Chapter 12
Reeling from the alarming information Donna had just confirmed, Sam placed down his cup, scooting his chair out and rising to his feet.
“Um, would you excuse me? I gotta… take a breather.”
Missus Augustine, who Sam now recognised as a much older Sammy Jo Fuller, looked up at him with surprise. “Was it something I said?”
Sam didn’t take the time to respond, instead shuffling away from her, through the crowds, and out of the cafe. In his periphery, he sensed Donna following, and as soon as he found a quiet spot outside by the beach, he turned to her, glaring.
“Was there a reason nobody thought to tell me I’d leaped into my own granddaughter?” he hissed. “Never mind that I had one to begin with?”
Donna looked on the brink of tears. “I’m sorry, Sam. I was going to tell you, I just didn’t think it would come up… like this. Samantha lives hours away, I never realised you’d get her up here so soon, or at all.”
Sam dragged a hand down his face. “Okay. Okay, I just need a moment to adjust to all of this.” He paced a few times, breathing in and out, before turning back to Donna. “How much do you know about this… family tiff?”
“She and Addison had a blow-up years ago, when Addison joined the new project—so I heard anyway,” explained Donna. “I wasn’t kept in the loop very much, you understand, since I was in Hawaii. The last time I saw Samantha was the day they shut down the Stallions Gate complex, twenty years ago.” Donna shook her head. “And I never even met Addison. When Samantha worked for us, she lived off-base and kept her private life private. Yesterday was the first time I’d seen her in person, and it was you.”
“When did Sammy Jo find out about me?” Sam asked. “Being her father, I mean?”
“I don’t know, Sam,” Donna said. “As far as I knew, she never found that out. But she’s always been very intelligent. It’s not impossible that she connected the dots and then got confirmation from Al or Magic.”
Sam breathed out heavily through his nose, trying to keep his blood pressure down. “Alright. There’s nothing I can do about not knowing all this earlier, but now I can go back in and talk to her, finally being able to understand what we’re talking about.” He swallowed, looking into Donna’s glistening eyes. “You… really need to stop keeping secrets from me, Donna. Please.”
“Sorry, Sam,” she said shakily. “I just didn’t want you to lose sight of your goal here.”
“And you didn’t think that maybe that kind of information could be essential to my goal?”
Her gaze dropped away from him. “I screwed up.”
Sam’s heart broke as he watched tears roll down her cheeks. Had he been too harsh?
“Donna, I still love you, okay?” he said softly, wishing he could put a hand to her holographic cheek. “Did I tell you before how great it is to see your face?”
Donna smiled weakly. “You did. And through the Imaging Chamber, I can see yours now.”
“You can?”
“For the first time in decades.” She reached out a semitransparent hand to his face. “You sure have aged. I know I should have expected it, but… seeing you like this just makes me think about all the time we missed out on.”
Sam looked downward. “Yeah, well… not every story has a happy ending.” He shook his head. “I need to get back to Sammy Jo…”
Sam turned around, looking back to the cafe building, and was about to stride towards it when a figure stepped out from behind a thick palm tree trunk.
“I’m right here,” she said, her face neutral. “And I heard the whole thing… Dad.”
It was at this moment that Addison’s phone started vibrating in his pocket. He ignored it, his attention laser-focused on Sammy Jo.
“I don’t know what you think you heard, but—”
“Oh, come on,” she said, flattening her lips. “You think I don’t recognise the obvious actions of someone who needs to consult their hologram?”
Sam dropped his act. It was clear there was no getting out of this now.
“And to find out it was Donna—boy, that was a curve ball!” Samantha continued. “How is she doing these days? I imagine she doesn’t want to think much about the illegitimate child you conceived with someone else while leaping, right?”
Despite her bravado, Sam could see her face slowly growing less composed, and traces of tears were forming at the edges of her eyes.
“Sammy Jo…” Sam said gently. “I—”
“And here I thought my daughter was finally ready to talk to me after six long years…” She sat herself down on the grass, burying her head in her knees.
