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"There's no weakness in forgiveness" - Tami, Friday Night Lights

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Chapter 53

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Sam pulled her sweater close as she and Martin walked down the street, headed back to their hotel after a quiet dinner at La Pomme Rouge. She didn't have much of an appetite but it felt good to be someplace that offered her some distraction even if only for a little while. A slow breeze whipped around them and Martin stepped closer to her, silently taking her hand in his.

After she heard her father tell the passengers that he didn't have any children she found herself overcome with emotion. While the rational side of her brain knew that he most likely had been telling people that for years, saying you do not have children is easier than saying you do and than having to explain why you don't see them. But the emotional side of her brain felt like that six-year old girl whose father walked out on her again, making her feel rejected and unloved.

As soon as the tour ended, instead of taking her father aside and introducing herself as she had planned, she bolted off the boat before Martin even had a chance to try and talk her out of it.

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She rushed down the ramp and off the boat, glancing back long enough to see that some of the other passengers had taken Max aside to compliment him as a tour guide and even pose for a few pictures. He grinned broadly at the camera, the center of a family vacation photo. The very type of photo that she never got to take with him growing up but here he was, happily participating in the memories of someone else's children. She found herself getting angrier and angrier at him, her grief from earlier rapidly morphed into fury.

Unable to take it a moment longer she took the steps back up the city street two at a time and started walking down the sidewalk when Martin finally caught up with her. He grabbed her arm, saying, "Whoa, slow down would you?"

She finally stopped and spun around to look at him. "I just need to get away from this place," she started walking backwards, pulling on his sleeves, urging him to go along with her, "Let's just get out of here, please?"

He sighed, looking like he wanted to talk her out of it but saw that she wasn't in any position to be negotiated with so he nodded and got in step alongside her.

She took long strides, deftly maneuvering around people walking in the opposite direction or just too darn slow for her liking. With her blood racing she turned to him and said, "You know what? Bridget was right. He was a son-of-a-bitch then and he's still one now." He didn't reply, he just glanced at her worriedly and kept walking as she continued her tirade. "You know what else? Fuck him. I don't know what in the hell I was thinking coming here."

She brushed past two teenagers and the second Martin caught up with her she started up again, "Seeing him acting like he doesn't have a care in the world was closure enough for me." She balled her hands into fists, happy to be able to express her anger at him. "Good riddance."

He nodded quietly as he tried to keep up with her rapidly increasing pace. It felt good to vent as she rushed down the sidewalk.

She waved her finger at him and said, "And don't try and talk me out of it okay?" He nodded again. "I mean it, Martin. Trust me, my father issues or whatever are done with after this. I know what a good father is like and Max Spade isn't it." She stepped around an older man walking a dog. "You are a good father. You would never, ever walk out on Nate and Grace would you?"

"No," he quickly replied, shaking his head.

"No, of course you wouldn't because you know what it means to be a father and husband," she replied adamantly. "But Max, he's just…" her voice cracked, "he's just an asshole."

Damn it.

She could feel her face flushed hot and that familiar soreness aching in her throat but she kept moving, hoping that if she didn't stay still she could outrun the emotion threatening to overtake her.

She almost made it another block when her shoulders hitched and she couldn't take another step. Tears started to fall and she felt her knees sway. She might have actually collapsed if Martin had been there because the moment she began sobbing he wrapped his arms around her, holding her up.

"Why didn't he want me?" she cried into his shoulder, clutching the sleeves of his jacket. "How could he just leave us and then just go on pretending that we didn't exist?"

"I don't know," he murmured into her hair using a voice that he often used with Grace or Nate when they cried. "I don't know."

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It felt good to finally let it all out. It took so much out of her to hold in her sadness and anger at her father for so many years that just being able to have the emotional outburst was a cathartic release.

They turned the corner onto North Dearborn where their hotel was located. The street was filled with young urbanites out on the town on a Saturday night. She smiled over at the group of young twenty some-things piling out a cab that stopped in front of a nightclub. She remembered when she was that young and she and her girlfriends would dress up and hit a local bar to dance and drink and flirt and maybe hook up with a cute guy once in awhile.

"You're smiling," Martin commented beside her.

She looked over at him and replied, "I'm feeling better." She playfully tugged on his hand, swinging their arms together and said, "Thanks for being so great today. I honestly don't know how I would have survived it without you."

He grinned. "Yeah, well, I did promise to stick by you for better and for worse."

"Seems like we've been having a lot more of the worse than better lately," she replied as they stopped at the crosswalk to get back to their hotel. "Hopefully we can start getting back on track for better."

Martin's eyes were focused at something on the other side of the street when he evenly replied, "That's still to be determined."

She turned to see what he was looking at when she spotted Max standing at the bottom of the steps leading up to their hotel. Their eyes met in a shared look of recognition: he knew who she was.

