The True Story of Sam

I met him the summer I turned seven. Down by the creek where I used to play on my grandparent's farm.

He waited behind the toolshed. He told me his name was Sam, and he told me that like he wasn’t sure it still was.

He looked about my age. Thin kid, dark hair, sharp eyes that seemed too old. Didn’t talk much, not at first. He followed me around while I chased frogs, threw rocks, climbed anything that didn’t break, and he even played marbles with me.

When I asked if he wanted to play, he smiled and said, "that is why I came".

I didn’t ask where he was from, and he didn’t say.

We stuck together those three summers like we were made from the same thread.

Sam wasn’t like other kids. Not the ones at school, not the cousins. He remembered things I didn’t even know I’d said. He never got tired of anything. He didn’t laugh at my drawings or ask why I talked to myself or why my accent sounded funny. He listened. Like every word I said mattered.

And he never aged. Not even a day.

When I broke my arm falling off the swing out back, I thought I saw him watching from the shed roof. When I came back from the hospital, the rope was fixed, tied better than before.

When our dog died, he sat with me by the porch and didn’t say a thing.

When I started feeling the weight of things that kids my age should not feel, he said I was forgetting the place we go to when we close our eyes.

I told him he meant dreams. He laughed.

I didn’t.

By ten, my parents stopped bringing him up. First, they called him a phase. Later, they just looked tired. Daddy said I should spend more time outside. Mama asked if I was lonely.

I stopped talking to them about Sam.

I still saw him, though. He’d wait by the old stump past the field. He’d be singing a tune I never could catch.

I asked him why nobody else could see him.

He said they used to. That was all and then he was gone.

He didn’t say goodbye.

One day, the stump was empty. The path felt wrong. I waited. Waited some more.

And then I stopped.

By thirteen, I almost forgot.

Life fills in the cracks, school, friends, tests and noise.

Now and then, passing the old shed, I’d see a shape and think that I heard Sam singing.

Still, sometimes in my dreams, his voice would show up. Clear as water.

The house burned down when I was nineteen. Wiring issues and my grandmother sold the land.

A few years later I moved to Knoxville. Chased a degree, then work. Got married and we are still together. Mama and daddy's gone now. But still, some nights, Sam shows up in my dreams. Same as always. Like time didn’t touch him.

I never told anybody about Sam, until now. I didn't want people to think I was crazy.

Last time I saw him, I was thirty-nine. That was in 2008. My mother had passed away and I couldn’t sleep. I sat in her living room, boxes half-packed, the place filled with old memories. I sat there in silence and you could have heard a pin drop.

Then Sam was there like he’d always known where I’d be.

He sat beside me, same face, same eyes.

He told me everything was going to be okay. He told me not to be scared.

I didn’t ask why he came. Didn’t have to.

I nodded, and we sat there in silence for a while.

Then he was gone again.

A few weeks later, I dreamed a letter arrived. No return address. My name on the front. The handwriting looked like mine from second grade.

One sentence inside:

It’s time to remember.

Next morning I drove over to North Carolina to the old land. Knocked on the door. Told the new owners my grandparents used to own the place. They let me walk the land. They were really nice people and even invited me to stay for dinner.

To my surprise the old stump was still there. Cracked and grey but still standing.

And so was Sam.

Same as always.

We didn’t speak right away. I sat on the ground. He sat on the stump.

I told him he hadn’t changed.

He said he wasn’t meant to.

I asked what he was.

He said I already knew.

I said I used to call you, my friend.

Close enough, he said.

I told him he wasn’t imaginary.

No, he said.

I asked if he was real.

He said he was what’s left of the part of me that still believed and wondered.

I asked if that made him me.

No, he said I gave him shape. He gave me courage.

I asked why he came back.

He said I was about to forget for good. Said if I did, he’d go where the others go.

I asked what I should do.

He said let's walk.

So, we did.

We crossed the field. Through the brush, down to where the creek once ran. It was dry now.

Sam knelt, dug something out of the dirt.

I said it's one of the green marbles we used to flick across the porch steps.

He said I cried when I lost it.

He pressed it into my hand.

"You never really forget me," he said. "You just stop listening."

He stood and said this is where he lives now.

I looked around and there was nothing there.

He said it was everything.

He smiled. Not a kid’s smile but like someone older.

He told me he’d still be here. If I remembered.

Then he turned and he was gone.

I still live in Knoxville. Retired now. The marble stays on my desk, off to the left where the sunlight hits it in the morning. I don’t touch it much. No need. Sometimes I flip it around in my hand and remember Sam, and when the noise outside dies down and when I hear the rain hitting the windows, I find myself talking again.

Not to anyone exactly.

I didn't speak out loud, but in my mind

And somehow, it always feels like he hears me.

Because I remember now.