After freshening up and ably commandeering a client strategy meeting from afar, Angela was feeling more like herself and ready to tackle her next challenge: Samantha's strong will. She found her at the activities desk, so immersed in her notebook that she didn't notice Angela's approach.
"Hi sweetheart," Angela said quietly.
Samantha looked up, startled. "Oh, hi Angela! I'm sorry, I was just working on next week's itinerary. We have a few instructors out so it's a bit of a challenge."
Angela smiled, "I don't want to bother you, but I remembered you saying you have a break at 10. Would you maybe have time to go for a little hike?"
"Sure; this can wait. Actually, both of the 11:00 classes had to cancel, so I have a few hours before I need to be back. Why don't we walk up to Bridal Veil Falls? I've...been wanting to talk to you too," she said. She called to her supervisor that she was going on her break, then led Angela out the back door, toward the trail head.
"It's really beautiful here," Angela began. "The cliffs, the cacti, the sunsets. It's just magical, like something out of a movie."
"I know, sometimes it feels like a dream that I get to live here," she agreed. "I've totally fallen in love with it."
"I can tell," Angela said gently. "And it seems that isn't all you've fallen in love with."
Sam and Angela's eyes met in a knowing side-glance. The rhythmic crunching of their feet along the gravel path filled the silence between them.
"You know, Sam, your father is doing his best to be okay about all this. He really is. But he can't help but feel like you're making a mistake. He knows that this is your life. He respects whatever decisions you want to make for yourself. But it's hard for him - well, for both of us - not to intervene when we see you making a decision that carries so much weight for your future."
"I know it's hard to understand, but I love him, Angela. We are so different. I know that. But the moment I met him I felt like I knew his soul. I felt like he knew mine. It was so easy, so effortless. I didn't expect this, coming out here. I wasn't looking for a boyfriend. But it feels like my soul has been tied to his, like we were destined to meet. Does that sound crazy?"
Angela thought about it a moment. "You know Sam, the craziest thing about it is that it doesn't at all," she said honestly. She thought back to when Tony and Sam first moved in. Their connection was immediate, and it was beyond all logic, beyond her comprehension. They were from completely different worlds, in a professional relationship that they both badly needed to work. But their chemistry seemed to pay no mind at all to these details, and simmered on in the most innocent of moments, in spite of all the reasons it shouldn't. From the get-go, Tony seemed to know what she needed, and see who she was, sometimes better than she could see herself.
"And it feels like the bigger mistake would be not seeing where this goes, not seeing it through," she said, stopping to turn and look at Angela. "I feel like if I left at the end of this summer and walked away from him, I would regret it for the rest of my life. Haven't you ever felt that way about anyone, Angela?"
"Yes," she said quietly, meeting Sam's understanding eyes. "Once."
Sam held her gaze, "It's something special, isn't it?"
She nodded in agreement. "It is."
Their shoes crackled along the trail in thoughtful silence until they reached a long, foamy white waterfall, spilling over the crags of an impossibly high cliff.
"Oh Sam," Angela breathed. "How beautiful."
"It is, isn't it? Matt took me here on our second date. We rode the horses here and he surprised me with a picnic he'd packed. We spread out a quilt under those trees over there."
Angela nodded, her hands clasped over her heart in wistful appreciation. "It's a very special spot. I'm glad I got to see this."
They stood watching the waterfall together in contemplative silence before Sam turned to her and said quietly, "Angela, can I ask you something?"
"Of course, sweetheart, anything."
"Not that I'm not glad to see you...but...why did you come all the way out here?"
"Well Sam, because I care deeply about you. And I felt like you might need backup with your father," she teased. And then she added, a little more softly, "And because your father asked me to."
"You'd do anything for Dad, wouldn't you?"
Angela wasn't sure how to answer that; the pain of his betrayal was still too raw for her to admit that even now, she absolutely would. So instead she said, "I would do anything for you."
"He doesn't love Kathleen," she said solemnly.
Angela nodded, her eyes filled with tears. "It's just complicated, sweetheart. We're best friends."