Max eyed the two of them warily and shoved his hands in his pockets waiting to see who was going to make the first move.

"What do you want to do?" Martin gently asked.

She broke her gaze away from Max to quickly glance at him and say, "I should talk to him."

"Do you want me to stay?"

"No, I need to do this myself," she softly replied, giving him a small smile. "Thank you though."

He returned her smile when the light changed giving them the signal to cross. They walked across the street and she saw Max visibly straighten up as they approached. She stopped just short of where Max stood and Martin leaned into her and softly whispered, "I'll wait up," before kissing her temple. She nodded and he started towards the stairs, slowing down enough to give her father a polite nod. It wasn't friendly but just cordial enough for a boy who was raised by his parents to go into politics. He looked over his shoulder and gave her one final encouraging look before turning around and heading up the steps into the hotel.

Her heart raced as Max slowly shuffled up to where she stood and they stared at each other, both looking awkward and uncomfortable.

Unable to take the silence a moment longer she said, "I didn't think you recognized me."

"I didn't," he replied. His reply stung but at least he had the decency to look guilty. "I was in the office when our clerk was running the credit card receipts from today's tours. She was joking around that one of the names on the cards was similar to Bogart's Sam Spade." They shared a terse smile as he added, "It's not a very common name." He looked around at the groups of people walking past them on their way to the House of Blues that was next door. "So I called around to the hotels and told them that a woman by the name of Samantha Spade left her wallet on a tour..." he trailed off, shifting his feet looking self-conscious. "So I've been hovering out here trying to get the courage to go up to your room when you and your husband showed up."

She nodded as a gust of wind blew through, causing her hair to fly around her face. She tucked some strands behind her ears and asked, "So you're here. Now what?"

He pursed his lips, unsure, when he pointed down the street and said, "There's a bar down the street. You wanna go grab a drink or something?"

She considered for a beat before nodding her head and turning in the direction he had pointed.

They walked side by side down the sidewalk, each glancing anxiously at each other. They reached the bar that looked like an old neighborhood haunt. He held the door open for her and they went inside. It wasn't very busy for a Saturday night so they were able to get a booth. She slid into the bench on her side and Max asked her what she would like. She told him she would just have whatever he was having and he went off to procure their drinks.

She glanced around and saw that the bar was mostly filled with older customers; people who probably had been patronizing the bar for years. It was a classic style décor with a long bar that ran the length of one wall complete with a brass rail. There were a scattering of tables and about four booths lined up against the other wall. She saw Max headed back to their booth holding two pints of beer. He set one down in front of her before getting into the booth opposite of her.

She took a small drink and noticed that her father emptied a quarter of his. He set the glass down and said, "This is surreal. I don't know what to say or even how to act."

"I know what you mean," she agreed.

He took another drink and set the glass down on the table but kept his hand wrapped around the glass. "So your husband seems like a good guy."

"Yes, he is," she replied, her lips curving up into a small smile.

"Kids?"

She nodded. "Two. Grace and Nate."

She waited to see if he was going to ask to see some pictures but he just took another drink of his beer and asked, "And your sister? She married with kids, too?"

"Bridget's married," Sam replied, picking up her beer, "They have one daughter, Terri." She took a long drink.

"That's good, that's good," he nodded his head several times as he spoke. He smiled at her and asked, "So what brings you to Chicago?"

"You," she replied, her eyes fixed on him. He looked at her, unsure and hesitant, so she decided to just lay all her cards on the table. Things couldn't get much worse only better, right? "I came here to talk to you. I wanted to know why you left, where you've been."

He picked up his glass, polishing it off. He set it back down and laughed nervously. "You always were a straight shooter," he tried to joke but when she did even crack a smile his expression went serious and he said, "I don't know, Sammie, what do you want me to say?"

She cringed at hearing him use a nickname for her and replied, "The truth."

"The truth?" he snorted. "The truth is complicated."

"It's still what I want," she evenly replied.

He coughed, clearing his throat and said, "The truth is that I was just a kid when your mom and me got married." He shrugged and shook his head. "We had only been dating a few months when she got pregnant with your sister. I saw my life slipping away knowing that would never get a chance to live my own life. I had to get a job working as a mechanic for this idiot who never paid me what I was worth but Diane insisted that I keep it because we needed the money."

He glanced at her as if expecting some sort of reply but when none was forthcoming he continued, "I had this cherry GTO but your mom said we had to sell it so we could get a practical family car. So she got the sedan and I got stuck with that damn rickety truck. I was miserable. I had dreams you know." He looked at her as if hoping for some empathy but she wasn't feeling particularly sympathetic. "I wanted to travel and see the world and I couldn't do that with a wife and kids."

"So you felt tied down and just decided to leave and follow your dreams," she repeated, more for her own benefit than his. She needed to make sense of it but she couldn't. "Didn't you once think about how that would affect us? How that made mom or Bridget or me feel?"

