To be fair, it had seemed like a good idea at the time.
It had all started the night before when he got back from the Smithsonian warehouse to find Amanda had already gone home to Arlington. He'd almost forgotten that Dotty and the boys were due back with everything else that had happened in the last 24 hours. He'd checked the clock before deciding that 11 o'clock was probably not too late to call and hear his wife's voice before he had to go to bed alone. Again.
Amanda picked up on the first ring. "Lee?"
"I hate that you're not here," he'd said without any preamble.
Her deep chuckle came down the line. "Well, I hate that you're not here."
"You're right. I hate that I'm not there too." There was a long silence until he rushed on, "We should talk. I mean, not talk, but you know, talk. Boy, did that came out wrong!" The giggle at the end of the phone line reassured him and he tried again. "What I meant was, we should talk about what's really bothering us so we stop having the dumb fights."
Amanda was quiet for a moment before he heard her murmur, "Yeah, we should. If we have to live like this, we need to figure out the ground rules better."
He was stung by the idea that she thought he wanted rules when they were together, but after a moment's struggle, realized the stupidity of starting a conversation about it this late when they were both tired – and separated by several miles.
"How's Harry?" she asked quietly, changing the subject.
"Alive, thank God. I barely got a chance to check on him before the ambulance took him away, but Billy's last report was that he was going to be okay."
He took a deep breath, reliving those moments just before the piano had come crashing down and he'd been certain he was about to lose another important person in his life.
"You should sleep," came Amanda's soft voice and he realized he'd been silent too long.
"I should, but I'm too wired so I doubt I will for a while. Any letters left over here I should be looking for?" he asked hopefully.
She laughed and he relaxed at the beloved sound. "No, I haven't had time to do another one yet."
"Darn. They're so relaxing," he said in his best sexy voice. "Can't you give me a preview from memory?"
There was a beat while she thought and then he could hear the laugh in her voice as she began to recite, "Dear Penthouse, I just had to write and tell you about the exterminator who showed up to help me with my termite problem. Turns out he'd brought a really extra-special spraying wand."
"Amanda!" He began laughing helplessly and she soon gave up trying to continue when her own giggles overcame her.
"When will I see you tomorrow?" he asked finally when he got his breath back.
"Not sure," she said. "But not at the office. I took the day off because I made the boys promise to spend at least the morning with me before they disappear off to catch up with their friends, but I do have to go collect some stuff from your place at some point. And I definitely need to be home to make dinner – I promised to make their favorites."
He could hear in her voice how happy she was to have Phillip and Jamie back under her roof and sighed inwardly, wishing he was settled there as well, knowing that was the real problem they needed to resolve, not the petty arguments.
"Are you coming for dinner?"
"Of course, wouldn't miss it," he answered immediately, trying to ignore the pang that she'd felt she had to ask.
"Ok, good. The boys want to see you." She gave a quiet sigh. "Mother, on the other hand…"
"What?" Lee was startled. "Your mother doesn't want to see me?"
"Oh, she wants to see you alright. I've been getting the stink eye all evening because she can tell I don't have a big announcement to make." That edge was back in her voice, that scratchy sound that said she wasn't that far off from crying and he knew that was his fault too, not her mother's. The argument the previous morning had been dumb and they'd both tried to laugh it off, but the mood of irritation had been left hanging by the interruption of Harry's phone call. He knew though that it was much too late at night to do anything about that, and she'd gone from laughing to almost-crying in the space of a minute and while he knew it was mostly just late-night exhaustion taking its toll, it was killing him that he wasn't there to comfort her.
He tried to distract her: "Hey, can you find a bit of time to come with me to visit Harry at the hospital tomorrow? You should meet Christina – you'll like her. She bosses her husband around just like someone else I know."
"Yeah, I'd like that. It's nice to think I'm not the only member of the Secret Wives Club – even if I can't tell her that."
He winced as that distraction backfired spectacularly.
"I'm sorry." He really was - he wanted nothing more than to tell the world Amanda was his wife – but if there was ever a terrible time for anyone at the Agency to find out they'd been secretly married for months, it was probably right now, right after the revelation about Harry having done the same, but for years. Lee felt his heart constrict at the sudden horrible vision of being stuck in this loop for years. "We need to talk about that too."
He only realized what that had sounded like when he heard it replay in his head in the complete and utter silence that followed.
