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Because the last one was so short...a quick update! :)
More String Theory: An AU Series
Dr. Samantha Carter joins the SGC and discovers a life she never expected.
Action/Adventure, Drama, Angst, Romance, S/J
Teen: language and violence
Ficlet 34-Lay Down Your Burdens
Jack is shuffling his feet just outside the gate, hands shoved deep in his pockets as if waiting for an invitation he’s not sure is ever coming. Even from across the spreading distance of the front lawn and her mother’s gauzy curtains, Sam can tell he’s agitated and trying his damnedest not to show it.
Jacob sits on the porch, staring hard at Jack, not moving to make the man feel any less uncomfortable.
Sam pushes out onto the porch, pausing by her father.
“Want me to get rid of him?” Jacob offers a little too eagerly.
It’s tempting because everything that pushed her to walk away from Jack in the first place is still there, rooting her feet to the wood planks of her parent’s house. But looking at him standing there makes her skin feel just a little less brittle somehow.
Jack shifts then, as if aware of her presence, his eyes latching onto her. He carefully looks her up and down, lingering on each injury, even the hidden ones, and she has to wonder if he’s memorized her medical reports.
Leaning over and threading her arms around Jacob’s neck, Sam kisses him softly on the shiny pate that unexpectedly reminds her of forgotten piggy back rides in the summer sun.
“Not this time, Dad,” she says.
And then she’s pulling away and tripping down the steps, the concrete cool and rough under her one bare foot, the surgical boot throwing off her gait. Evening sunlight is warm and tangible as it slides across Sam’s face and for the first time it doesn’t make her automatically think of fleeing along dried out creek beds.
She reaches to open the gate, but Jack’s hand stops her, covering hers on top of the fence.
“Reynolds did what he had to,” he says without preamble and Sam’s fingers tighten on the rough wood. “Torture isn’t the worst thing that can happen, watching others suffer is. It killed Reynolds to do that, but he’s a commander. It’s his job to be above emotions, to weigh the importance of one or two lives against the entire planet. It sounds cold, I know, but it’s necessary.”
Sam feels her chest constrict, but forces herself to stand stoically and listen to the softly spoken words.
“You asked me if I could do it, if I could stand there and watch them do that to you and the truth is I’m scared to death I couldn’t have. I have to put the big picture before everything else. I blew up a ship with Daniel still on it. I’ve ordered men on suicide missions. I have killed more people point blank than I would ever want you to know about. But seeing you huddled on that bridge...I might have screwed the entire planet just to get you out of there. That’s what is unforgivable.”
“Jack....”
“Reynolds did what he had to. I don’t ask you to understand or even forgive him, but at least respect how hard it was for him. He did the right thing.”
Sam closes her eyes briefly against rising emotion. “You came all this way to tell me this?”
He looks away, down the street where a couple of kids play in the quiet street. “I thought you deserved an answer.”
She does, she just never expected to get it.
“Sam?” a voice calls from the front porch and they both turn to see Elizabeth sitting in the doorway. “Invite that nice man in for some supper and quit making him stand in the street like some vagrant.”
“Would have been more polite to call rather than to just show up expecting food,” Jacob grumbles, but Elizabeth just rolls her eyes.
“I won’t take no for an answer,” she calls.
Sam takes a deep breath and tries her best not to look mortified, but when she finally looks back at Jack she finds him fighting a smile of amusement.
“You don’t have to subject yourself to this,” Sam says lowly, giving him an out, but even as she says it, she realizes she doesn’t want him to leave.
Jacks nods his head and begins to back away with what she really wants to believe is disappointment. “But I’d like it if you’d stay,” she blurts, refusing to let go of his hand.
He looks surprised. “You’re sure?”
Amazingly, for once she is. “Yes.”
“I’d be honored, ma’am,” Jack calls out over Sam’s shoulder with his most charming smile.
Jacob snorts and stomps back into the house after his wife.
“You’re one brave man, Jack O’Neill,” Sam observes as she finally pulls open the gate.
“Or stupid,” he mumbles, but his hand supports her arm and he deliberately slows his pace to match her limp as they start up the path.
“There’s a lot of that going around,” Sam observes.
* * *
Elizabeth watches Sam and the man slowly make their way up the front path, his hand carefully cradling her elbow.
She has been waiting for someone from her daughter’s life to appear for days, but she has to admit this man is not at all what she had expected. He’s a bit older than Sam, ruggedly handsome in his own way, but most importantly, Sam seems more settled walking there by his side than she has since she got here. Elizabeth just hopes the poor man knows what he’s walking into. Tense doesn’t really begin to describe the charged atmosphere of the house the last few days.
