wrong. She tried to help us understand why she feels the way she does. It's okay for Sammie to feel the way she does, even if we all disagree with it. What is not acceptable is the way she chose to express it. After talking it over with Sharon and Maria, we decided to take my father's approach. I'll ask everyone to think about what Sammie's discipline should be. Just remember to temper your suggestion with the idea that Sammie could be suggesting your discipline in the future.

Christy tried to defer any suggested discipline, saying, "I think Phil should decide what Sammie's punishment should be. After all, Phil was the one most affected by it."

Carlos shook his head as he replied, "Yes, Phil was the target of Sammie's behavior, but it affected everyone here."

Christy then suggested Sammie should be grounded for a month, resulting in a scalding glare from Sammie. The suggestion was pretty weak – Sammie should have been ecstatic.

Mom suggested no electronics of any kind for a month. Maria suggested Sammie must help cook and clean up every meal for a month. I was starting to see a trend here.

But I had something else in mind.

I needed to figure out some punishment I thought was suitable for Sammie. Something she would absolutely dread. If I could give her a job nobody in their right mind would want, regardless of the money, it would be the task to give her. As I tried to come up with the idea, I looked out of our dining room window and an idea presented itself.

"Phil? What's your suggestion?"

"I promised myself I would help someone out, but with my arm in a sling, like this, I can't really do that now." I pointed out of the window. "Ms. Tankersley desperately needs her yard raked and the bushes trimmed. It's getting cold enough now, to drain her garden hoses and turn off the water to the hose bibs. I can supervise, but that's about it. I think Sammie should be responsible for maintaining Ms. Tankersley's yard, until I'm able."

Carlos had started nodding his head long before I finished my suggestion. "So be it." He turned to Sammie and said, "All of these punishments have been offered by your family as a way to rectify what has been unacceptable behavior. Which of these do you think is the most fair?"

"None of them!" she exclaimed.

"Which is why you are getting all of them," he announced. Sammie folded her arms and pouted. "The problem is, Sammie, you still don't seem to understand what you did wrong."

"I know I shouldn't have slapped him," she offered.

"So it was okay to spit in my face?" I asked, incredulously.

Sammie glared at me. "If you hadn't been there, Tony would have been gone before Miguel's gang showed up and he wouldn't have been shot. I regret slapping you, considering your concussion, but it's your fault Tony's gone."

"Sammie, if Phil hadn't shown up when he did and acted the way he did, there's a good chance you could have been shot and killed, too."

Sammie just shook her head, "I don't think so. We would have left right after that and Tony would still be here today."

"Would it have mattered, Sammie?" I asked. "If Tony hadn't gotten shot, his attempt to become a small-time drug dealer would have been successful. Do you think he would have stopped there? Eventually, Miguel was going to find out, and track him down. When that happened, where did you think you were going to be when the bullets started flying?"

Sammie ended getting all of the punishments combined, which didn't really make a difference, to me. There wasn't a punishment any of us could come up with to justify Sammie's behavior. Sammie may still be living in the house, for now, but, as far as I was concerned, she wasn't anything more than a tenant.

Wednesday morning marked a milestone event in my life – I turned sixteen! The official celebration was going to happen Saturday, but did end up getting a bunch of texts, some phone calls, and a couple of nice presents along the way.

My favorite present really wasn't a planned present at all. For the past couple of days, the weather had turned unseasonably warm, with temperatures rising into the high sixties during the day. Whenever that happened, I was always on the lookout for thunderstorms, as a cold front was likely to follow the warm weather.

The first indication my prediction had been correct (okay, the forecast said there would be thunderstorms) came just after eleven, when a low rumble shook the house. A flash of lightning lit up the sky and another rumble of thunder arrived several seconds later. The storm wasn't close, but was announcing its impending arrival.

Not more than ten seconds later, Mom opened the door and unceremoniously climbed into bed with me. She was wearing a simple tank top and shorts, as she did most nights when the weather was warm.

Another flash and this time the rumble was louder, arrived faster, and lasted quite a bit longer. Mom and I had just started to snuggle as there was a knock on the door.

"Phil, do you mind if I..."

"Not at all, Christy. C'mon in."

