January 12, 1999

Stallion's Gate, Los Alamos, Nex Mexico

"Care to join me?" Donna called, as she sat at a table in the cafeteria inside the project complex. Al had a small tray of food, and walked to her table to sit.

"Would you like some sugar with your carbohydrates?" she teased, scanning his plate which was heaped with pasta and garlic bread.

"Not you too," he said. "Verbena said my cholesterol was too high at the last physical, so she wanted me to reduce my meat intake. No meat….extra carbs," he said as he sat.

"I don't think that's supposed to be how it works," she said, smiling.

"All you eat is rabbit food," he teased back, as always, poking fun at her fondness for salads. Al had even told her, more than once, that she had a 'salad face,' a form of concentration reserved for her favorite food, and quantum physics calculations. She laughed anyway.

"Donna, let me ask you something," he said, leaning forward. "Am I a chauvinist?"

She had taken a sip of her bottle of water, almost spouting a small stream from her mouth, as she had been mid-swallow when asked. She coughed, her eyes watering as she recovered. "Is that a trick question?" she asked, her voice still rough from choking.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked.

"Who said you were?' she asked.

"Tina," he huffed, checking over his shoulder to make sure she wasn't within ear shot.

"Is this because Sam leaped into the woman in the Women's Lib Movement?" she asked.

"Sam agreed with her!" he spouted indignantly.

"You're….um….old-fashioned," she said, not meaning it to be a question, but her voice turning up on the last word regardless.

"What old-fashioned fuddy duddy do you know who's been married five times?" he argued.

"Henry VIII," she said, smiling slyly.

He threw down his fork in exasperation. "Why am I old-fashioned?"

"You...um...you have certain...ideas about what women should do...and say...or…" She reddened in her face, stopped talking, realizing she was making it worse instead of better.

"You think I'm a dirty old man, don't you?" he asked, lowering his voice.

"Well, you...sort of...are. I mean, you...take advantage of the fact that the women in the past can't see you. You ogle anything in a skirt. Your primary reason for most of your divorces is infidelity. You have a one track mind. Need I go on?" she offered.

"You're lucky I'm being a gentleman with my best friend's wife," he retorted.

She smiled, trying to ease the tension. "But, I will say, at least from my perspective, you aren't a chauvinist."

He tilted his head. She continued. "Look, Al, my mother raised me by herself in the 1960s. I was always the only kid in school without my father around, the only kid in school whose mother worked for a living. When I went to school, and I tried to major in Physics I had to fight the school to take the classes I needed to take. I was the first and only woman who majored in physics from Lawrence College. I was one of only a handful of female phD candidates in quantum physics in the 1970s in the United States. I've been dealing with chauvinists my whole life. The man who hired me for Project Star Bright never even mentioned my gender when he hired me. That was you, Al, in case you forgot."

"When only the best will do, you hire the best. What difference does it make that you were a woman?" he replied.

"Too bad Tina wasn't here, because you just proved my point," she said.

"Thank you," he said. "But, like I said, Sam thinks I am too. You know, I do recall telling him at the time what a knock-out I thought you were, though."

"Sam sees you at your worst sometimes, don't you think?" she asked, trying to ignore the redness creeping onto her cheeks at his back-handed compliment. He rolled his eyes, debating the word 'worst.' "He mostly just thinks differently than you, about women. That's all. Don't hold it against him."

"I can't even tell him that his wife agrees with me!" Al teased again, in mock indignation.

"Someday," she said, a ghost of a smile clinging to her lips.

September 8, 1985

Taos, New Mexico

"He dances, he sings, he likes show tunes, and you're sure he's-" Sam hears from the speaker phone on Donna's counter. He is scraping burned scrambled eggs into the trash, but stops, making an amused face at her as he does so.

"Mom, he can hear you!" Donna scolds, rolling her eyes at Sam, who is trying with all his might to laugh with no sound.

"Hi, Sam," she calls, unabashed.

"Good morning, Ms. Eleese," he calls, his voice slightly tremorous as he struggles to still his laughter.