“This is Jack O’Neill,” Sam says when they finally make it inside. “Jack, my mother, Elizabeth, and my father, Jacob.”
Jacob offers an undoubtedly stiff handshake while Elizabeth smiles and easily works her way through the expected pleasantries. Jack, as it turns out, is not an unfamiliar name. Sam has never spoken of him, but it’s a name they’ve both heard as they sat together outside Sam’s door in the middle of the night. Glancing at Jacob, she knows he’s made the same connection.
“Jacob, would you pull out the nice plates, please?” Elizabeth asks, deciding that keeping him busy would be best for everyone involved.
Jack seems alarmed, though whether by the offer of nice plates or the increasingly unpleasant expression on Jacob’s face, she can’t be sure. “Please don’t go to any trouble on my account,” he says.
“Nonsense,” Elizabeth says. “We so rarely have guests.”
Jack sends a glance in Sam’s direction and she shrugs one shoulder, tilting her head to the side as if saying, ‘Just go with it.’
Interesting.
“So, Jack, what brings you out to our little corner of the world?” Elizabeth asks once they are all seated at the table, passing bowls and platters around.
“Sam and I work together out at NORAD,” he supplies. “I just wanted to see how she is doing.”
Elizabeth can see Jacob sizing the other man up as he passes the green beans. He’s been spoiling for a fight for days, too many nights with not enough sleep and only the company of two women not willing to give him the satisfaction of confrontation. Jack must look a lot like fresh meat to Jacob.
Elizabeth tries to catch Jacob’s eye, but he’s deliberately not looking in her direction.
“You don’t look like much of a scientist,” Jacob says.
“That would be because I’m not,” Jack replies with a neutral smile like he’s used to dealing with thinly veiled hostility.
“Jack is George’s second in command, Dad,” Sam says, not a small amount of exasperation leaking into her tone.
Jacob’s eyebrows fly up at that unexpected tidbit. Elizabeth is not without her own surprise. She never thought Sam would ever look twice at an officer, having more than enough reasons to hate the military institution, and there is no doubt in Elizabeth’s mind that Sam has done more than look at this man twice.
“Colonel Jack O’Neill,” Sam reiterates a moment later, probably hoping to shame her father into civility.
Jacob must take the hint because conversation boils down to neutral small talk for at least fifteen minutes. Jacob lets Elizabeth control the conversation, even though he spends a lot of time staring intently at his plate.
She should have known the strained pleasantries were too good to last.
Jacob starts innocuously at first, asking a few questions about the facility out in Colorado Springs, but he doesn’t get far, because Jack keeps smiling apologetically and saying “classified.” Jacob’s eyes narrow in annoyance, but he’s been at the other end of that line far too many times to say anything about it.
Elizabeth finds amusement in the observation that Jack and Jacob are quite a lot alike. She’s not sure anyone else would though. She interjects again, hoping to redirect the conversation, but Jacob seems to have finally reached the end of his patience.
Sam has given them little to no information about her injuries, her job, or to be honest, her life at all. Having George Hammond’s second in command at their mercy is probably more than Jacob can handle.
“Personally, I’m still trying to work out how my daughter got the crap beat out of her working on deep space radar telemetry,” Jacob says.
So much for pleasantries.
“Dad,” Sam admonishes.
“What?” Jacob counters. “I think it’s valid question.”
Jack, having been foolish enough to actually try to take a bite of his meal, seems to take an inordinately long time to chew. When he finally swallows, he speaks in a low, even voice. “Accidents happen, even when you least expect them.”
At first glance it seems a crudely cavalier statement, but Elizabeth notices the hard set of the man’s jaw that belies any indifference on his part. Predictably, such subtlety completely escapes her husband’s notice.
Jacob pokes his fork in Sam’s direction. “A busted leg, a broken face, and nightmares loud enough to raise the dead. You call that an accident?”
Sam, looking decidedly pale, thumps her hand on the table, her fingers twined in the fabric of her napkin. “That’s enough.”
She hasn’t raised her voice, but they all stare as if she has yelled.
“Sam-,” Jacob starts, tone heavy with indignation.
“No,” Sam snaps, cutting him off. “He saved my life, Dad. He’s saved the entire-.” She stops talking abruptly as if she’s almost said too much, her eyes darting to Jack. He’s gone completely still, watching her with that look again, the one that has all of Elizabeth’s alarms ringing.
