In Search of Sam Read Online Free

to Webb’s River. She’s not pleased and tries to talk me out of going, but I stand my ground. I say I’m driving to Sam’s place first thing in the morning. I may stay just for the day or I may overnight it, depending on what I find. Then, promising to call again tomorrow night, I give her my love and hang up.
    I stare at the phone a good two minutes, waiting for my mother to call back. But she doesn’t so I set the phone on the table beside the bed and stuff the legal papers back into the manila envelope. All that’s left on the bed are the personal items from the plastic grocery bag.
    I start with the obvious: Sam’s wallet. Like his hat, his jeans, his boots, even the laugh lines on his face, the wallet has been moulded to fit him. It is curved from sitting in his back pocket, conforming to the saddle and the seat of his truck. The tan-coloured leather is shiny smooth, except at the edges, where the finish has been rubbed completely away, and along the fold, which is a web of cracked lines.
    At first all I do is turn the wallet over in my hands. I can’t bring myself to open it. I don’t want to invade Sam’s privacy. But then I remind myself that he left it to me. He expects — expected — me to go through it.
    There’s not much in it — not even money — just a driver’s license and social insurance card. The other slots are empty. There are no slips of paper with phone numbers, no ticket stubs, no business cards, no dry cleaning receipts, none of the usual bits and pieces people accumulate in their wallets, and it occurs to me that Sam may have cleaned out his billfold before he died. Then I remember his trailer, truck, and shed. There were no extras there either. Sam was as uncomplicated as a person can be.
    And just as private.
    I poke into every corner and crevice of the wallet, hoping for something, anything that will tell me more about this man who was my father. Sam was a foundling, so I know I won’t find a birth certificate, but surely there is something to hint at his identity.
    The compartment for bills has a lining, so I pry it up. I’m not really expecting to find anything underneath, but to my surprise, I do: a photograph of a little boy with dark, curly hair and sparkling black eyes. I flip it over. Sam, age 4 it says on the back in shaky handwriting. Sam told me that as a baby he’d been left on the doorstep of an elderly couple, who, because they were afraid Sam would be taken from them, kept his existence hidden from the authorities. But when it was time for Sam to start school, they couldn’t keep him a secret any longer, and just as they had feared, Sam was placed in foster care. He never saw the old couple again, so this picture might be the only thing he had to remind him of his first six years of life. I study it a while longer and then set it on the bed beside me.
    I shift my position, and what looks like a necklace slides across the comforter and disappears under my knee. I fish it out and hold it up. It’s a pendant on a silver chain. It seems an odd piece of jewellery for a man to have, so I examine it more closely. The chain is a good quality silver rope. The half-heart pendant is also silver. The thing is, it’s been cut. I can tell by the rough, jagged inside edge. The other edges are smooth and rounded. My guess is it was once a whole heart, but for some reason half of it was cut away. The question is why?
    Then I remember that Mom and Sam had identical turquoise gemstones. Could this half-heart be another love token they shared? Does Mom have the other half of the heart? I make a mental note to ask her next time we talk, but I’m pretty sure I already know the answer. I’m as familiar with my mother’s jewellery as she is. If she had half a silver heart lying around somewhere, I’d have seen it. I flip the pendant over, looking for an inscription. There isn’t one. Nothing on the