Heart Bones

Seated with her father and two officers in an interrogation room, Beyah realizes there are many things she does not know about Samson. The police acknowledge she was not involved in any illegal activities. They leave the room to verify that Beyah can depart with her father. Beyah sees an addict in an outer room and knows that, in police custody, he will not receive help for his disease. She asks her father several questions about addiction. Her father asks if her mother is an addict, and she responds, “She’s not an addict anymore” (273). When the police return, they let Beyah go, but she wants to find out about Samson. Her father resists her efforts to discover what is happening with Samson, trying to keep the two apart. Beyah says that Samson is innocent and that he is a product of a system that failed him when he was only 13.

Arriving home from the police station, Beyah finds P. J. waiting, wagging his tail. As Beyah pets him, Sara comes down to console her and apologize for fixing her up with Samson. Beyah tells Sara that Samson is not a bad guy, that he has not done any grave harm, and that she doesn’t want to talk anymore.

Beyah receives a phone call from the Galveston County jail. Samson can talk to her for two minutes. She tells him she will not go to Pennsylvania because she wants to work to get him free. She tells him she will come to see him at nine the next day.

Beyah goes to Marjorie’s house and wakes her to tell her Samson has been arrested. She convinces Marjorie to call her son, an attorney, to ask him to represent Samson.

Beyah goes up to her room to go to sleep but finds she cannot rest. Searching for some kind of sleeping pill, she encounters Alana, who has taken the day off. For the first time, Beyah breaks down, sobbing, and Alana holds her as if she were her mother. Beyah wonders, “How long do I have to go before I’m happy again?” (288)

Beyah sleeps until seven that evening. She dumps out the contents of Samson’s backpack. She realizes that its contents are the only things Samson actually possesses. She finds a number of small, faded pieces of paper with writing on them. The papers turn out to be poems written by Rake.

The next morning, at the Galveston County jail, Beyah hears her name called to visit Samson, and she asks Brian to wait as she goes in by herself. She embraces Samson, and he apologizes. He fills in all the details of his life, explaining that his mother, Isabel, died when he was five and that Rake, his father, took him sailing up and down the Texas coast for years. Rake left him at a church during Hurricane Ike while he tried to protect the boat, and Samson never saw him again. As a juvenile, Samson made foolish mistakes and got in trouble with the law. He accidentally caused a house fire and realizes he will serve several years in the penitentiary. He tells Beyah he does not want her to make any more contact with him. He says, “You’re going to college, Beyah. My mess isn’t yours to clean up” (300).

Once back in the car, she and Brian argue about whether Samson is a worthy person. Beyah gets out of the car and refuses to ride home with him.

When a week passes with Samson refusing to allow Beyah to visit, she wonders if she will ever see him again. The only person she can talk to about Samson is Marjorie. Beyah discovers a small notebook with a list of every house he entered, every odd job he did, and all the food he ate. Beyah realizes Samson was keeping a list to make amends for entering people’s homes. She rushes downstairs to share this news with Brian, Alana, Sara, and Marcos. Beyah believes this is exculpatory and will help Samson’s case. Instead, Brian and Alana point out that these are additional crimes he could be charged with. Devastated by the lack of understanding she feels, Beyah thinks, “I know what love is, because I spent my whole life knowing what it isn’t” (311). She tells them her mother is dead. She explains she has been alone all of her life and even sold her body so she could buy food. Beyah says Brian has never been her father and never will be. Refusing to speak to him, she rushes to her room. In the little notebook she finds a note from Samson in which he tells her that she is his water and that she should flood the whole world.

Feeling abandoned, Beyah finds peace only by watching the sunrise. Brian comes onto the balcony and sits beside her. He asks if she remembers going to the beach as a little child. She has no memory of it until he brings an album and shows her all the things they did together when she was little. He apologizes for not having been there for her but says he believed he was an inconvenience to her. Beyah realizes she should have been more forthcoming with him about how she really felt. She thinks, “If there’s one thing I learned from Samson this summer, it’s that holding everything in accomplishes nothing. It just causes the truth to hurt even worse in the end” (319).

Brian asks her what Samson would want her to do if he truly loves her. Beyah realizes it is time to put herself first and that she must accept her scholarship to Penn State. For the first time she feels like she has a real family.

Living at Penn State in a dorm room, Beyah still does not hear from Samson, and the only news she gets of him is through regular conversations with Keith, Marjorie’s son and Samson’s attorney. She learns that Samson received a six-year sentence and that he might be paroled in four. She realizes he avoids contact because he wants her to live her life unconcerned about him.

Her roommate invites her to a party and offers to fix her makeup, which Beyah agrees to. She has decided she wants to be a fun person, even though that is something she may have to learn to do. She thinks, “I’m going to smile so much that my fake smile eventually becomes real” (329).

In October, four years later, Beyah waits outside the prison on the day Samson is scheduled for release. She is now a law student, after graduating from Penn State. She watches as Samson walks out of the institution and starts in the opposite direction. He pauses, then turns and stares at her. He shouts across the parking lot, asking if she went to college. When she nods, he runs toward her. They hold each other and kiss. He apologizes and she forgives him. He asks if she has a boyfriend, and she says she is single. Neither has any plans for what is to follow, though Samson asks if he can go to the sea. Beyah recites a line from a poem Rake wrote: “Because when a man says I’m going home, he should be headed for the sea” (337).

Beyah drives Samson to the beach where they first met. He immediately runs into the water. She sits with him after he comes out. He asks about P. J., Sara, Marcos, and Marjorie, who died in March. He says that he is supposed to call Keith to find out about his parole officer. Beyah gives him her phone to call Keith, who tells him that Marjorie willed her house to him because of all the good he did for those in the beach community. Overcome, Samson must walk away and compose himself. When he tells Beyah he does not deserve this, she replies, “You’ve been punished enough. Accept all the good things life is throwing at you today” (346). They go inside Marjorie’s house and climb to the roof, where they sit looking at the ocean, and they profess their love for each other.