Bronzeville || A Superhuman Tale - 2

Chapter Thirteen

From the living room, Sam could see Christy and Celia laughing and wrestling on a mat in the gym, the tension between them from two days earlier completely forgotten. It pleased him to no end that, despite the occasional hiccup, there was much love and affection between Christy and the girls.

Sam was a few years shy of his 70th birthday but had never, in all that time, pondered his own mortality—until he found the girls. Now, he thought of his life soberly. He was in great health, and there was no reason to think he might not live another 25 or 30 years. Except neither of his parents had lived long, his mother having passed away at 70 and his father at 64.

Other than a few distant cousins in North Carolina, Sam's people were all gone. He had a vast network of friends and associates throughout the city—the list included a ponderous number of former girlfriends—but none whose loyalty he was certain would survive his death. Perhaps some few might be counted on the look after the girls in his absence, but he knew not which.

Philly? She certainly would make sure Celia and Lydia never went without. But he also knew his young friend was as footloose in many ways as Sam had been most of his life. And Christy would always be there, but she had her own demons to battle.

There was Tommy, the last remaining person in the world on whom Sam knew he could always depend. Sam had not told him, at least not in any particular words, but one of the reasons he'd invited Tommy to visit was so he might find the same emotional investment in the girls as had Sam. There was no doubt in his mind that Tommy, like Philly, would do right by the girls should anything befall him, but he also knew the two children needed something more than a guardian to look after their interests in hard times. They needed family.

He chuckled wickedly knowing that his plan had worked.

Sam's ancient friend had always been kind to the girls, but since arriving in Chicago, his interactions with them had grown conspicuously warmer. When Tommy and Lydia had returned from their sortie after Fleener the evening before, Sam sensed something was different. There was a familiarity there, a camaraderie, he'd not before seen between them.

To Sam's never-ending surprise, the change had extended even to Celia. When Sam went looking for Tommy the night before and found him painting the last bedroom, he had been shocked to see Celia alone at his friend's side patiently and efficiently wielding a brush. Sam had no guess as to what had transpired between them, but the sudden comfort and ease with which the two interacted told him volumes.

Rhonda certainly was part of Tommy's shift. Sam loved that kid; she grounded Tommy in ways Sam had never dreamed possible. He found himself again chortling over the phone call he'd received from her in the early morning wondering why Sam was letting her "asshole boyfriend corrupt those sweet girls." He couldn't think of two better godparents for the children he'd come to think of as his own.

Tommy was even now sitting with Lydia, preparing her for the day's events. Along with Philly, who had finished her other work, he and Lydia were to once again visit the Alhambra to collect information on the men Lydia had identified from The Range. The shadow of what might be going on there sent a chill through Sam. They all feared the government conspiracy against them was rumbling to life anew but were uncertain how to proceed, agreeing only that they must.

He, Christy, and Tommy had debated, argued, and bickered about the degree of the girls' involvement in their plans all evening and most of the morning, with Philly playing referee.

In many ways, it had mimicked his conversation with Tommy the day before. Sam knew his friend was right of course, as did Christy. The girls had been in captivity for several years, and only they could identify their former tormentors by sight. Either Lydia or Celia needed to help Tommy in his search. Lydia was the one of the two who could pass for an adult, and her appearance differed so radically from the previous year that they need not worry about their enemies recognizing her.

Even more, Tommy had argued, the girls would never learn confidence and self-worth sheltered in a seminary. Rather, to be truly free of the specters that haunted them from their horrible ordeal, they had to take part in their own salvation.

But Sam's every fiber, as it always did, told him to shelter the girls—until recently, he even had rebelled at the idea of Lydia going out at night when he found she'd been slipping out in the wee hours and innocently exploring the neighborhood—so his capitulation was not without condition.

He again reminded Tommy that while she was with him that he was, before anything else, Lydia's protector, and her and Celia's immediate safety had to take precedent over the collection of any information. Sam knew he didn't have to say those words, but he had to say those words.