Sam releases her death grip on the napkin and smoothes it across her lap with deliberate motions. “He saved my life,” she repeats, now staring at her plate. “That’s all you need to know.”
Elizabeth and Jacob look across the table at each other in shock. Elizabeth is horrified to hear that Sam’s experience had been that much of a close call. What was she doing that her life needed saving in the first place?
“You saved yourself, Sam,” Jack says, staring hard at her until she finally meets his gaze across the table. “I just gave you a ride home.”
Elizabeth is amazed to see Sam huff in amusement, the ghost of a smile on her lips, the first she’s seen on her daughter’s face since she showed up so abruptly the week before. The sadness still lingers around her eyes, but for the first time Elizabeth lets herself believe that Sam will overcome this.
Sam and Jack are still regarding each other across the table. Elizabeth knows that Jacob probably only has an inch or so left on his tether, so she claps her hands together with a smile.
“Who’s ready for dessert?”
Dessert progresses slightly better than dinner, mainly because Jacob has left himself without a leg to stand on and sits in thoughtful silence. Elizabeth fills the awkward silence as best she can, but is not surprised when Jack turns down her offer of coffee or a second helping of dessert. Smart man.
Sam follows Jack out the front door, walking him out to the gate.
Setting Jacob to the dishes, Elizabeth pushes outside to watch Sam and Jack talk to each other from the darkness of the front porch, their body language screaming the details neither had been willing to give. Sam’s arms are folded tightly across her chest as she looks at her feet, listening, but then she smiles abruptly, canting her head to one side. The way she looks up at Jack in that moment makes Elizabeth feel like a voyeur.
Jack, for his part, seems to be doing his best not to touch Sam, but, as he has all evening, watches her closely as if looking for clues to some puzzle he hasn’t quite worked out. When they finally say their goodnights, the gate carefully shut between them, Jack sends a small salute in Elizabeth’s direction, letting her know he’s been aware of her scrutiny.
Elizabeth smiles and waves in farewell.
“Is he coming back tomorrow?” she asks when Sam reaches the steps.
Sam pauses, looking back in the direction Jack has just disappeared into. “Yes.”
Good, they haven’t managed to run him off completely, then. “How long have you two been seeing each other?”
“We’re not,” Sam says a little too quickly.
Elizabeth gives her a look of disbelief.
Sighing in defeat, Sam collapses into a nearby chair. “We were...something. But not anymore.”
“Doesn’t seem like it,” she says.
“Did you ever get an announcement from Jeff?” Sam asks abruptly, and Elizabeth isn’t sure whether this is a change of subject or not.
“A girl,” Elizabeth quietly confirms.
Sam closes her eyes, letting her head fall back against the siding.
Elizabeth has done nothing but give Sam space since she came back, but she’s been pushing them out of her life for over four years now and Elizabeth has no intention of letting this moment slide by. “There are lots of things I would love to have sheltered you from, Sam…but losing the baby… it was tragic and horrible and I can only even imagine, but you can’t let it define you. Don’t let it dictate your life.”
“I have no idea how to do that,” Sam says, wearily rubbing at her shoulder.
“Well, I think you’ve found someone willing to help.”
Sam lets out a huff of disbelief or maybe just self-deprecation. Elizabeth can’t quite tell anymore, she just knows she’s getting tired of both. “He loves you. Even I can see that much.”
Sam looks almost comically startled by the proclamation, as if she has never let herself consider it, but close on its heels is what Elizabeth can only call panic. “He’s not...Jeff.”
“Does he need to be?”
“No. Yes. God, I don’t know.”
Elizabeth watches Sam’s fingers pick at the caning on her chair in frustration. “You are so like your father, no matter how hard you try not to be. You need to learn that you don’t have to live in absolutes.”
Sam stills completely at her words, letting Elizabeth know she’s struck pretty close to something vital.
“Maybe it’s time to consider that this is who you were meant to be all along,” Elizabeth observes. She doesn’t say anything else, knowing that Sam, like her father, could never be pushed. She’s a smart girl, though, and Elizabeth has every confidence that she’ll work it out eventually.
They sit together, listening to the wind sweeping in off the harbor and the warbling response of frogs calling to each other in the dark.
“I miss him,” Sam confesses so quietly that her voice nearly gets lost in the evening song.
"Jeff?" Elizabeth asks.
Sam takes a breath. "No."
