Free The Happy Housewife (Samantha Sherman Book 1) by Kate Cooch

with. After all, as with the Myer visit earlier, there was nothing she could truly do to help. Plus, she still needed to talk to Mrs. Thomas tonight. She glanced over at the Myer’s house as she passed. She could see a couple of people still in the living room. It was all so sad.
    They soon arrived at their destination. The Walters had a ranch style house that looked pretty well kept up but on closer inspection probably needed to be painted. A bike was left out in the yard which really needed to be mowed. Sam could see one car in the driveway and a light on in the living room.
    Lindsey neatly parked her bike on the walkway that led to the house. She carefully put the kickstand down. Doug had recently spent hours teaching her how to ride that bike. She really treasured it and was so proud that she had been able to ride without training wheels before so many of her friends.
    They walked towards the kitchen door. Lindsey grabbed part of Sam’s shirt as they got closer, like she used to do when she was a toddler. Sam could sense her hesitation so she put a bright smile on her face and said, “You remember Mr. and Mrs. Walters and their other son William. We’ll just go in for a minute.”
    She knocked on the front door. It took a couple of minutes but it finally opened. Pat Walters stood on the other side. Sam didn’t know him that well. She definitely had more contact with Celine. She could immediately see where Dwayne got his looks from. Pat was a more filled out version of Dwayne, right down to the glasses perched on his nose. It was the same prominent nose that Dwayne had, but on a face and body that was a matching size. With the weight of adulthood it looked normal, it looked nice even. It was good to know that Dwayne would be handsome as an adult. He deserved it after such a difficult puberty.
    “Hi, Pat. I’m Sam Sherman from down the street.”
    “I remember. We’ve met at a couple of block parties. Come on in.” He caught sight of Lindsey who had moved behind her mother and said, “And of course I remember Miss Lindsey. You can definitely come in.”
    He stepped back to let them enter his house. Lindsey went by him looking up, her eyes fastened on an adult she didn’t recognize. She said in a voice that was just above a whisper, “Is Dwayne okay?”
    Pat’s shoulders slumped and he gave a weak smile, “We think so, Lindsey.” He looked like he was going to divulge more but then stopped himself, probably because of Lindsey’s age.
    Sam caught on and broke in, “Lindsey and I don’t want to take up too much of your time. We just wanted to bring by some dinner and tell you how sorry we are to hear about Dwayne. He’s such a great kid.”
    Pat’s face seemed to cloud up at this and Sam remembered what she had heard about the ELF connection. She just didn’t believe that Dwayne could be destructive. How hard it must be to not know if your child was involved in that kind of activity.
    Sam changed the subject, “If you aren’t going to have this tonight, it can be frozen.”
    Pat looked grateful for the change of topic. “Yeah, I think we’ll save it for another night.” They walked up the half flight of stairs that led to the living/dining room combination and the kitchen. Lindsey caught sight of the Walters’s cat at the top of the stairs and followed it into the living room. Sam and Pat continued into the kitchen.
    As Sam put the casserole away, she asked, “How is Celine doing?”
    “Not great. She’s still at the hospital with William actually. I’m going back to pick them up in an hour when visitation is over. Dwayne will recover physically. The burns on his legs will wind up being scars but nothing that will require plastic surgery. They’ve done an MRI and CAT scan which came back clean. Dwayne still hasn’t woken up though, and the doctor’s can’t say that he will.” Pat’s voice cracked a bit but he caught himself and went on, “I just can’t believe he would be involved in