"Speaking of the wash, something of yours came out in ours," said Amanda turning to the basket sitting on the counter.
"Oh no," groaned Lee. "Not another sock?"
"Nope, not a sock." She turned, flicking the blue boxers at him with a grin. "I'd recognize them anywhere!"
"Oh God, they finally showed up. Your mother didn't see them, did she?"
Amanda snorted with laughter and began folding them up carefully, not looking at him. "Oh no, I can guarantee you she didn't see them."
"Thank God," he muttered, taking them from her to jam into the pocket of his cords, missing the blush on his wife's face that might have tipped him off that there was more to the story.
"So, do you think Francine could ever really settle down with Jonathan?" she asked, changing the subject back to their friend.
"I don't know honestly," answered Lee, leaning back on the counter. "She seems to have forgiven him for almost getting her shipped to Russia, but it might just be the flush of renewed love taking over her brain."
"Or renewed libido," remarked Amanda.
"That too," agreed Lee. "I don't know – like I said, he seems like a nice guy, but she's pretty ambitious and very smart – I'm not sure she'll last long with 'nice'."
"'Nice' isn't good enough for her?" asked Amanda, sparkle in her eye.
"Well, it's better than 'okay' at least," he replied instantly. Something about her comment suddenly brought back the memory of the argument they'd had a few days earlier. "Amanda?"
"Mmmm?"
"You don't really think I still have a thing for Francine, do you?"
His wife stared at him in consternation for a moment before her face cleared and she began to laugh. Stepping into his arms, she slid her arms around his waist and squeezed. "No, of course I don't. She told me herself once that she's more like your little sister."
"Well then, what was that whole fight about the other day?" he asked, confusion still evident in his expression.
Amanda had the grace to look a little bit guilty as she explained, "Ah, well, that was a variation of a black belt confuse-athon." Lee lifted a brow and waited for her to go on. "You were so tired and you needed to just stop for a while and get your head together, but you were determined to go back to the office and follow those leads, but even Mother could see you were in no shape to go anywhere and…"
"Amanda!"
She stifled a giggle and finished the story. "You needed distracting and Mother told me that when Daddy needed distracting, she used to either start an argument with him or, well you know."
"You know?" Lee was laughing now. "You can't even say it out loud?"
"Lee! Not when I'm talking about my parents!" She shuddered theatrically as he laughed harder. "Anyway, those were her two suggested distraction techniques and you needed distracting so…"
"So you did both?"
"I did both," she confirmed, lowering her hands to squeeze his buttocks and pull him in closer. "The argument was for you, the sex was for me!"
Lee chuckled and lowered his head to draw her in for a lingering kiss. "I think the sex worked out pretty well for me too. But we should definitely fight more often," he murmured against her lips and felt her smile against his.
"I think we fight plenty already," she answered. "But as long as our arguments always finish that way, I think we'll be fine."
"Wanna fight now?" he asked, lips tracing her cheek, grinning as he heard the throaty laugh huffed out against his hair.
"The boys are going to be home any second," she answered, and as if on cue, the back door swung open and Phillip and Jamie charged in, not paying any attention as their mother and Lee stepped apart.
"Mom! Look what Dad found when he was unpacking the last of his boxes from Africa!"
"What did he find? Please tell me it's nothing venomous!" Amanda walked towards the kitchen table to peer into the shoebox the boys had brought with them.
"No, it's better than that!" said Jamie excitedly. Lee rolled his eyes at the idea of anything venomous being a good thing and followed his wife. Jamie was pulling handfuls of envelopes out of the box and piling them on the table.
"Are those my letters?" asked Amanda in a stunned voice. "He kept them?"
"Yeah – and you wrote tons of stuff about us when we were little!" said Phillip.
"Well, you guys were what he wanted me to tell him about," answered Amanda, absently picking up an envelope and pulling a letter out to peruse.