Elizabeth reaches over and runs her fingers through her daughter’s hair. “I’d say that’s a pretty good place to start.”
next
More String Theory: An AU Series
Dr. Samantha Carter joins the SGC and discovers a life she never expected.
Action/Adventure, Drama, Angst, Romance, S/J
Teen: language and violence
Ficlet 34-Lay Down Your Burdens
Jack is shuffling his feet just outside the gate, hands shoved deep in his pockets as if waiting for an invitation he’s not sure is ever coming. Even from across the spreading distance of the front lawn and her mother’s gauzy curtains, Sam can tell he’s agitated and trying his damnedest not to show it.
Jacob sits on the porch, staring hard at Jack, not moving to make the man feel any less uncomfortable.
Sam pushes out onto the porch, pausing by her father.
“Want me to get rid of him?” Jacob offers a little too eagerly.
It’s tempting because everything that pushed her to walk away from Jack in the first place is still there, rooting her feet to the wood planks of her parent’s house. But looking at him standing there makes her skin feel just a little less brittle somehow.
Jack shifts then, as if aware of her presence, his eyes latching onto her. He carefully looks her up and down, lingering on each injury, even the hidden ones, and she has to wonder if he’s memorized her medical reports.
Leaning over and threading her arms around Jacob’s neck, Sam kisses him softly on the shiny pate that unexpectedly reminds her of forgotten piggy back rides in the summer sun.
“Not this time, Dad,” she says.
And then she’s pulling away and tripping down the steps, the concrete cool and rough under her one bare foot, the surgical boot throwing off her gait. Evening sunlight is warm and tangible as it slides across Sam’s face and for the first time it doesn’t make her automatically think of fleeing along dried out creek beds.
She reaches to open the gate, but Jack’s hand stops her, covering hers on top of the fence.
“Reynolds did what he had to,” he says without preamble and Sam’s fingers tighten on the rough wood. “Torture isn’t the worst thing that can happen, watching others suffer is. It killed Reynolds to do that, but he’s a commander. It’s his job to be above emotions, to weigh the importance of one or two lives against the entire planet. It sounds cold, I know, but it’s necessary.”
Sam feels her chest constrict, but forces herself to stand stoically and listen to the softly spoken words.
“You asked me if I could do it, if I could stand there and watch them do that to you and the truth is I’m scared to death I couldn’t have. I have to put the big picture before everything else. I blew up a ship with Daniel still on it. I’ve ordered men on suicide missions. I have killed more people point blank than I would ever want you to know about. But seeing you huddled on that bridge...I might have screwed the entire planet just to get you out of there. That’s what is unforgivable.”
“Jack....”
“Reynolds did what he had to. I don’t ask you to understand or even forgive him, but at least respect how hard it was for him. He did the right thing.”
Sam closes her eyes briefly against rising emotion. “You came all this way to tell me this?”
He looks away, down the street where a couple of kids play in the quiet street. “I thought you deserved an answer.”
She does, she just never expected to get it.
“Sam?” a voice calls from the front porch and they both turn to see Elizabeth sitting in the doorway. “Invite that nice man in for some supper and quit making him stand in the street like some vagrant.”
“Would have been more polite to call rather than to just show up expecting food,” Jacob grumbles, but Elizabeth just rolls her eyes.
“I won’t take no for an answer,” she calls.
Sam takes a deep breath and tries her best not to look mortified, but when she finally looks back at Jack she finds him fighting a smile of amusement.
“You don’t have to subject yourself to this,” Sam says lowly, giving him an out, but even as she says it, she realizes she doesn’t want him to leave.
Jacks nods his head and begins to back away with what she really wants to believe is disappointment. “But I’d like it if you’d stay,” she blurts, refusing to let go of his hand.
He looks surprised. “You’re sure?”
Amazingly, for once she is. “Yes.”
“I’d be honored, ma’am,” Jack calls out over Sam’s shoulder with his most charming smile.
Jacob snorts and stomps back into the house after his wife.
“You’re one brave man, Jack O’Neill,” Sam observes as she finally pulls open the gate.
“Or stupid,” he mumbles, but his hand supports her arm and he deliberately slows his pace to match her limp as they start up the path.
“There’s a lot of that going around,” Sam observes.
* * *
Elizabeth watches Sam and the man slowly make their way up the front path, his hand carefully cradling her elbow.
She has been waiting for someone from her daughter’s life to appear for days, but she has to admit this man is not at all what she had expected. He’s a bit older than Sam, ruggedly handsome in his own way, but most importantly, Sam seems more settled walking there by his side than she has since she got here. Elizabeth just hopes the poor man knows what he’s walking into. Tense doesn’t really begin to describe the charged atmosphere of the house the last few days.