"Morning? Oh my goodness, it is morning where you are. Mountain time, right?" she asks. "Donna, it's seven o'clock in the morning! Why is he at your apartment at seven in the morning?"

Sam opens his eyes wide, feigning a shrug, and mouthing the words "Don't look at me" to her.

"You're worried because he spent the night? I thought you thought he was-" Donna shouts.

Sam throws up his hands, then gestures with both palms up and open at the phone, in mock indignation.

"Donna!" she says shrilly.

"Mom, I'm 31 years old and it's 1985. Are you kidding?"

"Well, I hope you're using birth control. You know your cousin Sophie-" Donna clumsily pulls the receiver off the phone, and up to her ear, her face so scarlet red Sam thinks she looks sunburned. Now that her mother can no longer hear him, he cracks up in hysterical laughter.

"Mom. Mom, please, can we talk about this some other time?" she says. "I have to get ready for work," she adds.

"The university, still, yes," she says, responding to a question that Sam can't hear. "No, Mom, he works for the government." A beat. "It's classified, you know that." Two more beats. "Quantum physics, Mom. Super advanced particle physics." Two more beats. "Ok, Mom, I'll talk to you later. Goodbye." She drops the receiver down, shaking her head in exasperation.

To Sam, she says, "That gets rid of her every time. She hates when I talk shop."

He puts his arms around her, kissing the top of her head. She surveys the mess he has made of breakfast while she was on the phone. "There's bread for toast, Sam," she tells him. "How do you have an IQ of 267, but you can't cook eggs?"

"It's my Achilles heel," he admits. "I'm still learning," he says with a smile. "She's still coming next week?" he asks.

She nods, patting his back as he walks away. "She really does like you, Sam. She just, oh I don't know, she tries extra hard to protect me. She blamed herself for a long time, about keeping me away from my father and not telling me." She takes him in her arms again from behind, resting her cheek against his back. "She knows how happy you make me, so she worries that I'll get hurt somehow."

He turns around in her arms. "Would she feel better, if we got married?" he asks.

It would be an imperceptible change to anyone but him, but he watches her smile tighten, the creases deepen next to her eyes. She extricates herself from his arms gently, but he knows she is unsettled. "Donna?" he asks, only her name, but a thousand other questions are contained in the one word.

She just walks into the bedroom, starting to dress for work. He follows her in. "I didn't mean to upset you, you know? I just thought…"

She is frantically pulling clothes from her dresser, removing her nightgown with a speed reserved for days she sleeps through her alarm. "I know, Sam." She pauses, adjusting the straps on her bra as she turns to him. Her head fills with thoughts, jumbling so fast she doesn't know where to start. It feeds her anxiety, and she rushes for her closet. "I have to go to work, Sam. I have a class at 9:00. This isn't the time to just...blurt it out…"

She is turning with her dress slung over her forearm, when he crushes her against him in a firm embrace. "It's all right, Donna." She tries feebly to extricate herself, then understands that his arms are meant for comfort. She feels a trill of apprehension at the thought she is hurting him in any way with her reactions.

She murmurs against the soft terry cloth of his bathrobe, "The only thing I know about marriage is what I watched when I was little. Something like that...how much they hated each other, when it was over...I…"

"Ssh," he hushes against her hair. He holds her longer than she anticipates. When he finally lets go, he grasps both of her shoulders and looks into her eyes. "My parents loved each other, my whole life. That love made me who I am. Everything I know about love I learned from them. I only said it because I think about you and me the same way. That's all."

"You do?" she asks, wonder in her eyes now instead of fear.

"Yes, I do," he attests, so certain, doubtless, she cannot help but believe him. "Forget I said anything, please. I don't want to think about you worried all day because of something I said." He pulls her to him again, and she breathes in his scent and calms down.

She knows there is an unspoken "for now," knows he wants this despite her misgivings. But she knows too she cannot worry about forever, or let that steal all her joy from the now. And this now, these days, are the happiest she has felt since she was little, and her family was intact.