Above his head, Sam could hear the footfalls of a teenaged boy. Jeff was awake and wandering around. Stuffing the photos and reminiscences back into the box, he threw it carelessly on the shelf, but Sam didn't pay attention and the box fell with a crash, bringing down two more boxes with it. The bottom one splattered open all over the floor.
"Damn. Just what I need."
Jeff heard the noises and called out, "Who's down there?"
"It's your father making a mess."
His feet thudded against the steps and Jeff appeared at Sam's side. He watched his father gather up the scattered stuff. "Nice move, Dad. You need help?"
"Don't think so." He looked up at the boy who was wearing black pajama bottoms and no top. He was a well-built young man, slender, strong and well tanned. Sam heard Al's admonitions in his head and had to say, "You need to wear sunscreen when you go outside. Be careful and don't get burned."
"I'm the one who told you about the ozone, remember?"
This was almost too freaky. This boy wasn't just a half brother to Al; he was a junior version of the man. "Right." Grabbing the last of the fallen photos, Sam stood up, "Why don't you get dressed and we'll talk some more.
Jeff took a photo from Sam's hand. He stared at it for a long time. "I don't even remember when this was taken. I sure don't remember those clothes." He handed the picture back to Sam. "I've got a 3:30 appointment at the recruitment office. You want to come?"
He had less time than he thought. Jeff was going to enlist in a few hours. There was no other answer to give. "Of course, I'll go with you."
Jeff looked back at the picture Sam held. "Funny how you forget stuff. I don't remember that." He walked out and Sam glanced one last time at the pictures in his hand. That was when he realized it wasn't Jeff. The picture had spilled from the box he dropped on the floor. He knelt down to get a closer look. Sam could hardly believe what was there.
The Infirmary lights were dim. Al slept with his arm reattached to the traction harness. Though the room was cool, clean and pleasant, in his dreaming mind, he somewhere far different.
His arms were tied behind him, elbows meeting. The ropes tethered him to a pole. He'd been standing for hours, maybe a day or more. He couldn't remember. Each time he fell to his knees, the rope kept him from reaching the relief of the ground. The drop just made the pain in his arms go from intolerable to excruciating. The Vietnamese sun burned his bare skin and the unending blows of a whip across his face, chest, back and legs added insult and injury.
The MIA across from him was detained in the same way, but this young man, this boy couldn't handle the agony. His cries added to Al's frustration, anger and hopelessness. There was nothing he could do. The boy screamed again and a whip slashed the young face. Another cry and a bamboo pole cracked against his back. Al knew the guards like to hear pleas for mercy just as much as they liked rebellion. Both responses gave them cause to continue their assault. Al knew that and tried to tell the boy in the only way he could. "You're strong. You can take anything they give you! Hang on, kid. I'm here!"
The barbed bamboo pole tore away more flesh from the youngster. The boy couldn't stay his ground. The pain was too great and his injuries too severe. "No, please don't hurt me again! Please!" Tears followed and they turned into whimpers and finally into a death rattle as the boy died while Al watched. He was the third one to die in front of him that day.
As usual, Al defied the VC guards. "His name! Who knows his name?" A whip opened another bleeding wound on his scarred back. "Someone tell me his name!" The barbed pole fractured a leg. "Damn it! He's dead! I got to know his name!" The ropes were pulled tighter and tighter. From a hootch behind him he heard a timid call, "Harrington. Jeff Harrington."
Al stared at the dead boy's face. It was like looking into a mirror that could project the past and the future at the same time. "Jeff Harrington. I won't forget. I promise, I won't forget!" As he kept up his defiance, a branding iron plunged into his back searing his skin with crackling sounds. He screamed. "Jeff Harrington! I won't. . ." The pain intensified. "God! No, stop!"
He started to thrash about, trying to free himself. The pain in his arms was so bad he didn't want to continue, but something compelled him to try and get free. "I won't forget. I won't." His pledge grew in volume and the stabbing hurt in his body produced terrifying shouts. "I won't forget!" The infirmary filled with his shrieks.
