Chapter 20
The next thing that came into Sam’s line of vision was a swaying tree. In a start, he realised he was looking out of a window. He sat in a chair, in a room scattered with fellow patients.
He inspected his wrists, which appeared intact, but they did still hurt, as if they had just been sliced open.
God, what’s happening to me? Am I dying? Am I still in that room in my death throes?
Sam’s mind was running at a mile a minute, but his thoughts were scattered; erratic. Frightened. Of death. Of life. Of being trapped in this fever dream for good.
Your fault.
That voice. Sam Beiderman’s voice, he could only assume. Why was it speaking to him?
Sam felt like he was being pulled into insanity with the man. Maybe that had been his intent all along. Maybe it was his ghost doing all of this, dragging him through time to fade away alongside him as punishment.
And maybe he deserved it.
What if he was Sam Beiderman, just suffering a complete delusion? Maybe he was just a fabrication in the man’s sick mind…
Oh, don’t go down that road. He banished the thought. People were out there trying to get him home, he reminded himself. He was wanted. He was real.
“Alright Tibby, say goodbye to your friends.”
Sam glanced over to the door, and there he was—Tibby was older now. A little more mature in the face, but his eyes were still young. And when they met his, they popped wide open.
Tibby weaved around the other patients, crossing over to Sam with excitement.
“Holy smokes, I never thought you’d come back. You sure did get old…” He cocked his head and lowered his voice. “Are you a he or a she this time?”
Sam shot a quick glance at the door, where a doctor—Freddie? I remember a Freddie…—was looking down at his watch.
“It’s good to see you’re well, Tibby,” he said quietly, standing and manoeuvring the pair of them out of Freddie’s line of sight. “And… uh… I’m a ‘he.’ Just call me Sam, okay?”
“What are you here for now? You don’t need to help me, you know. I’m gettin’ out of this place today—and I even have a job starting Monday!” He grinned. “If you see Ben, tell him he was a good help with my reading.”
Sam grabbed Tibby by the arm. “You met Ben? When?”
“Oh, long time ago now,” said Tibby, scratching at his head. “Nineteen fifty… um… six? Only for a day.”
“And you never saw him again?”
“Nope.”
Sam paced a few steps. “So,” he reasoned, “he’s more stable than me. Which means he can be pinpointed. I need to somehow get a message to Janis…”
He smiled at Tibby. “I’m really happy you’re getting out of here. And… maybe Ben and I can find some way to help Sam Beiderman get out of here too.” He lowered his head. “I just need to figure out how. If I’m jumping around within his life like this, there’s got to be some way to help. But how do I get through to the future?”
“Pity they stopped taking Mister Beiderman for the movie sessions,” Tibby said.
“Movie sessions?”
“Yeah! They used to have this movie camera, see…” Tibby began to pantomime his description. “And they’d point it at him and ask him all these boring questions; like his name, what the date was, things like that. They keep movies a long time, don’t they? I seen ones from the 1920s, you know. Before I was even born.”
Well, if it was true that the personality of ‘Sam Beckett’ had come out intermittently during Beiderman’s time here, it was becoming more and more likely that it had been him all along, finding himself pulled into different time periods at random.
And should he find himself in front of a film camera—well, he’d have to take the opportunity.
“Thank you, Tibby,” he said earnestly. “You may have just saved my life.”
Tibby looked back at him blankly. “How?”
“Never mind,” Sam said with a chuckle. “Now, you go on and make a good life for yourself, okay? Make Al proud.”
“I will, Sam.” Tibby wrapped his pinky finger around Sam’s. “Promise!”
The next time Sam blinked, the world changed again.
* * *
“Here you are, Mister Beiderman.” The orderly picked up the earpiece of the old rotary telephone on the wall and handed it to Ben as he dialled the number. “Try to keep your drool off the mouthpiece.”
That was uncalled for.
The phone looked old even for the fifties, lacking a two-in-one handset—the microphone was built into the box, so Ben would have to stand against it during his conversation.
Finishing the dial, the orderly stepped away, but kept his eyes on Ben across the corridor.
Well, here goes nothing, he thought as the line connected.
“Hello?”
“Hi… Barbara?”
“Sam… I didn’t expect a call from you.”
Ben licked his lips, mustering up all his charm. “Listen, I… just wanted to say how much I miss you and I—”
“Sam… please don’t make this harder than it already is.”
Ben winced. “Barbara, can we talk this out? Please. Just give me a chance.”
“I gave you a chance, Sam. Don’t you understand? It’s been more than two years, and you’ve only gotten worse. I can’t live like this, just waiting for you. I have to move on.”
It was at that moment, Addison appeared in front of Ben, and the look in her eyes gave him the words to continue.
“I know it’s hard waiting for someone who may never come home, and I’m so sorry. But I can’t do this without you. If there’s any chance I’m ever getting out of here, it’s with you by my side, helping me. Being someone I can lean on. It’s gonna be hard, I know. But I promise—if you can just hang on while I need you the most, I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”
Addison gave him a perplexed look. “Are you talking to me, or her?”
Ben gave her a knowing look.
“Sam… you haven’t spoken so eloquently in years…” Barbara’s voice was choked with emotion.
“Barbara, I just need a little time,” Ben continued. “Please don’t leave me.” He locked eyes with Addison. “I love you.”
He didn’t know whether his speech had affected Barbara; she was silent. But Addison was blinking back tears.
A moment later, Barbara finally responded.
“It was never that I stopped loving you, Sam. I do. But you’ve become a different person.”
“Well, you’re not wrong,” Ben admitted. “Being trapped in this place… it takes its toll. Not being able to touch you, wake up to you… having to talk to you long distance like this…” He was, once again, looking directly at Addison.
“…Tell me how to help you, Sam,” Barbara murmured.
“Stand with me. Fight for me. Don’t give up on me. And most of all, try to understand what I’m going through. I know it’s hard from the outside, but depression is a disease, Barbara. And it’s one that’s a lot harder to fight alone.”
“Let… let me think about it, okay?” Barbara said hastily.
“Okay,” Ben said, eyes closing as the line went dead.
“That was beautiful,” Addison remarked as he hung up the earpiece. “And it improved Sam Beiderman’s odds of survival by…” she swiped at the handlink, “thirty-seven percent.”
“That’s not enough,” Ben said under his breath.
“Well, Ziggy’s got a few extra tweaks you could make to improve the odds.”
“Go ahead…”