“This is Jack O’Neill,” Sam says when they finally make it inside. “Jack, my mother, Elizabeth, and my father, Jacob.”
Jacob offers an undoubtedly stiff handshake while Elizabeth smiles and easily works her way through the expected pleasantries. Jack, as it turns out, is not an unfamiliar name. Sam has never spoken of him, but it’s a name they’ve both heard as they sat together outside Sam’s door in the middle of the night. Glancing at Jacob, she knows he’s made the same connection.
“Jacob, would you pull out the nice plates, please?” Elizabeth asks, deciding that keeping him busy would be best for everyone involved.
Jack seems alarmed, though whether by the offer of nice plates or the increasingly unpleasant expression on Jacob’s face, she can’t be sure. “Please don’t go to any trouble on my account,” he says.
“Nonsense,” Elizabeth says. “We so rarely have guests.”
Jack sends a glance in Sam’s direction and she shrugs one shoulder, tilting her head to the side as if saying, ‘Just go with it.’
Interesting.
“So, Jack, what brings you out to our little corner of the world?” Elizabeth asks once they are all seated at the table, passing bowls and platters around.
“Sam and I work together out at NORAD,” he supplies. “I just wanted to see how she is doing.”
Elizabeth can see Jacob sizing the other man up as he passes the green beans. He’s been spoiling for a fight for days, too many nights with not enough sleep and only the company of two women not willing to give him the satisfaction of confrontation. Jack must look a lot like fresh meat to Jacob.
Elizabeth tries to catch Jacob’s eye, but he’s deliberately not looking in her direction.
“You don’t look like much of a scientist,” Jacob says.
“That would be because I’m not,” Jack replies with a neutral smile like he’s used to dealing with thinly veiled hostility.
“Jack is George’s second in command, Dad,” Sam says, not a small amount of exasperation leaking into her tone.
Jacob’s eyebrows fly up at that unexpected tidbit. Elizabeth is not without her own surprise. She never thought Sam would ever look twice at an officer, having more than enough reasons to hate the military institution, and there is no doubt in Elizabeth’s mind that Sam has done more than look at this man twice.
“Colonel Jack O’Neill,” Sam reiterates a moment later, probably hoping to shame her father into civility.
Jacob must take the hint because conversation boils down to neutral small talk for at least fifteen minutes. Jacob lets Elizabeth control the conversation, even though he spends a lot of time staring intently at his plate.
She should have known the strained pleasantries were too good to last.
Jacob starts innocuously at first, asking a few questions about the facility out in Colorado Springs, but he doesn’t get far, because Jack keeps smiling apologetically and saying “classified.” Jacob’s eyes narrow in annoyance, but he’s been at the other end of that line far too many times to say anything about it.
Elizabeth finds amusement in the observation that Jack and Jacob are quite a lot alike. She’s not sure anyone else would though. She interjects again, hoping to redirect the conversation, but Jacob seems to have finally reached the end of his patience.
Sam has given them little to no information about her injuries, her job, or to be honest, her life at all. Having George Hammond’s second in command at their mercy is probably more than Jacob can handle.
“Personally, I’m still trying to work out how my daughter got the crap beat out of her working on deep space radar telemetry,” Jacob says.
So much for pleasantries.
“Dad,” Sam admonishes.
“What?” Jacob counters. “I think it’s valid question.”
Jack, having been foolish enough to actually try to take a bite of his meal, seems to take an inordinately long time to chew. When he finally swallows, he speaks in a low, even voice. “Accidents happen, even when you least expect them.”
At first glance it seems a crudely cavalier statement, but Elizabeth notices the hard set of the man’s jaw that belies any indifference on his part. Predictably, such subtlety completely escapes her husband’s notice.
Jacob pokes his fork in Sam’s direction. “A busted leg, a broken face, and nightmares loud enough to raise the dead. You call that an accident?”
Sam, looking decidedly pale, thumps her hand on the table, her fingers twined in the fabric of her napkin. “That’s enough.”
She hasn’t raised her voice, but they all stare as if she has yelled.
“Sam-,” Jacob starts, tone heavy with indignation.
“No,” Sam snaps, cutting him off. “He saved my life, Dad. He’s saved the entire-.” She stops talking abruptly as if she’s almost said too much, her eyes darting to Jack. He’s gone completely still, watching her with that look again, the one that has all of Elizabeth’s alarms ringing.