Beth put her hands on Al's face and spoke to him directly and strongly, "Al, it's only a dream." He wasn't waking. She saw him injuring his shattered arm, "Wake up, baby. You're safe. Wake up now. You're going to hurt yourself." She kept talking, "Come on home, Al. Come on home, come on home, come on home," and he finally began to open his weary, bloodshot eyes. "Al, honey, it was a dream. You're safe, baby. Safe here with me. It's okay."
Breathing was still hard and coming back to the relative safety of the present was a struggle. With all the control he could gather, Al said, "I knew him, Beth. I was the last person to talk to him, to see him alive." Vietnam's hell was bringing intense grief yet again. "We were in a camp together. I was with him when he died. They were beating me too. Maybe if I'd known he was my brother maybe I would have tried harder to help him." His breathing still didn't calm down.
Beth caressed his face, kissed his brow. She finally began to understand, "You're talking about Jeff, aren't you?" Al nodded. "That's what your dream was about?"
His gaze turned far away. His breaths were short and gasping. "He couldn't take the pain. Some guys couldn't and they died."
Brushing wet curls off his forehead, she told him, "Al, it was a dream. You were probably remembering something that happened and put Jeff's face on the soldier that died."
"No." He was adamant and would not be dissuaded. "I've had enough nightmares about the camps to know the difference. It was Jeff. I remember, Beth. I remember thinking I was watching myself die. He looked so much like me. Right after he died I asked someone to tell me his name. It was Jeff Harrington. I promised I wouldn't forget his name. I promised him." Al's voice trailed off, "right after he died." His dissolved into shame, something Beth had rarely seen. "He was my brother and I didn't know."
"Baby, it's all over. You're safe now."
He pulled in a huge breath. Then another. He was finding resolve again like he found it the day Jeff died. The humiliation in his eyes was slowly replaced by determination not to let his mother win. His breathing eased and he asked, "How big can hate get?"
Beth took him in her arms as best she could, "Baby, I don't know what you mean. Just calm down. You're going to hurt yourself even more."
There wasn't time to listen. "Until a few minutes ago, I didn't think I could hate my mother any more than I already did. Turns out I was wrong." He took in more deep breaths and regained command. The Admiral was back. "Alright. I need to get to Sam. He needs to know the kind of slime Dan is and how Jeff dies." Reaching for the traction wires, he made an attempt at loosening the rigging. The unending pounding in his head made it impossible, but still he tried.
"No, Al, don't do that." Beth stopped him. "Don't do that."
"Beth, Sam isn't the person Jeff needs. I am."
Tears didn't come easy to Beth, but the pain in Al's heart tore her into pieces. "Don't let her hurt you anymore. She's not worth it."
He was exhausted, "You know, Beth, if I didn't still love her, it wouldn't matter to me. God damn it. Why do I still love her when all I want to do is hate?"
She dried her tears and held his uninjured hand, "I don't know. Maybe it's because she gave life to Trudy. Maybe it's because you have the courage to love her despite what she did."
He tried to smile. "There's a bullshit answer if I ever heard one." She leaned over him and they kissed like only lovers can. "God made up for everything when he allowed me into your life."
"Just be still. You have to rest."
"No, I have to get to Sam and Jeff. Help get me ready." She hesitated and Al knew why, "If I don't do this, then she'll win again. I can't let her take Jeff from me like she took Trudy."
She was his wife, the mother of his children, the nurse who tended his wounds for over 10 months after Vietnam, the one who stood by in fear when the Space Shuttle was in trouble on the far side of the moon, the proud wife of a Congressional Medal of Honor winner. There was nothing he didn't succeed at when he wanted to succeed. She wouldn't stand in his way even if she knew it might take him from her. "I'll get Paul. We'll get you ready."
The recruitment office trip was a routine pre-enlistment affair. Jeff wouldn't be turning 18 until mid-June and there was school to finish. Forms were filled out, but nothing was written in stone - yet. They were on their way home before the subject actually came up.
"I've been trying to figure out some way to keep you in school."
Jeff rolled his eyes in typical Calavicci fashion. "Dad, again?"
Sam tried to remember what Al said about being 18. "Maybe you could apply to one of the military colleges. You'd get an excellent education and still be eligible for Vietnam since you feel you have to go."
"You know, I thought about that, Dad, but I want to know what it means to be a grunt, a front line guy. I don't want to be safe in my ivory tower somewhere."