"Care to rephrase that?" came the dangerously quiet voice at the other end of the phone line.
"Yes. I mean, no – I mean, yes but not over the phone and not this late at night. Don't do this again, okay?" he pleaded.
"Don't do what again?" Her voice had risen slightly.
"Don't get upset because I said something stupid," he answered, throwing himself on his sword.
The choke of laughter reassured him, but he still didn't like the catch he could hear in the back of her throat.
"Well, goodness knows, you'd think I'd be used to it by now," she said finally.
"Oh, low blow," he teased.
"Oh no, that's a whole other letter," came back the immediate response. Lee released in inner sigh of relief – she couldn't be that upset if she was joking about letters again.
"Okay, Scheherazade, I'll look forward to that. I love you, Mrs. Stetson."
"I love you too."
He hung up and flopped down on the sofa, staring at the ceiling. It seemed like Harry turning out to have a secret wife had really put their marriage under the microscope. He was really happy for Harry but in so many ways, the timing couldn't have been worse. No, he decided, this wasn't Harry's fault – God knew they'd been letting things get to them before he'd ever called.
He could suddenly hear Francine in the car yesterday laughing and imitating Billy: If something's bothering us, we write it down and discuss it and put it behind us.
"Well if it's really worked for them for 27 years, maybe we should give it a try," he said to the empty room. He pulled himself upright and went to the liquor cabinet to pour himself a neat Scotch, then collected a steno pad from the desk and settled back onto the couch, pad resting on his knees. "Well, start with the ones we already know, I guess" he muttered and began to scribble.
1. Reorganizing apartment without telling me
2. Scheduling
3. Living arrangements
4. Making breakfast
He grinned as he added that one, remembering how hard it had made Francine whoop the day before. He knew it looked silly written out like that, but it wasn't like she was going to see the list exactly – he just wanted to list it to remind himself of the more general problem; she needed to mother him less and to accept that there were certain things that weren't going to change, like his lack of appetite in the morning. His grin broadened as he mentally amended that: appetite for food, not my wife.
He leaned back and stared at the ceiling, trying to think if there was anything else he should add. Fair's fair, I should put her stuff down too.
5. Throwing out personal stuff
6. Not telling your mother
That one really gave him pause for thought. Should they tell her mother? It seemed insane that Francine knew and the relative closest to them both didn't. She was making Amanda miserable, even if she didn't know it, with her constant jabs about their relationship. So if she knew they were together, would it be so different if she knew they were married? Except for the part where she never spoke to them again for eloping… He groaned – if they told Dotty about the marriage, they'd have to tell her why they kept it secret and all about their jobs and if they told her, how could they not tell Billy? And if they told Billy, would they have to make it official? Would Francine get in trouble for knowing? He groaned again. How could something as normal and everyday as marrying the woman you love be so complicated?
"How can this be this hard?" he muttered to himself. "I really am the worst husband ever,"
You're really not. Francine's voice floated through his head.
"Glad someone thinks so" he said thoughtfully. "Wish it was my wife." He twirled the pen between his fingers and stared at the list, before idly writing,
7. …
Did he have anything else? He knocked back the Scotch and stared at the paper. He must have been tired and maybe that explained why the Scotch went to his head, but he found himself writing,
7. You use milk chocolate chips in your cookies.
8. Shower singing complaints
He looked at it and started to laugh, then carefully wrote:
9. My uncle likes you better than me
10. Billy likes you better than me.
11. For God's sake, Francine likes you better than me!
By now the silliness had taken over completely and he found himself adding more and more outrageous things, laughing harder and harder as he imagined sharing them with Amanda, until finally he'd filled six pages with complete nonsense before finally writing:
48. You make me love you too much.
He stared at the last page, his head now throbbing with exhaustion, before he carefully flipped the pad closed and rested it on his chest. Before he knew it, he'd drifted off to sleep.
He woke with a start, the phone blaring out across the room. He glanced at his watch as he ran to answer it, seeing to his horror that it was almost 10 – and he was supposed to have been leading the 9:30 meeting to wrap up the debrief on the previous night's activities.
"Hi Billy – no, I'm fine – just overslept. No, just couldn't get to sleep last night. No, I'm on my way. I'll be there in twenty."
He scrambled into a clean shirt, grabbed his car keys and ran out of the apartment – completely forgetting the steno pad that had slipped to the floor.
