Sam’s father’s conversation with the emergency room doctor continued:
“I had no idea she could do something like this. My daughter’s never been in trouble her whole life,” pleaded Vic.
“The police quickly figured out she didn’t belong in jail, so we got her transferred over here to assess her,” explained the emergency room doctor. “We want to keep her another day for observation.”
“But she’s not hurt,” objected Vic.
“Psychiatry thinks it’s a good idea. They found your daughter passed out next to the ocean.”
“She was asleep in a chair on a pier.”
“They want to assess for suicide risk before releasing her. She did not object to the idea of staying another day. I can give you the name of a nice Bed ‘n’ Breakfast nearby. You guys can recover a little before you travel home.”
“This is a total nightmare. I can’t believe this is happening,” muttered Vic. “I don’t know what to think.”
Sam has been a girl who can do no wrong. In fact, she will be a freshman at Stanford in the fall and her parents could not be prouder. So why, when we first meet her, is she in the Emergency Room, 1500 miles from home? Why is her father upset with the psychiatrist who thinks Sam should stay awhile? And why is Sam agreeing with the doctor?
Samantha, or Sam as she prefers, has been a model student and a model child all her life. She has willingly taken on leadership responsibilities and performed them admirably and humbly. Her peers admire her and trust that if something needs to get done, put Sam in charge of it. Whereas some kids are competitive and grade conscious, Sam is oblivious to all that. Doing her best, trying her hardest, never giving up, that’s just the way she is. It’s almost like Sam can anticipate what needs to be done and do it before needing to be asked.
In that way, she is quite a contrast to her younger sister, who challenges her parents’ authority at every turn. Her sister doesn’t resent her, she just feels sorry for Sam. “You don’t know how to have fun, Sam”, is her frequent refrain. To which Sam would say, “I’m not unhappy”.
To the surprise of everyone, after getting drunk for the first time ever, Sam vented her anger and resentment toward her classmates for taking advantage of her.
Her supposed best friend promptly returned the favor by telling Sam that her boyfriend had repeatedly cheated on her. Two days later, the police found her at the water’s edge in Florida, sitting on a picnic table, sobbing.
Given the chance to think for herself for a change, Sam began to take stock of her life, ambitions, and genuine feelings. It came as quite a shock to everyone, including Sam that the girl everyone thought was perfect, was in fact perfectly unhappy.
Sam does have a happy ending, but it doesn’t come in the fall at Stanford. She postpones college for a year and finds that she is passionate about writing. The only one suffering on the other end of that process seems to be Sam’s mother, who must now rethink her humble-bridge-club-bragging.
In the section where we turn back the clock for a do-over, Sam’s mother is quick to catch herself when Sam is overly attentive to her mother’s needs instead of her own. In this version, her parents are good about encouraging Sam to have her own thoughts and feelings instead of tuning into others’. It is a truly remarkable turnaround for her mother, by the way. You’ll have to read it to believe it.