The sound of the Imaging Chamber door opening came from behind and Al appeared in the back seat. Sam turned just to be sure since the hologram wouldn't reflect in the rear view mirror. Acknowledging his friend he continued his conversation with Jeff. "Officers aren't always in ivory towers." Sam reflected on Al's whereabouts in 1971, "A lot of the men in POW camps are officers. I can't imagine any war experience being worse than being a POW."
Jeff piped in, "Unless it's being MIA." Sam's stomach tightened up. Jeff went on, "Those are the guys I really feel for, wondering if anyone knows if you're dead or alive. That has to be worse."
"I know this woman whose husband is listed MIA. She thinks he's dead. In fact, she was thinking about getting a divorce so she could remarry, but she changed her mind."
Jeff shook his head sadly in recognition of the agony. "Wow. That has to be tough for her and her husband. Can't blame her in a way, though. Everyone thinks MlAs are dead."
Sam was trying to find some kind of way to tell Jeff about Al without telling him the particulars. "I think it would be a great story. It would address the silent tragedies of this war."
Interest was sparked and Sam saw it in Jeff's eyes. "What do you mean by silent tragedies?"
"You think MIAs are forgotten now," he had to watch his phrasing carefully, "I bet in the future, no one will even bother much with them. It's like that for missing soldiers. No one speaks for the kind of terror they go through." Jeff was staring with intense interest. "Someday, the POWs will be remembered with some kind of monument, but I bet that MIAs won't be. No one talks for them. POWs suffered a lot. That has to be a terrible experience, but MIAs have their own story and that needs to be told as well."
Al whispered, "That's the book Jeff needs to write, Sam. There's going to be more war memoirs than anyone needs. He could write about the ones left behind."
Sam forwarded Al's comments and saw he was making an impact on the boy. He added, "If you go to Vietnam and get killed, MIAs have one less voice. Think about it."
The drive was quiet again. Jeff watched the houses fly by obviously not seeing the scenery. Sam struck a nerve in the young man, but he had to wonder if it was enough. With his face still pointed toward the window Jeff said, "I remember a picture, a photograph taken over a year ago. There were these three Americans tied up and being dragged along a riverbank. Their backs were to the camera, except for one of them. He was looking right into the lens." Sam felt his heartbeat get faster, after all he had seen Maggie Dawson's Pulitzer Prize winning picture of Lieutenant Calavicci long before the rest of the world did. "That picture made me want to go to Vietnam. I want to find him, you know, the one who looked at the camera."
From behind him, Sam heard a voice whisper, "Don't say anything about me. Ziggy says you're doing something right. The odds are better he doesn't go into the Army. Keep him talking."
Sam was grateful the Admiral was there. "I remember. It won a Pulitzer."
Jeff turned to Dan. "How well do you remember the photo? Do you remember his face?"
Sam glanced back at the hologram in the back seat. "Yeah, I think I do."
"Didn't you think he looked a lot like me? Dad, when I saw that picture, it felt like part of me was there. It was like looking in a mirror. I know he's older. It was probably the angle, the lighting, all sorts of reasons why he and I look alike, but I have to find him."
Al was grumbling, "What the hell for?"
Sam forwarded the question, "Why, Jeff?"
There was a wanting in the boy's face. It took almost half a minute for him to gather the courage to say, "Because he's my brother."
Almost another half minute went by with both men stunned by the statement. Al broke the silence. "Ask him what he means."
Sam obeyed and Jeff shook his head gently. "I'm not really sure. I don't mean like he's a real brother, but his face is mine and I can't get it out of my head." The Time Traveler, the Endless Survivor and the Hope of the Future all stared into their souls for what seemed like hours, but what was only a moment or two. Each saw the image of Maggie's picture but from vastly different perspectives. Sam saw the agonizing result of his need to save his brother's life. The terror Al witnessed on his own face served as a reminder of how fear is more crippling than pain. For Jeff, the picture was a link to a brother his spirit somehow knew existed. "Dad, I have to know if they killed him."
To return to the present of this time line, he had to shake the image of Al from his mind's eye. "How can going to Vietnam help you find out if he's dead?"
"I'm going to meet him there. I know it."
