A Tutor for Samuel

"It's getting late. I should probably head home. Thank you for doing this for me, Miss...Uh...Linda. I appreciate it."

Sam stuck out his hand, and Linda took it in hers, feeling the power of his grip.

He started to walk away but stopped at the foot of the stairs.

"You know I could fix this railing for you. My grandfather is a carpenter, and he taught me a few things."

"That's nice of you to offer, Sam, but..."

"Seriously. I want to do it. I know my dad is paying you, but I would like to throw this in as my way of saying thanks for helping me."

Linda waffled but finally nodded in agreement.

"If it means that much to you. I accept."

"Great! I'll pick up some wood in the morning and be by in the afternoon. See you then."

Linda followed Sam to the front door watching as he went down the driveway and stopped to wave at the bottom. Once he had passed out of sight, she shut the door throwing the dead-bolt and leaned against the wood.

"When did that kid get so good-looking..."

Almost as soon as the words left her mouth, she felt a wave of guilt roll over her. Linda hadn't been very socially active since her divorce. The pain of her husband's betrayal had taken a long time to abate, and even then, it had proven difficult for her to trust another man. There had been a few dates along the way, but nothing noteworthy, and after a while, she had more or less checked out, letting herself go, not bothering with makeup and dressing to impress. As time had gone by, she had almost convinced herself that she no longer cared about meeting anyone, that her life alone was fulfilling in its own way.

"I don't need a man in here messing things up," she had said to herself more than once.

That was before Sam Morrison had walked through her door.

The minute she had laid eyes on his handsome face, a distant ripple of the woman she used to be had past over her leaving her confused and feeling lonely for the first time in ages.

Shaking her head, she pulled herself away from the door and began to go through the house angrily, turning off the lights.

"Don't know what I'm thinking. I'm just fine. I don't miss having a man in my life. It never leads anywhere good!"

Linda kept telling herself that over and over while she prepared for bed, brushing her teeth, getting into her nightclothes, but even when she slipped under the covers, it was with the realization that she didn't entirely believe it anymore.

The next day, Sam showed up just like he had promised toting a toolbox and with a stack of newly cut wood over one shoulder.

"Is this a good time?" he asked.

Linda was in her usual attire, t-shirt like a tent draped over her sweat pants. This time she had let her hair down, but it fell in a shapeless mass around her face doing nothing to add to the view. She stood with a cup of soup in one hand and a large, very old book in the other.

"Sure...Come on in. I was just reading," she said, stepping out of his way and trying not to get clocked by the long boards as he carefully swung them through the narrow doorway.

"Don't you have a job or something?" Sam asked.

"I teach at a private school, so I'm off this week."

"Lucky you..." said Sam a little bitterly.

"I take it learning astronomy and fixing my deck isn't how you planned to spend spring break?"

"Not really. I was supposed to be in Fort Lauderdale with my friends, but that didn't work out."

"I guess your dad had other plans."

Sam shrugged, "I know it's my fault, but that doesn't make it easier to take."

"Would you like some soup? I can at least offer you that much."

"I wouldn't say no, but let me get started with the job first."

Linda went back to the kitchen and checked her pantry for more chicken soup. It occurred to her that she hadn't been grocery shopping in a while, and she stopped to add some items to the list tacked to the refrigerator before returning to cooking. While the liquid came to a boil, she went looking for another mug to put the hot contents in when it was ready. In no time, she had Sam's lunch ready and went to the door to take it out to him.

Her hand was on the latch when she froze, staring into her backyard.

The day was hot without much of a breeze, and to combat that discomforting situation, Sam had done the logical thing and stripped off his t-shirt. He stood on her back deck now naked from the waist up while he measured a piece of wood. The muscular chest she had placed a hand on the night before was now on full, impressive display, and in spite of her misgivings, Linda couldn't tear her eyes from it. A thin sheen of sweat covered and dampened his manly exterior, his chest hairs gleaming with it. Linda drew in a breath as her body reacted to a man for the first time in more years than she cared to recall. Her nipples tightened almost painfully inside her bra, and a gentle throbbing between her legs reminded her that she could do more with that spot than relieve herself. The cup shook in her hand, sloshing some of the hot contents out onto her skin.