Sam releases her death grip on the napkin and smoothes it across her lap with deliberate motions. “He saved my life,” she repeats, now staring at her plate. “That’s all you need to know.”
Elizabeth and Jacob look across the table at each other in shock. Elizabeth is horrified to hear that Sam’s experience had been that much of a close call. What was she doing that her life needed saving in the first place?
“You saved yourself, Sam,” Jack says, staring hard at her until she finally meets his gaze across the table. “I just gave you a ride home.”
Elizabeth is amazed to see Sam huff in amusement, the ghost of a smile on her lips, the first she’s seen on her daughter’s face since she showed up so abruptly the week before. The sadness still lingers around her eyes, but for the first time Elizabeth lets herself believe that Sam will overcome this.
Sam and Jack are still regarding each other across the table. Elizabeth knows that Jacob probably only has an inch or so left on his tether, so she claps her hands together with a smile.
“Who’s ready for dessert?”
Dessert progresses slightly better than dinner, mainly because Jacob has left himself without a leg to stand on and sits in thoughtful silence. Elizabeth fills the awkward silence as best she can, but is not surprised when Jack turns down her offer of coffee or a second helping of dessert. Smart man.
Sam follows Jack out the front door, walking him out to the gate.
Setting Jacob to the dishes, Elizabeth pushes outside to watch Sam and Jack talk to each other from the darkness of the front porch, their body language screaming the details neither had been willing to give. Sam’s arms are folded tightly across her chest as she looks at her feet, listening, but then she smiles abruptly, canting her head to one side. The way she looks up at Jack in that moment makes Elizabeth feel like a voyeur.
Jack, for his part, seems to be doing his best not to touch Sam, but, as he has all evening, watches her closely as if looking for clues to some puzzle he hasn’t quite worked out. When they finally say their goodnights, the gate carefully shut between them, Jack sends a small salute in Elizabeth’s direction, letting her know he’s been aware of her scrutiny.
Elizabeth smiles and waves in farewell.
“Is he coming back tomorrow?” she asks when Sam reaches the steps.
Sam pauses, looking back in the direction Jack has just disappeared into. “Yes.”
Good, they haven’t managed to run him off completely, then. “How long have you two been seeing each other?”
“We’re not,” Sam says a little too quickly.
Elizabeth gives her a look of disbelief.
Sighing in defeat, Sam collapses into a nearby chair. “We were...something. But not anymore.”
“Doesn’t seem like it,” she says.
“Did you ever get an announcement from Jeff?” Sam asks abruptly, and Elizabeth isn’t sure whether this is a change of subject or not.
“A girl,” Elizabeth quietly confirms.
Sam closes her eyes, letting her head fall back against the siding.
Elizabeth has done nothing but give Sam space since she came back, but she’s been pushing them out of her life for over four years now and Elizabeth has no intention of letting this moment slide by. “There are lots of things I would love to have sheltered you from, Sam…but losing the baby… it was tragic and horrible and I can only even imagine, but you can’t let it define you. Don’t let it dictate your life.”
“I have no idea how to do that,” Sam says, wearily rubbing at her shoulder.
“Well, I think you’ve found someone willing to help.”
Sam lets out a huff of disbelief or maybe just self-deprecation. Elizabeth can’t quite tell anymore, she just knows she’s getting tired of both. “He loves you. Even I can see that much.”
Sam looks almost comically startled by the proclamation, as if she has never let herself consider it, but close on its heels is what Elizabeth can only call panic. “He’s not...Jeff.”
“Does he need to be?”
“No. Yes. God, I don’t know.”
Elizabeth watches Sam’s fingers pick at the caning on her chair in frustration. “You are so like your father, no matter how hard you try not to be. You need to learn that you don’t have to live in absolutes.”
Sam stills completely at her words, letting Elizabeth know she’s struck pretty close to something vital.
“Maybe it’s time to consider that this is who you were meant to be all along,” Elizabeth observes. She doesn’t say anything else, knowing that Sam, like her father, could never be pushed. She’s a smart girl, though, and Elizabeth has every confidence that she’ll work it out eventually.
They sit together, listening to the wind sweeping in off the harbor and the warbling response of frogs calling to each other in the dark.
“I miss him,” Sam confesses so quietly that her voice nearly gets lost in the evening song.
"Jeff?" Elizabeth asks.
Sam takes a breath. "No."
Elizabeth reaches over and runs her fingers through her daughter’s hair. “I’d say that’s a pretty good place to start.”
next