Sam tried to deny the intuition. "Come on, Jeff. You're a bright kid. What are the odds that you're going to meet that particular sailor?" Sam cringed at the gaffe. He identified Al as a Navy man, but Jeff didn't pick up on it for which Dr. Beckett was eternally grateful.
Jeff had no way to explain what he knew, but Al did. "The kid's right, Sam. We met in prison camp. I watched him die. Thing is, he didn't recognize me and I didn't know we were brothers."
Nothing more was said for the rest of the ride. The car pulled into the driveway and father and son exited. "Dad, I'll be back in time for dinner." He walked toward the garage.
"Where are you going?"
"Just for a ride on my bike. I promise. I'll be back." They watched the boy speed off.
Sam finally felt comfortable talking to his friend. "You have a lot to tell me. I'll meet you downstairs."
They met up in the workroom. Sam's first words were demanding. "What do you mean you watched him die?"
"He couldn't take the beatings, so he died."
Sam couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Are you serious?"
"Would I joke about something like that?" Al's eyes glazed over. "Sam, he was no more than six feet away from me. He had no idea it would hurt. It scared him,"
Nothing was making any sense to Sam, least of all his friend. "Al, I'm sorry. I don't understand what you're talking about."
"I don't know how to explain it." He thought for a second or two. "Sam, did you ever burn yourself just a little, maybe a burn from a drop of hot solder You know its a nothing burn, but it hurts like hell. Like a paper cut, it hurts a hell of a lot more than you think it should. That's kind of what getting tortured is like. They do stuff you think shouldn't hurt that much. You think you should be able to take it and you can't. It's scary and it helps kill you. Then when the hard stuff really comes, you're just spent. There's nothing left in you to fight, so you die." Al's sadness and grief at the recollection was apparent. "I wish I'd known who he was. I might have been able to help." He heard the blood pulse through his head. Each pump brought on a wave of pain that he tried his best to hide.
"I guess he dies pretty ugly then."
"No one died pretty in Vietnam. No one survived pretty either."
The pained look on Al's face made Sam wonder what was hurting now, the memories or the badly broken arm. "Your arm okay?" Al's right hand wiped across his face stifling some mumbled response. "Al, you're not looking too good."
"Listen, I have info on Dan, too. Turns out he's no better than good old mom. I don't think he'd ever be nominated to father of the year." He related the story of Dan's insistence that young Al and Trudy be left behind. Sam was appalled. When Al used Dan's phrase "useless, ugly freaks," Sam felt terribly dirty. He wanted out of the skin he inhabited. It was disgusting him more and more with each passing minute.
"These people are sick, Al."
"Yeah and it's going to kill their kid."
The duality of Al's words weren't lost on Sam. "So what we have here is a man who impregnates a married woman, convinces her to abandon her two little children and then manufactures an incredible set of lies about them in order to protect their tryst."
"You got it." Al's sarcasm barely covered his misery and someone who didn't know him well wouldn't see the anguish, but Sam knew his friend better than anyone ever did.
Sam saw his reflection in the shiny surface of the washing machine. Dan's face looked up at him. Damning his Swiss cheese brain, he couldn't remember if Al saw Sam's face or Dan's. Until he could work that out, he chose not to make Al stare into the face of the man who orchestrated the abandonment of young Al and his sister. Not able to look at the reflection of this monster in human guise, Sam turned to the dark concrete block wall. "I don't like these people at all."
"Yeah, well, one of them is my loving mama. Just my luck." Ordinarily, Sam would kick Al's butt for the self-pity stuff, but he couldn't blame the man. On the other hand, Al knew that self- pity was only destructive and he shook himself free from as much of it as he could. His head hurt bad and he listened to the increasing sound of blood pulsing through the veins in his neck. Trying to get past the noise in his head he declared, "It would be interesting to hear herside of the story, wouldn't it?" Catching each other's eyes, both men grunted out a sneering chuckle.
Having heard Dan talking in the basement, Renee went down to find him. She entered unseen. "Who are you talking to?"
Both men were startled. "No one. Just thinking out loud."
Renee demanded, "Where were you?"
"Jeff and I went to the recruiting office. He pre-enlisted."
She looked at him with hate in her eyes. "You're some piece of work. You want him to die."
Sam was too angry at Renee for her past indiscretions to be lucid. "That's what youwant, isn't it? I mean he reminds you of Al and you hate him because of that."
