Page 95 of One Last Summer
“I know,” Sam said before taking a sip from a plastic cup full of tiny ice cubes and chomping them in her mouth. “I can’t believe I made that.”
“Our bodies are seriously amazing,” I said, almost like I was just realizing this for the first time.
“Speaking of,” Sam continued. “I peed while you were getting food, which, let me tell you, is slightly terrifying after vaginal childbirth. You’re lucky you missed it. I scared Eloise away with that adventure.”
“Samantha!” her mom said again.
“Mom,” Sam huffed. “We all have vulvas here, including Olive. I think it’s fine to talk about them.”
I pressed my palm to my mouth, suppressing a laugh. I had seen Eloise on her way out of the hospital before she headed back to Pine Lake, and she did, indeed, mention the drama of Sam shouting with pain from the toilet, trying to pee.
“Do you see why I wanted you here?” she said in a low, conspiratorial voice.
I nodded. “I wouldn’t have missed it.”
Sam patted a hand on her bed, an order for me to sit on the edge. “You didn’t have to come, you know that, right? I really was just texting you because I wanted you to know it was happening.”
“Sam.” I leveled a look at her. “I really appreciate that you’ve given me a lot of space to screw up in our friendship. And I also appreciate you giving me the chance to make things right. But yes, I know I didn’t have to be here. I wanted to be here.”
“Wait, also, your hair,” she said as if she had just remembered it was now almost six inches shorter and hacked unevenly to my chin. “You still haven’t told me what the hell you did in the last twenty-four hours since I saw you.”
“Well, you know, you’ve been busy,” I teased.
“And now I have to sit in this room with a baby and try to pass gas,” she said, “so I have literally all the time in the world.”
“I quit my job this morning,” I said, marveling at how good that felt to say. The entire car ride here I kept waiting for the fear to creep in, for the self-doubt to take over my brain.
I was still waiting.
“Before the pitch?” she asked, sitting up a little straighter as she reached for her cup of ice. “Or after it?”
“In the middle of it,” I clarified.
“Holy shit, Clara!” She sucked air through her teeth, flinching at this news. “I thought you loved your job, though?”
“I did,” I agreed, shifting a little closer to her. “But I’ve spent a lot of my time doing everything but letting myself really stop and think about what might make me happy.”
“Well, that’s always scary to do,” she agreed.
“It’s terrifying,” I said. “Which is what I wrote to myself in my camp letter. I wanted to be doing things that scared me. So thank you for saving it all these years and sending it. I didn’t know how much I needed it.”
“Somebody’s lips are moving again,” Joann cooed as she brought Olive back over to Sam, gently resting her in the crook of Sam’s arm. Sure enough, Olive’s pink lips were puckering, even though her eyes were still closed. Sam pulled down the hospital gown, nestling Olive against her bare skin.
“Can you believe my letter didn’t mention having kids at all?” She looked down at Olive, eyes full of wonder, and then back at me. “I wrote that I wanted to live in Rome.”
“You still can,” I said. “Maybe Olive will be an amazing traveler.”
“I’m definitely going to save it for her to read someday,” she said. “So when she’s fifteen and thinks she has the world figured out, I can remind her that I thought so once too.”
I followed her eyes back over to her daughter. “She has so much hair. Like more than Mack, even.”
Sam coughed out a laugh. “Please do not tell me my child looks like your boyfriend. To be clear, he is not the sperm donor.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I said, though I wasn’t sure exactly what we were to each other. “Nothing’s changed since I left yesterday. He’s still leaving, and now I’m—well, who knows what I’m doing.”
“Look. He’s definitely your something,” she said thoughtfully. “Or he’s going to be. I tried calling Regan my ‘partner’ for like, one day, and I hated it.”
“Eloise called Linus her partner when she introduced him!” I remembered, and Sam grimaced.