"Shit!" she cried, jumping back and making things worse by throwing even more of the steaming soup onto the floor.

The glass door slid aside, and Sam looked her up and down, adding to her embarrassment.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yes! I'm fine..." she said, lowering her voice, "I just spilled the soup, that's all."

"Did you burn yourself?" he asked, concerned.

"It's nothing. I'm really alright, Sam."

"Let me see."

He came to her, taking the cup of soup and putting it on the floor before lifting her hand in his looking at the red skin where the soup had landed.

"You should put some ice on that," he said, tugging her toward the kitchen.

"That isn't necessary," said Linda, but she didn't resist as he maneuvered her back in front of the sink and got some ice from her freezer tying it in a dishtowel.

"If I had a dime for every time I burned myself as a kid," laughed Sam pressing the towel to the burn.

Linda winced.

"Sorry," said Sam seeing her expression.

"Thanks...I don't think it's all that bad."

Sam moved the towel aside for another look, rubbing his fingers gently across the tender skin, noticing just how soft her hands were in the process.

"I would leave the ice on there for a bit and put some burn cream on it if you have some."

He looked away from her injured hand and into Linda's eyes.

"They really are a gorgeous shade of green," he thought while also noticing how generous her light pink lips were, so very soft looking.

"I can take over," she said quietly, unnerved by the intensity of his gaze, not to mention the proximity of his bare chest.

"Oh...Yeah...Right. I should get back to the railing."

Sam left her in the kitchen, and she went through her drawers looking for some cream to put on her hand before heating the remainder of the soup. This time she was cautious to keep the cup level when she carried it out to him. That, and she made sure not to stare too hard at his body lest she become distracted a second time.

"I only have two hands. Can't afford to burn them both," she thought as he took a sip of the steaming broth.

"Wow! This looks great. I can't believe how much you've accomplished already," she said, admiring how steady and robust the new railing on the stairs was now.

"It's all in the wrists," joked Sam.

"However you managed it. I appreciate the effort."

"I'm going to replace some of the boards in the stairs. They're getting pretty worn out by the weather."

"Okay. I'll be in the house if you need anything."

Linda returned to her reading while Sam worked late into the afternoon finishing the repairs on her deck. He left shortly before dinner time but returned for his astronomy lesson right at eight.

"Punctual. I like that. It shows character," she said after letting him in.

"My mother used to say that," replied Sam.

"I think I may have picked it up from her," said Linda, but noticing the sad look on Sam's face, she quickly changed the subject.

"I think tonight we should move on to the real backbone of astronomy. The study of light."

"Light?"

"All astronomy is the study of light, Sam. We can reach objects in our solar system physically, but for everything else, light is all we have to go on."

"I don't see how you could learn much from just looking at the light coming off an object trillions of miles away."

"There you would be wrong, my young apprentice. We can learn a great deal from measuring that light, from the size and mass of an object to its chemical composition, which can give us an idea of its atmosphere. Why, with the right telescope, computers, and a lot of patience, you could determine the likelihood of life on an object many thousands of light-years away."

"That seems like a stretch."

"Then let me introduce you to a man named Gustav Kirchoff and his contemporary Robert Bunsen."

"Bunsen like the burners in Chemistry class."

"Exactly."

They returned to the couch where they had spent the previous night, and once again, Linda kept Sam enthralled with a subject that had put him quickly to sleep in the past. Her enthusiasm was catching, and he hung on her every word as she led him through a world of discovery.

"So this guy Fraunhofer. He was the one that figured out that the light from our sun had gaps in its spectra?"

"Emission lines. They offer us a chemical signature because all the different elements leave different gaps. Can you fetch the big green book on the top shelf in the dining room? The text is in German, but I can translate it for you."

Sam got up and went in search of the volume dodging around a stack of books near the entryway to the dining area that threatened to collapse under its weight.

"She speaks German, of course, she does," he whispered.