"Go to hell."
His courage wasn't going to get any stronger. "Renee, do you ever think about Al and Trudy?"
She started to shake her head. "You promised. Arnie is my first child."
Quietly Al said, "I don't understand."
It was going to be a conversation that Dan and Renee would have to deal with long after Sam leaped out, but it was necessary conversation for his friend. "They both loved you."
"Trudy was incapable of love and Al was uncontrollable."
The hurt inside Al grew. "Trudy's best thing was loving people."
Sam wanted some kind of answer from Renee that bordered on the truth. "I don't remember him being disobedient. He was really good with Trudy, wasn't he?"
"Al didn't care about anything except his books and beating up kids in the neighborhood. The teachers never knew what to do with him. He drove them crazy and me, too." She was getting angrier with each moment. "Why are you doing this to me?"
He couldn't look at the Admiral. "I think it's time for you to come to grips with what you," Sam had to add, "what you and I told the kids. Maybe you should try to find Al."
Al grunted, "It's 1971, Sam."
Sam remembered a second too late that Al was incarcerated in Vietnam in 1971He heard Renee say, "I don't ever want to know what happened to him."
The recollection of Al's imprisonment made Renee's reaction even more appalling. "He's your son. Trudy was your daughter. I don't understand why you stopped loving them."
"I didn't have to stop." She lied to Dan, "I never started."
Al, visibly weakened by her words, stammered, "Sam, I'm out of here."
He didn't want the Admiral to leave until they had a chance to talk again. "Please, don't."
Renee had no knowledge of Al's presence and answered Sam, "'Please don't what?"
He hated getting caught talking to Al and this was one of the worst moments to have slipped. "Don't say you never loved him."
She had tears in her eyes. "I had to marry his father to make him legitimate. I didn't love Vince, why should I love his child?"
Al's outrage kicked in. "Next time someone calls me a son of a bitch, I'll know they're right." He moved toward the white chamber light.
Before the hologram had a chance to leave, Sam angrily spoke to Renee, "It's my turn to go for a walk." He stormed off hoping Al would follow. Sam was halfway down the block when he saw Al appear about 50 yards ahead. Sam slowed his walk a little in order to try and think of something to say. Al had proven his courage, his strength time after time. This leader of leaders was there in front of him looking like a battered child, very small and vulnerable. It was a strange picture. When Sam approached his friend, he saw a forced smile start to crawl over the weary face. "Sam, I'm really sorry."
"What do you have to be sorry for?"
"For telling you she's my mother. You're here to keep the kid from enlisting. God forbid he should end up like his half-brother."
A childish, petty side of Sam emerged and he sulked, "I don't want to help him."
Al sighed. "Jeff doesn't deserve to die because she never liked me."
"Come on, Al. It's not that simple. She doesn't deserve kids."
"Maybe so, but she has them." An uneven breath gave away the depth of his sadness. "He's my brother. Don't let him die, please."
Watching Al is such pain was more than he ever wanted to see. "We'll get him through this. You and me together."
Barely having heard, Al confided, "I know Trudy was mentally retarded, but Sam, if you only knew her. She was the most beautiful little girl. People think Down syndrome is ugly, but it's not. Down syndrome faces are beautiful and full of love. That's a unique aspect of it. So what if they can't do trigonometry. Their capacity for love is so much more than the rest of us nozzles. When it comes to love, we're the retarded ones." He shook his head remembering his mother's words. "'Incapable of love.' How could she be that wrong? Love was Trudy's greatest gift, unconditional love. Maybe that's why she's the only one who ever loved me."
"Not the only one." Al needed someone to be strong and Sam willingly and easily took on the task. "Go back and get some sleep. You look beat."
"Beaten is more like it. I swore that I'd never let her beat me down, but damn it, if she hasn't won after all." Breathing was getting hard and he started gasping in air.
"You need to rest."
The Admiral didn't hear a word. "I'm 64 years old and I'm a basket case here," he smirked, "because my mommy didn't like me. I need to grow up. She still has control of my life."
"Only if you let her."
"Don't give me that crap. Since I was seven, I've made up more scenarios than Ziggy could run in a thousand years and not one of them included the idea she never loved Trudy. I can understand not loving me. I probably was a bad kid. God knows, the potential was there but it doesn't matter." He pulled together a typical Calavicci smile and with fake determination he said, "Let's concentrate on Jeff."