"Did I really try and walk all the way across Arlington when I was six to visit Grandma and Grandpa at their old house?" asked Phillip, looking up from the box.
Amanda shuddered. "Yes, you did and what's more, you had your brother in a little wagon and by the time I found you, you'd already managed to cross Highland Road!"
Even Lee blenched, thinking of two small boys near such a busy road. He reached into the pile without thinking to pick up a letter, noticing the crease marks that suggested they had been read and re-read. He looked up to see Amanda looking at him, an unreadable expression on her face. Too late, it occurred to him what else might have been said in letters to Joe and he dropped the letter back in the box and jammed his hands in his pockets, noticing the slight look of relief on her face.
"You wrote a lot," he remarked, nodding at the pile.
"Well, we couldn't talk on the phone except in emergencies and he missed the boys so, you know." Amanda's voice trailed off momentarily as she looked at the bundles of letters. "And I was a stay-at-home mom then so I had a bit more time. It was a good way to keep track of everything that was going on with the boys and it kept my mind from turning to mush." She looked up and gave him a smile, tinged with sadness. "It was like having another grownup around to talk to."
Lee noticed that she'd said Joe had missed the boys and hadn't included herself in that. Thank God Joe was such an idiot – I would never have met her if he hadn't been so stupid. He gave an inward laugh as another thought occurred to him. If 'okay' wasn't good enough for Amanda, Francine isn't going to last two seconds with Mr. Nice Guy.
Something of his thought must have gone across his face because Amanda gave him a questioning look. "I was just thinking we're never apart long enough for you to have written me a letter," he covered.
Amanda's lips twitched. "That's what you think." Her eyes were laughing and he knew, as usual, there was a joke he was missing.
He opened his mouth to ask her what she meant by that, but before he could, Jamie began reading out loud from one of the letters and the moment was lost.
"Now you're not going to spend too long at the office on that debrief, are you? Jonathan needs to get ready to go away with Francine and you need sleep – I'm worried about you. You're running on nothing but coffee and adrenaline."
"Worried enough to meet me at my place later?" he asked hopefully
Amanda cast a wistful look back into the house before turning back with a sigh. "As much as I'd like to, I've only just gotten back from helping at Station One, and if the boys are going to go off with Joe again, I should spend time with them... And besides," she went on, hugging him close, "You'll sleep better without me there."
"Wanna bet?" he murmured.
"You know I'm right – you go home tonight, sleep for days like you promised and we'll carve out some 'us time' next week." She took in the expression on his face and sighed. "Lee, please don't make me choose between you and the boys right now because you won't like my answer!"
"I just hate that we have to schedule time to spend together," he groused. "I swear, I saw more of you when we first worked together than I do now."
"Well, it's just so complicated these days with Mother so often away with Curt and having to work around the boys spending time with Joe and Carrie." Amanda leaned back against the doorframe, looking toward the kitchen where they could see Phillip and Jamie at the table, still reading the letters describing their childhood. The childhood Joe missed out on, she thought regretfully.
"You'd think the boys spending time with him would make it easier for us to be alone, not harder," muttered Lee.
"Well, of course it does sometimes, but you know, I was away all last week and then, when I'm barely home, they're off to spend the day helping Joe and Carrie move to the new house, and then the first thing out of their mouths when they get home is that they asked him to take them camping again next weekend." She didn't try to hide the sorrow in her voice at that thought.
"Really Fellas? I just got home, I've barely seen you and you've been with your dad all day"
"Mom! You were only away eight days! Dad's still got eight years to catch up on!"
She stopped for a second and looked up at Lee wistfully. "I guess I just miss the days when I had them all to myself and didn't have to share, you know?"
"But on the bright side, this way, I don't have to share you this weekend," he answered trying to cheer her up. For some reason though, it had the opposite effect, seeming to make her more tense.
"But I want you to share me – I want us to be a family, not a sometimes mom and a sometimes wife! Carrie sees more of them as a family than I do these days!" Her tone had gone from wistful to something Lee thought might be despair.