He spotted the book immediately, but even with his height, he had to stand on his toes to each it. When he yanked on it, a box that he couldn't see that was resting on top of it shifted forward and fell at his feet, jarring the lid open and spilling its contents. Sam bent over to pick up the mess, realizing the dusty box contained stacks of old photos. He chose one at random and stared at the couple in it. The woman looked vaguely familiar, and it was with a jolt of surprise that he recognized at last that he was looking at Linda Siler.

It was hard to reconcile the woman in this photo with the one sitting on the couch in the other room. Though dated only ten years before, this twenty-seven-year-old version of Linda was night and day different. In the picture, she was wearing a party dress, perhaps on her way out for a night of fun on the town. The outfit was seriously short and revealed that Linda had some very nice legs, toned and tight in her high heels. Even more shocking, her hair was combed into an attractive halo around her face, and she was wearing makeup that accentuated the beauty of her green eyes. Sam flipped through the photos, even finding one of Linda at the beach in a bikini sporting a truly sweet pair of firm looking breasts, her juicy lips painted red and smiling at the photographer.

"Damn...She could put Jennifer Masterson to shame," mumbled Sam.

"What are you doing?" snapped Linda from behind him, making him drop the box back onto the floor. Her eyes grew wide when she spotted what he had been looking at, and she darted forward, scooping the whole thing against her chest.

"These are private! You shouldn't be looking at them," she said, almost in tears.

"I'm sorry, Linda. The box was on top of the book you wanted, and it just fell and landed open. I didn't mean to pry."

She was in a panic, almost hyperventilating, but slowly she calmed herself down.

"It's...It's alright. I'm sorry I yelled at you. It's just...these photos are from a long time ago, and I should have gotten rid of them. They remind me of some things I would rather forget."

Linda left with the box clutched in her arms so tightly she was crushing it, taking it to her room.

They tried to return to the lesson, but there was a tension in the room now that distracted from their efforts. Sam kept finding himself looking over at Linda and picturing her as she had been, with her lips all ruby red and her body clad in a skin-tight dress.

"Sam? Did you not hear the question? I was asking you to restate Kirchoff's law of thermal radiation."

"Why do you want to get rid of those pictures? They looked like happy times in your life."

Linda blinked at his attempt to answer her question with one of his own.

"They were, but then things changed and...I don't want to talk about this with you, Sam."

"Is the reason you don't want to see those pictures the same reason you quit dressing as you use to?"

Linda looked at the floor, rubbing her hands nervously together. A part of her wanted to answer him, something in his voice that made her want to trust him, but there was so much pain in those memories.

"Maybe I just decided I needed a change."

"Is that the real reason?"

Linda stood up and started to pace too nervous to sit still any more.

"I'm sure you probably don't remember it was so long ago. Your parents knew, but it wasn't like you were in on the conversations. I used to be married. When I moved here, I had just gotten divorced from my husband, Greg. It was a tough time for me. We married right out of college and had been happy. At least, I thought we were happy..."

She stopped, taking a breath, not wanting to cry. There had been too much of that in the past. Months spent crying at the drop of a hat, screaming at her reflection in the mirror, trying to have conversations with people who weren't there, and couldn't have cared less if they had been.

"What happened?" prodded Sam gently.

"I was traveling a lot back in those days working on getting a research grant. I dreamed of getting a job at a prestigious observatory or becoming the female Neal deGrasse Tyson," she explained, trying to diffuse the dark mood in the room with the last but coming up short.

"Anyway...It's an old story, isn't it? The wife is gone, busy, not paying attention to her husband, and he gets lonely, bored..."

"He cheated on you?"

She let out a harsh laugh. A desperate, angry sound made even worse by the expression of anguished disbelief on her face.

"I almost could have taken the cheating. Does that sound crazy? I could have if taken it but not with her."

"Her?"

Linda took another ragged breath, trying to contain her emotions about a time in her life that she had tried to bury long ago, but starting to come to grips with the fact that all she had done was hide from it.

"My sister, Gina."

"Jesus...Your husband cheated on you with your sister?"