At that moment, Sam realised just how much damage his actions had caused. Between Donna and Sammy Jo, and now Addison, his fingerprints were all over this heartache.
It wasn’t that he regretted bringing Sammy Jo into existence, but he sure regretted the way he’d done it; especially leaving her to grow up without a Dad.
He lowered himself to the ground, taking a seat beside her. Donna watched them, hand over her mouth, unable to speak.
“Sammy Jo…” Sam said, gently placing an arm around her shoulders. “I don’t… I don’t know how to even start, except to say I’m sorry for everything.”
She didn’t look up. “I know you are. Of course you are. You’re the ultimate ‘good guy’—everyone tells me so. Sam the superhero.”
“I’m just human,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ve made lots of mistakes. Just because I can fix other people’s problems doesn’t mean I can fix my own.” He stroked her hair. “But I’m just happy that you had a good life, despite the problems I burdened you with.”
“A good life, huh?” Sammy Jo looked up with a sceptical expression. “Sure. That’s why my daughter disowned me…”
“Last I heard, you were a brilliant quantum physicist working for the Project,” Sam said. “And you’d been working on a way to get me home.”
“And you see how well that worked out,” Sammy Jo said wryly. “I was useless. Years of work trying to fix the retrieval, and it never did a thing.” She gestured to Sam. “Case in point. It’s been twenty years since the original project was shuttered, and you’re still leaping even now. Some genius I turned out to be.” She laughed bitterly. “Then when they started up this new project, Magic offered me a job. Said they’d make sure it was working perfectly before anybody else leaped. I said to him if I couldn’t get the retrieval functioning after all that time, what chance did I really have figuring it out now?”
Sam watched her speak, her lower lip quivering. She was barely holding back sobs.
“Sammy Jo, it wasn’t your fault I never came home,” he said in a soothing tone. “I chose not to. You could have made a perfect retrieval algorithm—heck, I bet you even did—but the thing is, I didn’t want to go home. And that’s what it all boils down to, I think. It’ll only ever work if a leaper is truly ready to come home. And somewhere deep down, I never was ready, because what I was doing was… special. It was something I couldn’t do back in my own time, resting on my laurels.”
He realised in that moment that perhaps Ben had a subconscious need to keep helping people, just like him.
And he also realised that he was ready now. Seeing what his absence was doing to the people close to him. What it had done to Al.
He just ached to come back to them, in his own skin, and set it right.
And retire.
“So, you see,” Sam concluded, “you never failed. Nobody could have brought me home until I decided it was time. And I suspect it would have been the same with Addison. So, even if she had ended up leaping forever, it would only have been because deep down, she wanted it that way.”
“I didn’t know,” Sammy Jo murmured. “All this time… I thought… I thought I let you down, Sam.”
“You couldn’t let me down if you tried, Samantha Josephine.”
He squeezed her shoulders, and she let her head fall on his shoulder.
“You know,” she said quietly, “you should really answer that phone. It’s been ringing non-stop throughout this conversation.”
A sudden realisation gripped Sam—Ben! He grabbed the phone out of his pocket and answered.
“Sam! Oh my god, why haven’t you been answering?!” Ian’s urgent voice cried as the line connected.
“I’m sorry, Ian. Family—uh, emergency. What’s goin’ on?”
“Oh, just Stepford Wife Cartwright threatening the news anchor with a gun,” they replied, a manic sarcasm dripping from their words. “No biggie, I’m sure we can wait around a while longer during the hostage situation. Please get back here!”
“I’ll be there real soon, Ian. Don’t let Ben confront her directly, okay?”
“Okay, Sam.”
The line went dead, and Sam looked between his wife and daughter, eyes wide.
“Uh, I need to go.”
“Something happening with Ben?” asked Sammy Jo.
Sam nodded. He didn’t want to just leave her here. “Will you come with me?”
She bit her lip. “I don’t think I’m welcome there.”
“Well, I’d like to think I have enough clout to get you inside just this once.” He took her by the hand. “Come on.”