"You're more than that, Angela...you're family." She was right. That was why she was here. Tony and Sam were her family. How had they gotten here, to this place where they were every bit of a couple in her heart, every bit of a family to the world, without the one singular thing that made it all true and solid and real to each other? It was as if they had been playing an elaborate game, collecting memories and personal tokens and pieces of each others' hearts along the way, but now they had reached the end of the game, and no one had won, and they were walking away from the game brokenhearted, bewildered, and empty-handed. And now it seemed they were moving on to play an easier, less complicated game with someone else.
"Seems like I'm jumping in too quickly and you might miss your chance entirely," Sam said gently, reading her mind.
"You might be right about that, Sam," Angela replied. She couldn't deny that this had been her prevailing fear lately; maybe it was just too late for she and Tony to become something different. Maybe they had missed their chance.
"I know he hurt you. But he doesn't know what he wants."
"I'm not sure that's true, sweetheart," Angela said, looking at the horizon. "I think...I think I might be afraid it would be too wonderful. And then something would happen or the reality of our circumstances would set in. And we would lose each other. And I think we're both trying so hard not to lose each other that we might actually...lose each other."
"You know why I came out here in the first place Angela?"
"You said you wanted a new adventure before college."
"I did. But I was planning on interning with you, remember?"
"Oh that's okay, Sam, I really did want you to have this experience. I'm glad you got to do this. My offer still stands for next summer. It's good for the soul to see another part of the world like this."
"Well yeah, it is. And I did want an adventure. But I really was excited about the internship. And I appreciated you offering me the opportunity." Sam's words were earnest, but her tone was regretful.
"I know you did. And you deserved it Sam. It's yours any summer you wa –"
"I was running away, Angela," Samantha blurted out.
Angela looked at her, surprised. "Running away? Why, Sam?"
"I was so angry about what Dad did to you. I've never been so disappointed in him. Ever since mom died, he's been my rock. He took such good care of me, then he gave up a life he knew for one where he didn't fit in at all, all for me, so that I could have a better life. And then it was the five of us, and it was you, and you were watching out for me, and that was the first time we ever felt whole again. Like a real family. And I felt like he would do anything for our family. Anything to protect us - any of us. You, me, Jonathan, Mona. But especially you. He loves you, he has loved you for a long time. I was going away to college, and I knew it was going to be hard on him, but I also knew he would be okay, because he still had you," she said.
Angela reached out and cradled Sam's faces, wiping tears away with her thumbs. "Oh Sam..."
"And when he did this, it was like I didn't even know him. It was such a betrayal. I couldn't understand it – I still don't understand how he could do something like that to you, implode our family like that. I felt like I couldn't trust in anything anymore; everything I've known wasn't true. You were trying to be forgiving, and normal, but you were so hurt. The tension was palpable all over the house. I was afraid about what it meant for our family, for Dad, right as I was leaving home. And I just needed to be away from it. I needed space."
Angela's heart strained at the realization that she and Tony hadn't been paying any attention. They were so wrapped up in their own misery they couldn't see how miserable they were making the kids. "I'm sorry we put you through that, sweetheart, at such an important time in your life."
"You didn't, Angela. Dad did."
"Well, maybe so, but I think I share some of the blame in how complicated everything has gotten between us. Look, Sam, I can't pretend that I wasn't...well, a little surprised when he and Kathleen started dating. But your father and I aren't together. What he did was...technically...very in-bounds."
"You aren't together. But you were together, Angela. All of us knew. All five of us knew where it was going to end up. He loves you. We all know he loves you. And you love him. I know you do. And he got scared, and–"
"And he ran away, Sam." Angela said quietly, sweeping a tendril of hair out of her eyes. She cupped her face with one hand, stroking her hair with the other. "Sometimes we have to run away to get the clarity we need to come back."
She took Sam's hands, squeezing them tightly.
"And sometimes, we have to let things go, so that when they come back to us, they are ready to be truly ours." She held her gaze for a moment, and her hands, letting her words sink in before walking again. Sam was quiet for a long while as they walked. Angela was beginning to worry she'd said the wrong thing when she felt Sam's arm snake around her waist for a side-hug.
"I'm glad you came out here, Angela."
She pulled her arm around Sam's waist. "Me too, sweetheart."
Feeling bolder, Angela continued, "And Samantha, I want you to know that whatever happens with me and your father, I will always be here for you. I promise that, Sam. I want to be there on your wedding day, if you want me there. I want to know your children. No matter where things end up, I would be heartbroken to not be a part of your life."