"I never wanted to hurt you or your sister but I felt like I was suffocating," he replied, fiddling with his empty glass. "I knew I couldn't be a father or husband like you and your mom needed." He shifted in his seat and held up his empty glass to get the bartenders attention. The bartender nodded so Max turned back around to face her. "You were better off not having a father around who didn't want to be there and..."

He kept talking but Samantha just tuned him out. It hit her that it didn't matter what he said to her there would never be a good excuse or reasonable explanation. He could have told her that the president asked him to run a top secret mission to save mankind and that still wouldn't have been a good enough reason for her. There was no reason he could give her to make her understand why he would willingly walk out on her and her sister and mother.

As he continued talking about how he was able to go out into the world and live his own life she stared back at him with new open eyes. He wasn't the father who had rejected her but rather just a selfish man who didn't know what being a father meant. And then she realized that her anger was ebbing away and being replaced with pity. She pitied her father for only being focused on what his own needs were that he didn't even understand what it was he gave up. And he probably would never be able comprehend how in his own quest to live his own life and follow his own dreams that he dramatically altered those of her mother and sister and hers.

Her own mother stuck it out and sacrificed some of her own hopes and dreams so that she could raise two children alone. She remembered that money was sometimes tight and tempers were short but her mom was there everyday, doing what she needed to make sure that she and her sister always had shoes on their feet, food on the table, and a bed to rest their heads. She was sure that her mom wanted more out of life but she didn't walk out on them and pretend that her past didn't exist. She didn't try and erase her children away from her life; she stayed and made them feel like they colored it.

"…and then I bought a share of the tour business," he finished as the bartender switched out his empty glass for a full one. "And it's a good business, we're turning a profit and I'm really good at being a tour guide. You were there today. Didn't you think I did a good job?"

"I guess I was too focused on seeing my father for the first time in thirty years that I didn't pay much attention to the tour guide," she replied, her tone was soft but her words were biting.

"Right," he said, taking a drink of his second beer. He got a frothy mustache and wiped it with his hand. "So these grandkids of mine, are they back at the hotel? Do you think I maybe could meet them so they can get to know their old granddad?"

"They are back in Kenosha spending time with their grandma," she replied before lowering her eyes and shaking her head adding, "But I don't know if I'd want them to meet you."

"Why not?" he asked wounded. "Don't you think they'd want to know who their grandfather is?"

"I'm sure they would," she agreed before meeting his eyes and asking, "But are you going to be their grandfather? Are you going to visit on holidays? Call them up on their birthday?" Her mind suddenly drifted to the kids last Halloween with Victor and Katherine. "Are you going to dress up like a butler on Halloween and take them trick or treating?"

His expression got dark and he replied, "So because I don't do that stuff I don't even get to see them?"

She didn't know why but it pleased her that he was upset by her rejection; to know that she could make him finally show some emotion towards her. "I can't let you come into their life, announce that you are their grandfather just to have you leave because you can't deal with the familial obligations. They have already lost too much these last few months that they shouldn't have to cope with one more disappointment."

He didn't say anything but simply took another drink of his beer. When he set it back down they just stared at each other knowing that there were no more words the other could offer to change the others mind.

After a long moment of silence Sam stood up and said, "Good night, dad. I'm glad that things are working out for you now."

She started to walk away when he reached out and took a hold of her arm. It wasn't forceful but it got her attention. He looked up at her and asked, "So that's it? You just came here to see me and now you are walking out?"

She shook her head slowly and gently but firmly replied, "No, I'm not walking out on you. If you decide that you are really ready to be a part of my family, and that includes mom and Bridget, than I would love for you to meet my children. They are amazing human beings and you would be extremely lucky to know them."

He released his hold on her arm. "After all these years and you came all this way and you won't even stay here long enough to finish your beer or have a conversation?"

She sighed heavily. "I came all this way to see you and…" she trailed off, her tongue searching for the right words. "I came here to see what you would have to say for yourself, to hear why you left. And you gave me all the reasons that pertain to you but not once did you even say you were sorry for hurting me, for hurting us by leaving."

"You want me to say I'm sorry, is that it?"

"Never mind," she replied, knowing that if she had to explain why it mattered he was incapable of understanding. "But it's okay that you didn't because I still forgive you."

He looked at her, confused and uncertain. "So that's it then?"

"I think so," she replied, eerily calm. She smiled down at him and finished, "Goodbye, dad."

"Goodbye, Sammie," he breathed out as she turned and walked out.

As she walked back to the hotel she felt an odd sense of peace overtake her. She did what she had come here to do: she talked to her father and felt like that chapter was closing on her life. She also realized hat it isn't so much what she missed out on the past that matters as much as what she has to look forward to in the future.