Chapter
33
“Hello?”
“Hi,
Sammy, it’s Julie,” I said hurriedly, eager to tell her the news.
“Hey!”
Sammy said brightly. “How come you’re
calling? Aren’t you working today?”
“Yup,
I’m at work right now. But I have
something to tell you,” I replied.
“What?”
she asked eagerly.
“Well,
Sammy, you might want to sit down,” I started.
“Why? Is this bad news?” Sammy asked, a small
tremor running through her voice.
“No,
no,” I assured her. “It’s just
shocking.”
“Okay,”
Sammy said hesitantly.
“Today
a girl came into the Emergency Room with a sprained ankle. She’s a real cute girl. She has curly blonde hair… and hazel eyes…
and her name is Megan,” I said.
Sammy
sucked in a breath. “Oh, my God, Julie,
you don’t think-“
“I
didn’t think anything out of the ordinary until she smiled at me. It was that smile. It looked so much like yours. I looked in her chart… and she has the same
blood type as you.”
“Oh,
my God,” Sammy whispered again. “Could
it really be her?” Her voice was thick
with emotion.
“I’m
not positive, but Sammy, I really do think it is. She’s a foster child too, and her foster
parents told me they took her in when she was six.”
Sammy
suddenly began to cry. “Oh, God,” she
kept murmuring. “Julie, I’m coming up to
Lexington,” she said suddenly.
“Now?”
“Yes,”
Sammy said. “I’m going to pack real
quick and go to the airport. I hope I
can get a flight.”
“Okay,”
I said slowly. “Who will pick you up
from the airport?”
“I’ll
take a taxi straight to the hospital,” Sammy said.
“Okay,”
I said, smiling. “You can stay at my
place.”
“Okay,
thanks,” Sammy said, sounding thrilled.
“I’ll see you later, okay Julie?”
“Sure,
Sammy,” I said.
“Thank
you so much, Jules,” Sammy said before she hung up. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“I
know,” I said. “Look, you better hurry
and get to that airport. I’ll see you
when you get here.”
“Okay,
bye!” Sammy cried brightly, hanging up.
I
hung up as well, swelling with happiness.
I could barely imagine how wonderful Sammy was feeling right then. Her long lost daughter was finally back.
***
After I got off the phone with Sammy, I walked down to
Megan’s room. Amy and Doug were in the
room with her.
“Hi,
Megan,” I said, smiling at her. I turned
to Amy and Doug. “Could I talk to you
two out in the hall?”
“Sure,”
they replied and followed me into the hall.
“Well,
I just got off the phone with my friend Sammy.
You wouldn’t believe how excited she was. She’s coming up here as soon as she can get a
flight,” I said. They nodded.
“Would
you like the number for Megan’s old social worker, the one who brought her to
live with us?” Amy asked. “She could
probably answer some of your questions and help get this sorted out.”
“Yeah,
that would be great,” I said.
“We’ve
got it at home,” Amy said. She turned to
Doug. “Honey, would you run home and
grab my address book? The number’s in
there.”
“Sure,
Ames,” Doug said. “I’ll be back as soon
as I can,” he said to me.
I
nodded. “Thanks so much,” I said,
watching as he walked down the hall. I
turned back to Amy. “Have you told Megan
anything yet?”
“Not
yet,” she said. “It’ll be hard, I’m
sure. I don’t think she remembers her
mother, and she’s never really asked us about her parents. I know she thinks of us as her parents.”
I
nodded. “That must be hard,” I said,
softly. I knew how happy Sammy was by
this, but I also realized that this whole thing must be very difficult for Doug
and Amy, who had practically raised Megan and loved her like their own
daughter.
“Well,
if Megan goes to live with her birth mother, we’ll be happy for her,” Amy
said. “I love her, and I just want
what’s best for her. No child deserves
to be separated from a good mother who loves them very much.”
I
nodded. “I know you and Doug love Megan
very much too,” I said. “I know this is
hard for you. But Sammy loves Megan with
all her heart, and she’s gone ten horrible years thinking that she had been
killed.”
Amy
nodded. “I know,” she said. “And I’m so happy that she’ll finally be
reunited with Megan. That’s wonderful.”
“Yes,
it is,” I agreed. “Wonderful.”
***
Three hours passed, and I found myself sitting in my office
with Sammy, Amy, Doug, and Joanna Lampe, Megan’s social worker.
Introductions
had already been made, and now we were here to discuss what had happened… and
what was going to happen.
“Mrs.
Lampe,” Sammy began.
“Oh,
call me Joanna,” Joanna interrupted, smiling warmly at Sammy.
“Joanna,”
Sammy corrected, smiling back. “I was
just wondering, where did you find Megan at?
She was kidnapped when she was four, and the police gave up their search
for her. How did you manage to find
her?”
“I
came into contact with your daughter shortly after she was kidnapped,” Joanna
said. “Of course, no one knew that’s
what had happened to her then. No one
knows who even found her. Supposedly,
she was found lying outside a hospital somewhere in Florida. She had been beaten and suffered from
amnesia. She couldn’t remember her
family, where she lived, not even her last name, only her first. So of course, she didn’t remember what
happened, and no one ever knew. To this
day, no one knows for sure what happened.
Anyway, after she recovered from her injuries, they sent her to a
children’s home in Frankfurt, and I was assigned as her social worker. She wasn’t put in a foster home until over a
year later, when she was six. That’s when
the Johnsons took her in.”
“So
she’s never talked about being kidnapped… or me?” Sammy asked, looking slightly
upset that her daughter had no memory of her.
Amy
shook her head slowly. “No,” she
said. “She has no memory of it at
all. We didn’t even know she’d been
kidnapped until today. And she’s only
asked about her family once, and we told her we didn’t know anything about
them, so she’s never asked again.”
“Speaking
of family, where’s Megan’s father, Sammy?” Joanna asked.
Sammy
flushed red. “He’s never been in her
life, and he never will be,” she said bitterly.
She looked up to see the three of them looking at her curiously, and she
sighed. “You see, I was raped when I was
sixteen, and that’s how I got pregnant with Megan.”
Their
eyes widened.
“Megan
will have a father though,” Sammy added quickly. “I’m engaged to a wonderful man.”
“That’s
good,” Amy said, smiling.
“Well,
being the birth mother, Sammy has the right to take custody of Megan,” Joanna
said.
“We
know that,” Doug said. Amy nodded,
agreeing with her husband.
“Well
then, the first thing to do is to introduce Megan to Sammy,” Joanna said. “Shall we do that now?”
“Yes,”
Sammy said eagerly, her hazel eyes lighting up.
“I’ll
take you,” I said.
“Do
you mind if Julie and I go alone?” Sammy asked the other three.
“No,
go ahead,” Amy urged.
I
turned to Sammy and grinned. “Okay,
let’s go,” I said. She nodded, and we
went down to the ER. We walked down the
hall until we got to the closed door of Exam 4, and then we stopped. “You ready?” I asked Sammy.
She
took a shaky breath. “I’m nervous,” she
admitted. “But ready.”
“Do
you want me to go in first and get her prepared?” I asked.
“Yeah,”
Sammy said.
“Okay,”
I said, flashed her an encouraging smile, and stepped into the room.
***