If a light bulb could have appeared over Sam's head, it would have. "I know how, Al. I know how to convince Jeff to stay in school." A huge smile spread across his face. He looked back at his buddy. "I don't know why I didn't think of this before. I found something, but you need to see it first. You have to be okay with it."
A sudden gust of searing pain dropped the Admiral to his knees with a loud groan. Sam rushed to his side, but holograms have no substance. "Ziggy, get someone in here!"
The Imaging Chamber door opened and unseen to Sam, Verbena and Paul entered. It wasn't until they touched Al that he saw what was happening. Paul started basic triage. Verbena took the handlink, said something Sam couldn't hear and then held the handlink out hoping Sam would see it. Sam moved into position and read, "We'll send Gooshie in as soon as we can." Two orderlies lifted the semi-conscious Admiral onto a gurney and Al was wheeled out.
Sam had never felt so alone. Giving himself a moment or two to collect his thoughts, Sam went back to the empty basement room where he left Renee and took a special box from the shelves.
An hour later, Paul had Al in surgery. Too much running around and Al's concussion turned into a far more serious injury. Blood was pooling in his brain. Exactly how much damage was done and how permanent it would be was a crapshoot.
Beth waited outside trying to figure out what to do. She was deep in her thoughts when she saw the door to the waiting area opened slowly. A frightened and concerned face poked its way inside. "Is he okay?"
"Come here, Allie," The girl entered quietly. Her mother told her, "He was bleeding into his brain. They're doing surgery right now."
Like her father, she diverted her pain, avoiding it by thinking of other things. "I was talking to Uncle Gooshie. He isn't sure he can program Ziggy to allow Uncle Sam to see him."
"He's done it before."
Staring at the operating room door, she kept on talking. "But he had access to all the power we could harness. Dr. Wakefield is using up enough to make getting to Uncle Sam impossible."
"There's no way around it?"
Spinning to her mother, Allegra adamantly declared, "Dad is the power priority here, not Uncle Sam. As far as we know he's safe and sound, but Dad," her strength vanished, "might die."
"Allie, we both know you dad won't die."
"How can we know that?"
She thought she was stating the obvious. "Because he promised to get Uncle Sam home and Daddy never breaks a promise."
Rolling her eyes to the ceiling, Allie shook her long hair. "Some promises can't be kept and that's one. Dad may think he's invincible, but after a motorcycle accident, any sane man would have stayed in bed." The child-like Allegra returned with a pout. "I'm scared. Mom. I don't want to lose him."
"You won't, baby. You'll see."
Sam returned yet again to the workroom in the basement. Quietly, he took the box with the information he needed. With it tucked under his arm, Sam walked upstairs to wait for Jeff. He held potential in that box, potential to destroy a family and to save four lives. There was no way this leap was going to be a nice neat little package. A lot of pain was about to explode and he wasn't able to ask Al what the long-term effects would be. For all he knew, he was never going to see Al again. Like his friend though, he now had to rely on his instincts.
Slowly he sorted the contents. Inside the box were the pictures the Admiral thought didn't exist - photos of Al and his beautiful little sister at the time when they appeared to be part of a happy family. Renee and Vince cradled their children and the love looked real. More investigation into the box revealed astonishing material. It was filled with pictures and stories about Al and Trudy. There was an article from an east coast newspaper chronicling the rise of a street kid to an Annapolis entrant. Trudy's obituary was there. Al's scholastic, baseball and fencing achievements were chronicled. Fencing? Sam had no recollection of Al being expert with a foil, but the three regional titles he won were all listed. There was a copy of the Annapolis graduation where Al earned Summa Cum Laude honors. A theatrical Playbill recorded his debut at 16 as George Gibbs in an off-Broadway revival of Our Town. Another clipping announced his upcoming marriage to Elizabeth Anne Waterston. There was even a list of MIAs with one name shakily underlined. On the bottom of the box was a magazine, the front cover of a Time Magazine from just about a year earlier. The banner read, "POW Death March."
