Why do you suppose Sam waits decades before telling Sadie he loves her? Why does he finally let her know? Do you think this changes their relationship at all?

Sam knows he loves Sadie and has many opportunities to tell her so. Why do you suppose he waits decades before doing so? Why does he finally let her know? Do you think this changes their relationship at all?

Sam waits so long to tell her because he is self protective and is afraid that Sadie won't reciprocate his love as fully (i.e., romantically) as he would like. Sam needs to mature and come to value the love that they do have as work partners and friends before he can be more open with Sadie. He also needs to work through his jealousy of Marx.

One evidence of Sam's growing maturity and kindness is in the way he creates and then plays the Pioneers game with Sadie. He knows that she will be attracted to the game. When his avatar ends up marrying Sadie's avatar, it's one way of his reaching out to real-life Sadie with kindness and love.

I think he continually tried to protect himself from being hurt.

Sam has gone through a great deal of physical pain. It’s natural that he would fear emotional as well. It’s possible he doesn’t believe his love will be reciprocated and he doesn’t want the pain of rejection

I think Sam always loved Sadie. He went through so much between pain and sadness in his life - I think that made him hesitant to tell her sooner. I feel that he finally grew up and realized that he had to make his love known.

I agree with the other readers that Sam was afraid he’d lose her if he made his feelings known. Also I think a part of him expected her to know this without a declaration, just as Marx knew. Finally I think he didn’t trust Sadie’s emotions toward him. He would always be aware of her community service and have doubts.

A relationship changes when one person tells the other that they love hie/her. Sam feared that their relationship would change and although he wanted to tell her is fear was greater. Also, Sam felt the time was not right and waited and waited for the time to be right, unfortunately that never happened.

Sam has had so much tragedy in his life. He is afraid to be honest with Sadie. Doesn’t want to lose her

I think Sam always loved Sadie. He was afraid to tell her because he believed it would change their relationship. If Sadie rejected him it could have ended their business relationship. Sometimes it is better to just be friends.

I agree with mceacd, there was a trust issue for Sam from when they were young and Sadie had used his friendship as a community project. Also, as mentioned before, Sam didn’t have a health relationship with himself, which makes having a relationship with someone else near impossible. He did a lot of maturing as time went by and in the end was able to be honest with Sadie about his feelings. The fact that he was able to communicate and reciprocate those honest feelings with Sadie at the end of the story was testimony to that.

Sam had so much pain, physical and emotional that he probably was protecting himself. Also I think he didn't feel he could be good enough for her.

The author was very adept at weaving, repelling and bringing back together the four main characters: Sadie, Sam, Marx and Dov. Sadie’s and Sam’s relationship begins with a friendship that evolves into distrust. Then it grows into respect and admiration of skills. Then it changes to jealousy when Sadie feels Sam is getting more credit for the work. Then Sadie and Marx cannot be honest with Sam about their growing relationship. It took the entire story, the loss of Marx, the responsibility of running the business and Pioneers for Sam to really learn how to communicate with Sadie.