"Amanda! You know it has to be this way for a little while longer. You can't think I like this any better than you do!" The aggravation in his voice came through a little because he was too tired to mask it.
Amanda struggled to dampen her own annoyance at both his tone and the situation. "No, but I just feel sometimes like I'm getting dragged too many directions at once – be a good agent, be a good mom, be a good wife - don't tell anyone in any part of my life about any other part of my life. It feels like I'm never home and then when I am, either the boys are gone or you are."
"You know this case was personal for me, Amanda – I couldn't just drop it because you'd come home," he said defensively.
"Of course I know that but it doesn't mean I have to like everything about our life! I married you, not Scarecrow!" She caught her breath, obviously struggling with trying not to take it out on him. "Look, I know that this what we agreed to and that we're doing it for a good reason but some days, it would just be nice to be a normal family." Her voice had gotten quieter and quieter as she spoke and Lee gathered her into his arms to comfort her.
"I know, I know, but we'll get through this and be together properly, I promise. And then we will be together – no marriage by correspondence, okay?" He felt her heave a long sigh out against his chest and wondered how long she'd kept all that bottled up – it was so typical of Amanda to pretend everything was fine. He sighed, realizing how much their short-distance marriage was just as bad for her as her long-distance one had been.
Which reminded him: "What did you mean about writing me letters?" he asked.
Amanda looked up, finally smiling a bit again. "I wondered when we'd come back to that."
"Well, you've never written me one. Have you?" He was suddenly uncertain as the mischief sparkled in her eyes.
"Well I haven't exactly written them to you, but I have written them for you," she answered, which was no answer at all as near as Lee could tell.
"You have? So where are they? How come I haven't seen them?"
Amanda's smile grew broader and she poked a finger gently into his chest. "Ah well, you haven't seen them because you haven't found them." She giggled and added, "I guess finding them is just another thing for your To Do list!"
Lee groaned at the idea of the infernal To Do list. "Amanda! Why are you so determined to get my apartment organized? It's nowhere near as bad as it was before you met me. Why can't you be happy with that? I mean, I'm barely ever there anyway these days."
Amanda leaned up to kiss him softly. "Because it's all part of my master plan to get your stuff sorted before you ever try and move it all over here."
"So you really do want me to move over here then?" he grinned, inwardly giddy at the thought.
"That's the plan, right? You want that too, don't you? You said it wouldn't be like this forever!"
Lee kicked himself, knowing that he'd sent her right back down the path of worrying about their family life – or rather the lack of it.
"Of course that's the plan," he answered promptly. "I just didn't know that I didn't get to bring any of my stuff!"
"Oh you can bring your stuff – it's your junk I need you to get rid of!" she laughed.
"What's the difference between stuff and junk exactly?"
"Your Tibetan Ram's Horn is stuff, your 'She' robe was junk."
"Oh, I see." And he did. "But the 'She' robe is long gone," he went on in mock reproach.
"Yes, but I'm sure there's still other things in your apartment you wouldn't want to explain to the boys if they were helping you unpack someday. You don't have letters about them to distract them with."
Lee paled at the thought of some of his souvenirs seen through the boys' eyes. "Gotcha. Stuff, good, junk, really bad." He paused, realizing she'd led him off topic. "So do I or don't I have letters then?"
Amanda reached up and drew him in for a kiss. "That's for me to know and you to find out, Scarecrow."
"Scarecrow?" She never called him that and remembering her comment a few minutes ago, he paused, worrying it meant she was still annoyed.
"Mmm-hmm, you gotta use all those spy skills you're so proud of!" Her dark eyes were dancing in the light of the porch lamp. "Now scoot, and I'll see you tomorrow!" She poked him in the chest lightly. "But not until the afternoon – I want you to sleep, capisce?"
"Uh-oh, when you start breaking out "The Godfather", I know you're serious," he laughed, dropping one last kiss on her lips before turning away.