The fog of unconsciousness was lifting. Beth leaned in so Al could see her. "Hi, there. You just came out of surgery." She touched his face. "Can you hear me?" There was a slight nod. "Good. I'm going to ask you a few questions. Ready?" Another nod. "You're going to have to talk to me."
A raspy voice said, "Okay."
She smiled. "First, tell me your name.
It took some effort but he answered, "Beth, you know my name better than I do." He didn't quite understand the burst of laughter he heard, but he figured he answered correctly. "What's so funny?"
"Al, do you remember what happened?"
It seemed like an easy question, but thoughts weren't connecting right. "I was with Sam. My mother was there." The memories weren't complete, but the pain they brought was. "And Vietnam. Something about my brother dying in Vietnam."
Beth interrupted, "Jeff didn't die, Al. He enlisted in the Navy, not the Army and by the time he finished his stateside training, the war was almost over. He didn't see much combat. Do you remember Jeff now?"
A picture flashed into his mind. "He wrote a book about MIAs."
"A Silent Tragedy. It was about what happened to you in Vietnam."
A sudden rush of memories flooded his mind. The entire leap came back to him. All the pain and all the fears, but somehow, things turned out right for Jeff. "Sam must have fixed things. How did he do it?"
"We don't know. Gooshie couldn't get to him before he leaped."
Something told him not to ask, but it was necessary. "What happened to my mother?"
Quietly Beth told him how she and Dan divorced after Jeff enlisted. A month later Dan was killed in a car accident and Renee disappeared. "We've been working Ziggy overtime to find her, but she really dropped out good. I guess you'll never know what happened to her."
The revised time line became more solid. "I remember now." They met after Al got home from prison camp in '75. At the time, Jeff didn't tell Al they were related. He wrote his book, A Silent Tragedy using the Admiral's story. They corresponded occasionally for over a decade. Then heartache hit Al even more. In his drawer of private papers he kept the last letter Jeff wrote, finally telling Al that they shared a mother. With that revelation, Jeff promised never to write again. Al recalled, "I tried to find him, but Star Bright was having problems and I couldn't get away. I'm not sure I wanted to find him. I thought he would tell me how great his mother was and I didn't want to hear it. A couple of months later I found his obituary in the newspaper archive. He died the week after he wrote me. I remember now." Lymphoma killed Jeff in 1988, ending any possibility for a family reunion.
The Admiral couldn't quite figure if Sam was successful in this leap or not. Renee and the kids didn't die and that was a good thing, but what kind of life did that condemn Jeff and his younger sister to? The parallel was not pleasant to contemplate. Renee abandoned Al and Trudy and now Al helped orchestrate Renee's abandonment of Jeff and Michelle. It wasn't something he meant or wanted to do. He certainly wasn't naive enough to believe that any mother is better than no mother, but Michelle was basically happy at home. Al helped take that from her. The whole thing was disturbing. "Beth, what happened to Michelle? Is she okay?"
The answer gave more than a bit of solace to the man. Michelle got her college degree, married and was worked at an agency training adults with mental retardation for community-based jobs. It seemed right that one of Renee's children would work to honor Trudy's memory even if she didn't know Trudy existed, but maybe she did know. It was too much to think about.
One more puzzle bothered him. "What did Sam say to him, Beth? How did he change Jeff's mind?" His healthy hand wiped his stinging eyes.
"We don't know. Until Sam leaps and Gooshie can get to him, we won't be able to find out what he remembers."
In typical Calavicci fashion, Al focused away from himself and onto Sam. He found some vestige of strength and tried to pull himself to a sitting position. Beth stopped him cold. "What the hell are you doing?"
"I got to see Sam."
"No, Babe. You're on shore leave for a long time. When it comes to your health, I pull rank on deciding if you're fit for duty. Right now, you're not. Give yourself a chance to heal. Okay?" She smoothed the clean sheet that covered him.
Ziggy interrupted them, "Excuse me Admiral and Mrs. Calavicci. Dr. Beckett has leaped out of Daniel Harrington and is in stasis."
His bandaged head hurt, his traction-splinted arm ached, Sam was in stasis and the brother he just met was already dead. The Admiral had to give in to his obvious fragility, but once again wondered aloud, "What the hell did Sam tell Jeff?"
"I wouldn't worry about it, Babe." She touched his face. "Sam probably doesn't even remember."
THE END