"Oh, it wasn't the first time my sister had screwed with my life. Growing up with Gina was like growing up in the shadow of a giant oak tree. Gina was always the pretty one, always the funny one that all the boys fell all over themselves to ask out. I could never compete with her, and she seemed to delight in letting me know it. When I picked a college, I tried to make sure it was one she couldn't get into. Things got better for me there. I came out of my shell, opened up, started dating without worrying that whoever I picked would meet my sister and dump me like a hot potato."

"You met your husband there."

Linda nodded, "Greg, yeah, I met Greg there, and everything was great. We hit it off, dated for two years, and in all that time, he never asked me why I kept him away from my family. I knew eventually if things stayed serious, I would have to introduce him, but I got to live in my happy little world for a while. Anyway, at first, it seemed like everything would be fine. Greg met my family, and Gina did her usual flirting bullshit, but he seemed to be immune to her charms. I thought I had finally met the right guy. The one who loved me and only me."

"I take it the honeymoon didn't last."

"No...it didn't. Like I said, I got busy. I was working on my doctorate, trying to get funding to do research or piggy-back on someone else's grant if I could. I was gone a lot, and Greg was alone. Gina was more than willing to play the part of the shoulder for him to cry on. I don't know exactly when it started, but I know when I found out. It was so cliché, coming home a day early from my trip to surprise my husband and finding him in bed with my sister! How's that for a crappy homecoming?"

Linda sat back down as her inner resolve failed, and she began to cry. Sam felt terrible knowing he had pushed her down this road, and he quickly hunted for a box of tissues, finally finding one in the hallway bathroom and bringing it back on the run.

"I'm so sorry, Linda. I had no idea."

"Why would you? I've never really talked about it. People knew I was divorced, but not why. I just...I couldn't face it, you know, losing to my sister yet again. I just couldn't..."

She sobbed harder, and Sam awkwardly put his hand on her shoulder, not sure what to say to make things better.

"I was so humiliated, and I ran. I got divorced, and I tried to put as much distance between them and me as I could."

"That's when you came here?"

"Yep...Came here, took a teaching job, and tried to make sure no man would ever look at me again."

She leaned back against the couch, blowing her nose loudly.

"Well, there you have it. Not much of a story. It wasn't like I was hiding my former life as a spy or something."

Sam managed a laugh at that, as much to break up the sadness in the room as anything else.

"An astronomer/spy? I'm not sure you would be able to sell that concept to NetFlix."

Linda laughed a little, smiling for the first time since she started her tale.

"I suppose not. Look...I'm sorry, but I think I'm going to need to cut things a little short tonight. We can pick up tomorrow, okay?"

"Sure...No problem," said Sam, still feeling bad about bringing up such a sore subject.

Linda walked him to the door, but he stopped short of leaving.

"I'm sorry that I drug this out of you," he started to say.

"Don't be. I should have started putting this behind me years ago. It felt good to talk to someone about it. I should apologize for falling apart on you."

"I'd say you had a good reason. Anyway, I just wanted to say that I never met your sister, but looking at that woman in those photos made me think your ex-husband was an idiot. You were beautiful back then and at the risk of hurting your feelings more than I already have, I think it's a shame you tried to bury her."

Linda was so caught off guard that she didn't know what to say, but on impulse, she leaned up and kissed Sam on the cheek.

"Thank you. I needed to hear that..." she said quietly.

"It's true," he replied, blushing.

"I'll see you tomorrow."

Sam finally left, and Linda locked the door and turned off the lights heading to her bedroom, where she sat on the bed next to the box Sam had found. She picked up one of the photo's looking at the smiling girl in it and remembering a different time and place, when she had been someone else.

"I miss you," she said to the photograph and started to cry.

FIELD TRIP -

The next day Sam got a message from Linda that she was canceling their lesson for that evening. Immediately, he fell into a funk, thinking she was still upset about the photos and his having forced her into sharing the story of her divorce. All that day, he moped around the house, managing to annoy his dad in the process.

"What's a matter with you? You've been walking around here like you just lost your dog."

"It's nothing. I guess I'm still feeling the blues about not being with my friends."

"I get it, Son, and I am sorry, but from what I hear, you're already showing excellent progress in your studies with Miss Siler. You have to keep the long game in mind and not worry so much about your short term pleasures."