Christy closed the door behind her, started for the bed and stopped. Mom looked up at her and said, "You're late. You don't get to choose a side!"

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize anyone else would be here," said Christy, looking a little embarrassed.

"Mom doesn't like thunderstorms, at all," I explained. "That's part of the reason I have a queen bed. She's been coming in here whenever bad weather hits, ever since I was five. She tried to tell me the first few years she was here to comfort me. Yet another lie, leading to my warped mental state."

Christy smiled and said, "Well, that explains some of it, I guess."

Mom reached behind, whacked my hip and said, "I can't believe I tolerate such insolence. I should..."

Another flash, followed almost instantaneously by a crack of thunder cut Mom off, and had Christy scurrying into the covers behind me. We had purchased a weather alert radio several years ago, when tornadoes hit a small town about thirty miles away. During the spring, the radio got quite a workout with severe thunderstorm and tornado watches and warnings. I knew this storm wasn't going to be too bad because a weather alert hadn't been issued.

Christy snuggled up against my back and Mom pulled my arm around her. I knew the storm bothered them as it continued to draw closer, but they were squirming, a lot, and I was ready to go to sleep. After a few minutes, I'd had enough.

"Okay, that's it! If you two can't lay still, I'm moving to the couch!" I said as I began to sit up.

Both Mom and Christy protested and pulled me back down to the bed.

"We'll behave, we promise," Mom said. She pulled my arm around her and placed my hand on her breast.

"Speak for yourself, 'Mom, '" Christy challenged. She snuggled behind me and playfully rubbed my butt.

All of the attention was waking a different part of me and I had no doubt Mom was very aware of his intrusion, but she made no comment and no effort to distance herself from it. All of the crap that was happening around me with Sammie, Mike, Suzanne and the incident during Homecoming were an afterthought as I pulled Mom closer and Christy gave me soft kisses on my neck as I drifted to sleep.

Yes, I thought, this is the best birthday present.

Neither of the three of us needed to get up early the next morning, which was a good thing as I noticed the time projected on my ceiling by my clock indicated it was nearly eight in the morning. During the night, we had adjusted a couple of times, the last of which had me flat on my back with both women snuggled against me, each having a leg intertwined with mine. Each of them had their head resting on my shoulder and I could feel their warm breath on my neck. I'll admit I had some seriously ungentlemanly thoughts passing through my head as I enjoyed feeling their bodies pressed against mine.

I would have loved to stay there the entire day, but life was intruding. I knew they had a flight to catch in Indianapolis at just after one, and I wasn't sure they had packed, yet. Knowing they would have to stop by Christy's house for more clothes (there are always more clothes!), would add some time as well. Besides, I needed to get to the bathroom pretty quickly, or things were going to be rather unpleasant for all of us.

My arms were wrapped around both of them, so I used my next best option to wake them – I blew in their ear.

Now, you'll have to understand that I had forgotten all about Christy's response to my tickling her feet a few weeks back. It wasn't until I started to blow that my memory returned and I started getting a little nervous; but, apparently, blowing in her ear didn't have the same effect. She simply stretched and then proceeded to pull herself tighter to my side, a cute little smile on her face.

Mom was a different story. I knew, from experience, she would grumble, protest and fight tooth-and-nail to keep from having to get up. Typically, she would try to roll over and get away from me. That's what I was counting on.

If you've ever had the privilege of having three people in a queen bed, what you find out, in a hurry, is just exactly how little room each of the three of you have. So, when Mom protested, grumbled and rolled over, she ended up depositing herself on the floor. I knew, going in, that there was a decent chance of that happening. I also knew I the floor was covered with my clothes. Any normal teenage guy considers the floor to be a stand-in for a laundry hamper, so when Mom fell, she didn't hurt herself, but she certainly didn't appreciate my humor, either.

"Good morning, Mom. Did you sleep well?" I chuckled.

She grabbed the pillow from under my head and smacked me on my stomach. What was it with her, Christy and pillows, anyhow? Christy, the little turncoat, grabbed a pillow and joined Mom in pummeling me. Both were careful not to hit me in the head. Unfortunately, they got a couple of shots in before I could protect my tenders, fully.