After the Pulitzer
August 1998
Stallions Gate, NM
Al walked the halls slowly. He had nowhere to be, nothing to accomplish: for once, there was no rush, no emergency that would leave him barreling through the halls at breakneck speed. The heels of his white shoes squeaked rather than clicked through the empty hallway.
His pace lessened even more as he neared his destination, a subconscious reluctance making itself felt. He wandered into Sam's office as if he had happened upon it unintentionally and closed the door softly behind himself. He barely noticed the quiet hum of ventilation, or the faint flickering as the lights came on in a room that was hardly ever occupied. He crossed in front of the desk, eyeing diplomas, awards…and photographs.
There was a particularly prominent photo of Sam and Tom that Al knew for a fact hadn't been there a few hours prior. He loosened the top buttons of his dress whites, the metals clinking lightly in the silence and leaned in to study the photograph, seeing it for the first time and noticing new detail he'd never registered before, both at the same time.
The glasses he held in his left hand ground softly against each other as he thought back to 1970. To April the eighth. Had he ever even known how close he'd been? To release, to freedom from pain? To rescue?
And what would it have mattered? Beth was already gone.
He turned away abruptly and set the glasses and their accompanying bottle down sharply. He sat in the leather chair facing the counterpart on Sam's side and leaned forward to pour two fingers of the amber liquid in each glass. Sam's chair remained stubbornly empty.
He reclined slowly in his chair, propping his feet on the corner of the polished mahogany, sparing a thought to all the times Sam had scolded him for the act. The ghost of a smile on his lips was fleeting. He raised a glass. "To Tom. You did it, Sam." The admiral drained half his glass in one swallow and leaned further back, testing the limits of the chair.
"You could have been free…"
Yes, Beth had already left him, found her own happiness. He'd lived through it already, he'd known he could. It was his own fault that Beth had left. He hadn't put her first in his life. He hadn't loved her as she deserved to be loved.
He sipped at the remaining liquid, trying to delay the moment he would have to sit forward and catch a glimpse of that picture as he refilled the glass.
Sam had been right about Beth. It wasn't meant to be. He was right not to keep trying: all it did was increase the level of torture she was dealing with. He was right. Sam was always right.
"Why can I save strangers and not the people I love?"
"I don't know, Sam."
Al blinked. He stared at his shoes, at the small smudge of white shoe polish that now marred the corner of the desk. He stared at the glass. He endeavored not to think.
Sam was the Original Boy Scout and he always did what he was supposed to do. He'd been able to save Tom because it was how things were supposed to be. His brother was supposed to live, marry, go on to have three kids and a small house in the suburbs. Beth was supposed to go and marry Dirk and have a wonderful life and be happy.
"…not the people I love?"
Sam had been a damn good friend for a long time. They'd lived through life and death situations together and Sam depended on him a very real way now. He depended on Al for sanity and continuity. Sam was a good man and Al knew the bonds of friendship between them were strong, perhaps unbreakable. Sam loved the people around him with fervor and his friends and family he loved all the more strongly.
Al knew that Sam could have saved him, twice, but it wasn't fair to place that on the scientist's shoulders. He could have saved his marriage, could have given him a lifetime of happiness, maybe even kids, instead of a string of broken relationships. He could have saved Lieutenant Calavicci years in captivity. He wanted to save the people he loved – he could have saved Al.
But Al knew that Sam. Was. Right. And, anyway, he didn't even know about Al in Vietnam.
Al leaned forward. This self-indulgence was ridiculous. He poured more into his empty glass, carefully avoiding Sam's untouched drink with his gaze.
They put a lot of stock in "meant to be", Sam and Al did. It controlled their lives, drove their every action.
Al's eyes moved, almost against his will, to the picture of Sam and Donna. He had changed that, too, despite Ziggy's predictions about what he was there for, despite the odds it would work at all. Sam had gotten his wife back.
"It wasn't meant to be."
"Yeah, well…this is different."
"What's different - ?"
Al emptied the glass and stood. The room was still eerily still and silent. He reached across the desk and picked up Sam's glass, studying the liquid with greater intensity than it warranted.
God, he still missed Beth.
"Yeah, well…this is different."
"What's different – the only thing that's different is because this time, it affects you!"
Al's knuckles turned white against the crystal. He'd been there every day. Every damn day with Sam, doing what he had to do. He'd forsaken a life of his own long ago. He moved into the project, took over all the duties Sam had left behind. Days off were a fantasy. An existence beyond the wall of the project was unrealistic.
"…this time, it affects you!"
"Exactly."
Al threw the glass. The shattering of the heavy crystal against Sam's bookcase broke the somber silence as the sound echoed off the walls. Just as quickly, all was still again except for the sounds of the alcohol dripping off book shelves, onto the pictures, onto the carpet.
Al turned on his heel and left the room.
© 2009 by Ann Marie K. Marvin