Keeping Sam Read Online Free

surprise.
    ‘What steps?’ A small hand touched her leg, and she glanced down and saw her son trying to climb onto her lap. She reached for him and he came readily, fitting into her arms, still holding two of his bricks in chubby fingers.
    ‘Blue,’ he said. Kate smiled and kissed his head.
    ‘Yes,’ she told him. ‘Blue. Very good.’
    Barbara was watching them, her expression unreadable. Kate could sense that the atmosphere between them was beginning to make even Elizabeth uncomfortable, although Kate imagined the woman had been in far worse situations than this. She smiled to herself grimly. Welcome to a Steiner family reunion. We all love each other here.
    Taking strength from her son’s tacit approval, Kate decided to do her best to see things from her mother’s point of view. She had done well by Sam; she only had his best interests at heart. There was a long way to go, there were still many questions to answer, but today was not the day to air old grievances.
    ‘What steps have you taken, Mum?’ Kate asked again, but this time she smiled warmly, hugging Sam to her chest.
    Her mother registered the tiniest sign of discomfort. She smoothed her hands down the sides of her immaculately cut skirt, and crossed her trim ankles neatly.
    ‘As I said earlier, we – your father and I – were under the impression you very likely would not wake up from the coma, or indeed recover from the injuries you sustained. Therefore, we decided after having Sam with us for six months that we would make it official.’
    ‘Official?’ Kate held Sam tight against her body. He fitted the bricks together, then unclamped them. Together, apart. He giggled, then held them up to show to Kate. She kissed his cheek, never taking her eyes from her mother’s face.
    ‘Official, yes. So that he would be protected.’ As Barbara spoke, she finally met Kate’s gaze. Her eyes were cold, her expression unflinching.
    Kate felt a chill settle over her, prickling her scalp, raising goose bumps on her arms. The warmth from Sam’s little body did nothing to counter it. He began to wriggle, good-naturedly pushing himself out of her arms before toddling away with a wide-legged gait to the toy box across the room. Kate sat on the cold tiles and stared up at the two women who looked down at her, one full of sympathy, the other a study in antipathy. Her leg had gone to sleep, and now she was unable to reach her crutch or find the strength to push herself up from the floor.
    Elizabeth spoke softly. ‘Your parents applied for Special Guardianship, Kate. The court awarded it three months ago. They have parental responsibility for Sam now, too. I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner. I thought–’ she paused and glanced at Barbara, whose expression was still carved from stone. ‘I thought it might have been better for your mother to explain it. It seems I was quite wrong.’
    ‘But who,’ said Kate, her voice rasping in her throat, ‘who did you need to protect him from?’
    Yet even as she said the words, she knew. Her mother’s letter, the oblique references to Kate’s lifestyle and background, the tone of judgment, as though Kate herself were responsible for the attack, the coma, everything. She knew. Her parents were trying to protect Sam from his own mother.
    And if that were the case, there must be a reason.
    Just how much else had her amnesia made her forget?
    ***
    They sat on the promenade, on a concrete bench, with seagulls shouting and squawking around them. The sound of children playing in the breakers on the shoreline was almost too much for Kate to bear. And yet at the same time it was comforting. Elizabeth sat silently by her side, thumbing through her phone, occasionally tapping out a message, or writing something in her notepad. The sun was relentless; it was an all-or-nothing kind of summer this year. Kate had been protected in hospital, only going outside into the atrium once a day for fresh air. Here, exposed to the sea air