Family is Forever (Sequel to Running on Insulin)

Chapter 39

We sat in the waiting area trying to stay calm, trying not to cry, and trying not to think about the possibility of losing Samantha to social services.

"Guys," Jake said. "I'm going to vouch for you, obviously."

"We can't lose her. She'll never trust anyone again. We will have to work really, really hard to regain her trust, I think." Jenna said.

We must have sat there at least an hour before a man came up to us.

"Mr and Mrs Joseph?" He asked. We nodded.

"I'm Kyle Abernathy. I'm with Child Protective Services," he introduced himself, and shook our hands.

"Have you seen Samantha already? Is she okay?"

"She's still unconscious. They're having trouble getting her blood sugar to come up."

Tears filled Jenna's eyes. She had worked the hardest with Samantha to keep her diabetes in control.

"I'm here to talk to you about Samantha. Why she ran away, where she was going, and so on."

"What do you know about Samantha's past so far?" I asked.

"Not a lot. I understand you recently adopted her. Do you mind me asking how that came to happen?"

We told the social worker Samantha's story. About what we knew of her upbringing before she landed in our back yard. What had happened to bring her to our house, how we'd taken her in as a foster and then when her birth father had admitted to wanting to kill her instead of her mother, how she came to be eligible for adoption.

How Stanley had kidnapped her after orchestrating a prison transport accident, had manipulated Gillingham into getting Samantha from school, and how during that week Stanley had tortured her, beat her, left her diabetes untreated and allowed her blood sugar to rise.

How she couldn't or wouldn't speak until Christmas. How she had nightmares and Jenna has slept with her until she was able to sleep alone again.

We told him how she had been seeing a therapist since we had taken her in, and that she'd been making progress.

And then how Jenna had mentioned that we had known Stanley had escaped and in our minds we thought sending her to school that morning was safe, that we hadn't thought he knew we'd switched her school and that we hadn't wanted to worry her by keeping her home. If she'd known Stanley was at large, we didn't know how she's react. We had no way of knowing that he would have gotten to her.

We told him everything.

He didn't interrupt, he nodded and listened.

When we were done he asked a few questions about Samantha's diabetes, how we were handling it, how we handled her issues dosing and testing, and so on. We gave him Marie's contact info, her social worker in Columbus.

He thanked us, said he was going to talk to Marie and would be back.

About an hour later, he returned. He had a few follow up questions and then said he was going to talk with the doctors and the police.

We waited some more. As time ticked on we for more and more worried that we wouldn't be able to see Samantha.

Finally, the police and the social worker came back. Fear crossed Jenna's face.

"Mr and Mrs Joseph, thank you for cooperating. We've determined that Samantha's best interests are to remain under your care. You can go back and see her now," Abernathy said.

Jenna cried and hugged the social worker.

"Thank you!" She said.

We were led back to the treatment area and behind the curtain where Samantha lay. She was still unconscious, a heart monitor and IV attached to her. She was pale and still breathing shallowly. I took her hand.

"Samantha," I whispered. Her eyelids fluttered but didn't open.

We sat with her until the doctor came and told us he'd admitted her and she would be moving to the Pediatric wing. He discussed what had been done and that they were having trouble getting her glucose up.

After a while, porters came and took her to a room. We followed and sat with her once she was settled in bed.

Jenna climbed up into the bed with her and wrapped her arms around her.

Nurses came in through the night, checking Samantha's glucose, administering medicines and checking her IV, which they said was a glucose drip.

Samantha remained unconscious through the night.

I know I fell asleep on the bed they provide for parents, because I was woken up by a nurse coming in to check on Samantha. Jenna had fallen asleep holding Samantha.

"Good morning, Josephs," the nurse said to me. "I'm happy to report we've been able to keep Samantha's blood sugar level stable overnight. I expect she'll start waking up soon."

"Oh. Thank you," I said. I looked over at Jenna, who was awake as well, and smiled at me.

I pulled out my phone and saw I had messages from everyone. Jake had texted that he was staying at a nearby hotel. He'd touch base in the morning and we could figure out how we were all getting home. Brendon had called and texted and so had Josh and Gerard, everyone.

I started returning texts first. I called Brendon.

"Dude!  What's happened? Is Sam okay?" He asked as he picked up the phone.

"They had trouble keeping her blood sugar up yesterday, but it stabilized overnight. She's still unconscious but the nurse says she'll probably wake up soon. I'm sorry I didn't call. We had to deal with the police and social services here in Indiana, and then when we finally got to see Samantha, we were hyper focused on her. I think I crashed hard when we got her into a room."

"No doubt. Understandable. Any idea where she might have been going?"

"Well, she bought a ticket to LA. We can only assume she was coming to you.  We'll know more when she wakes up. If she'll talk to us." 

"Us?  Why us?" Brendon asked.

"I don't know. Maybe you were the first person she thought of. We'll see when she wakes up."

"Okay. Let me know. Maybe we can FaceTime?"

"We'll see what frame of mind she's in when she wakes up." I said.

"Okay. I'll talk to you later," Brendon said.

Jenna and talked quietly to each other as she held Samantha and I held Samantha's hand.

We needed her to know we weren't mad, but she was going to have to wake up first. And hopefully she'd forgive us.