Leave The City (Book 8 of Adopted by the Josephs)

19. Tyler

"Oh. Why you had a sad?" Rosie asked in her innocent way.

"Hmm," Samantha said.  "Well, I did something silly in California and I thought Momma and Daddy were mad at me for it. But it was just me being silly."

"Ohhh," Rosie said. "Momma and Daddy could never be mad at my Sammy. They loves you too much."

Samantha smiled at that and looked over at me.

"She's right," I said. Sam smiled. I smiled back at her.

"Sammy?" Rosie said. "I'm hungry. Momma is makin' breakfast."

"Well, let's get moving, then," Sam said.

Rosie rolled off her sister and slid off the bed. Sam sat up, scratched at her stump, and then pulled herself up on her crutches.

"All good?" I asked her.

"Yup," she said.

Rosie had already run downstairs so I took the moment to talk to Sam.

"Rosie is right, you know. We do love you too much to be mad at you. I really hope you believe us. And that what we talked about last night, that you understand the difference between us being disappointed in your choices versus being disappointed in you," I said.

Sam looked down at the floor.

"I do. Thanks, Dad. It really helped last night. Really."

"Okay. Because Brendon and Sarah were worried about you," I said.

"I know," she said.

"No. I mean after. The past couple of weeks. They said you just seemed so miserable and closed off. They were worried you might be spiralling."

"I think I might have been. But you and Mom really did help."

"Do you still want to see if Doc will see you?"

She thought for a second.

"Yeah, please."

I smiled at her.

"I'm so proud of you, Samantha Joseph," I said, hugging her.

"Why?"

"Well, for starters you chose to do something rebellious while you were not here," I winked at her. She rolled her eyes. "And you didn't run. You also listened to Mom and I instead of closing us out like you've done in the past. And you're asking for help instead of bottling everything up and spiralling like last September."

She hung her head.

"Hey, that wasn't a dig. I'm really proud at how much you've grown in the past five years."

She looked up at me and then smiled.

"Thanks, Dad."

"Now, I think Mom made a special breakfast, so let's go check it out, huh?"

Sam smiled and followed me out of her room. We joined the family downstairs. Junie squealed with delight when she saw Samantha come into the kitchen. Samantha's face lit up looking at her sisters.

"Hi Junie Bug!" Sam said, kissing her sister on the head.

Jenna had made a French toast baked thing. It was really good. Samantha wasn't sure how to bolus for it but relied on the recipe to determine what was in it and decided to take a couple of extra units, just in case. She was getting so great at treating her diabetes. A far cry from those early days when she lived with us.

The rest of the weekend was pretty quiet. Our lawyer came over on Saturday to go over a few things for Monday.

On Sunday the five of us went to church. On the way out, the Pastor stopped Samantha.

"It's wonderful to see you, Samantha.  Gladys has been missing you in the day care and Sunday School. How is school in California?"

"It's good, thanks," Sam smiled. I was still so impressed how, while she didn't believe in God, she never contradicted us when it came to our values and what we were teaching her sisters. Because of her respect for our family and our values and traditions, she was welcome at the church and helped out with her sisters and the kids in the daycare and the Sunday school.

"I understand this week your uncle's trial starts?" The pastor asked. Samantha's face clouded over just a little.

"Yeah," she said. "It's why I'm home now."

"Well, we'll be praying for you and your family."

"Thank you, Pastor Givens," Samantha said. I smiled at him. He smiled back.

We went out for lunch after church and met up with my parents.

"Look at you, Samantha!" My dad said to her as we approached the table.  He got up and gave her a huge hug.

"Hi Grampa," Sam smiled. "Hi Gramma."

She gave my parents hugs and we sat down at the table. Samantha was quiet. She simply told my parents that school was going well and she was enjoying California, but I suspected she didn't want to talk too much about it in case the incident from two weeks ago came up. So, I made sure to steer the conversation away from that.

After lunch, we went home, and everyone changed out of their church clothes. Rosie and Junie went down for their naps and Samantha brought her homework downstairs and sat in the kitchen doing it so she could also chat with us. She'd taken her leg off and would absently scratch at her thigh.

Monday morning, when we got up, Sam was harder to rouse. I knew it was because she didn't want to face her 'uncle'. But we had a small surprise for her, and I hoped she'd like it.

We had arranged for a sitter for the younger two, and the three of us left for the courthouse. Our lawyer had arranged for a car to take us. The windows were tinted as dark as possible. Samantha was silent the whole way there. I kept an eye on her and saw she was frowning. I figured she was preparing herself.

"You okay,  Sam?" I asked.

"Yeah. I'm just feeling," she sighed. "I don't know. Mad. A little scared and kinda pissed off."

"That's fair," I said.

I sighed.

"Sam, I think it's only fair to warn you that there's going to be a lot of press. We'll have an escort when we get there, and we're going in through the underground garage, okay?"

"I figured there'd be press and paparazzi and whatever. I psyched myself up. I'm okay. I'll be okay," she said, more to herself than to me. I smiled at Jenna, and held her hand.

As predicted, there was press everywhere. Samantha turned her head into my chest, and I didn't bother to remind her the windows were tinted. I held her to me. She felt safe, that's what matters.

Once we were underground, Samantha peeked out from me. There were some police officers and court staff and our lawyer, but no press. Samantha breathed a sigh of relief. I smiled at her. She smiled nervously back at me.

We got out of the car and the police and our lawyer came to meet us.

"Ready, Samantha? There are press inside the courthouse, too. But we're taking some back channels to get to our courtroom. We will have to go out into the main hallway at some point," our lawyer said.

Samantha frowned.

"Yeah. Yeah. I'm ready. Let's do this."

Samantha was on her crutches because the lawyer wanted to emphasize that she didn't have her leg because of what Mark did. We still hadn't been able to find out what happened to it.

With police surrounding us and our lawyer at her elbow, I followed my daughter into the courthouse. She held her head high. No matter how she felt about her uncle, about the past summer, she was going to show the world she was stronger than that which had happened to her.

I couldn't possibly have been prouder of her than I was just then.