Sam stopped abruptly, and grabbed Angela into a tight hug, allowing her tears to finally flow freely. Angela held her for a long while, murmuring loving reassurances into her hair as she cried out a summer's worth of worries and suppressed emotions.
"It's all going to be okay, Sam."
"I don't want to lose you, Angela."
"You aren't going to, sweetheart. I'm not going anywhere."
Sam pulled back and sniffled, allowing Angela to dry her tears with the edges of her scarf. "I don't want to let Matt go, Angela. I don't want to leave, and go to college, and try to make it work long distance. Our lives are too different...I feel like we'll drift apart."
Angela nodded. "Of course, that's always the fear with a long-distance relationship. And maybe you will, but maybe you won't. But through every heartbreak I've had, I've come to believe that true love always finds a way."
"You believe that still? After what Dad did?"
"Oh Sam," Angela breathed. As tears pooled in her eyes, she said, "Your father is – has always been – a wonderful man. And I'd be lying if I said we hadn't talked about a future together, you know we had. I'd also be lying if I said I wasn't hurt by what happened. I was very hurt. But I understand it, even knowing that he does love me. What he did with her was easy. He didn't have to think about any of it. With me, it's much more complicated."
"You keep using that word, complicated. But what's so complicated about love?"
"There is nothing complicated about love."
"Then why did he do it?"
"Because while love isn't complicated, people are, Sam. And your father is a proud man. He works for me, and he lives with me, we've raised our children together, we've become a family, like you said. From almost the very beginning, I felt that soul connection you described with your father. I couldn't understand it at all, how or why it had happened, but I've known from almost the very beginning that your father is someone special in my life. And somewhere along the way, our feelings have grown much deeper. That makes things very complicated. The stakes are very high, for both of us. We've exercised...well, a lot of restraint over the years because they're so high. And we were able to because there's a very real fear there that if it doesn't work out, we lose our family. We lose our best friend."
"But we were happy as we were, before all this happened," Sam said.
"We were, Sam. We were happier than most traditional families, and most married couples that we know. And I think he might feel pretty certain that his working for me could be a strain on our relationship that could cause it to fail. There's a lot to be afraid of, because he cares so much. And we had gotten to this, well, frankly very weird place, where we were too close to date anyone else, but he was still not confident enough in his own path to date me. So he ran away from it. Ran to something less complicated," Angela finished.
"Just like me," she finished quietly. "I guess it doesn't make a lot of sense why I'd want to stay out here, when I have scholarships and a college path waiting for me at home."
"Oh, it's not hard to understand at all, Samantha," Angela said quietly. "It makes a lot of sense to me actually."
"It does?"
She nodded at Sam with a small smile. "Matt is a wonderful man. I can tell he is. And I can tell he doesn't know how he would fit into a life on the East coast. You're already here. It makes sense to me that you would seek out a life here with him."
"He always says he doesn't think he's good enough for me. He says I deserve better than a ranch hand - a cowboy. And yet, he's so intelligent Angela. He has no idea how smart he really is. And his connection to the animals, and the earth is really beautiful. And he cares about me - he cooks like a dream. He's wonderful."
Angela looked at Sam under raised eyebrows. "He sounds a lot like someone else we know."
Sam nodded. "Except he isn't afraid to tell me how he feels. He doesn't run away from it. And I just wish Dad could see how wonderful he is."
"Samantha, your father would be the first one to tell him that he's worthy of you. He doesn't care about Matt's station in life, and neither do I; he has a strong work ethic, which is admirable. We both only care that he loves you, and treats you well. But if he's so wonderful, he won't want you burying your dreams for him. Right now, he thinks this is your dream. What you've got to decide is, when you're my age, in the middle of your life looking back, will you still be glad you gave up your scholarship to move here? Maybe you will. I just want you to think hard about it, because I've been young and in love once. Young love requires two people to finish their growing up together, side by side. I don't want you to give up your dreams, wake up one day and find that actually...you became a part of him."
Sam shook her head, her eyes wet with tears. "I don't want that, Angela."
Angela took her hands to Sam's shoulders and squeezed them gently, looking her squarely in the eyes. "What is it that you want, then, Sam? That's what you need to let guide you now. The rest will sort itself out."
She met Angela's eyes, and said, "One day, I'd like to look back, and realize I've grown into...you."
