Love and Marriage
Chapter Eleven

"Daddy, why do I have to go spend the night with Uncle Danny?" Claire asked, watching her father pack her pajamas and clothes in her overnight bag.

"Your mother and I need to have some time to do some adult things and you'd be really bored if you were here for that." Martin explained to her.

Sam bent down to Claire's level. "I think you'll have much more fun at your Uncle Danny's house with Aunt Michelle and Kyle."

Claire started to frown. "Will Billy be there?"

"Who's Billy?" Martin asked as he closed Claire's overnight bag.

"Billy is the boy at Kyle's birthday party that was mean to her and tripped her. I think he's one of Michelle's nephews." Sam informed him.

"Oh. He's that kid." Martin nodded, understanding everything clearly now.

"Yes." Sam replied before turning her attention back to Claire. "No, Billy won't be there."

Claire smiled. "Great! Then I will be able to have fun!"

Sam laughed at her daughter's excitement. "We'll pick you up tomorrow morning at ten, ok?"

"Ok." Claire nodded.

"And I've told Danny to make sure that he tells you a bedtime story. Knowing Danny, it won't be a very exciting story and you'll fall right to sleep." She teased.

Claire giggled. Hearing the doorbell, she ran to the door. "I'll get it!"

Sam ran after her and opened the door to find Danny there. "Hi."

"Hello. How are things?" He asked, not expecting to get an honest answer from her.

"Fine." Sam replied with a smile. "I, well we, appreciate that you and Michelle are letting Claire stay with you tonight."

"It's no problem. Sometimes grown-ups need some adult time to themselves. Michelle and I usually give Kyle to her sister for the night every once and awhile." Danny sympathized. "Are you ready to go Claire? Cause we're going to go get some pizza for dinner."

"Pizza!" Claire exclaimed happily. "Let's go!"

Sam laughed again and picked up her daughter. "Before you go anywhere, I want a hug and a kiss."

"Ok Mommy." Claire giggled, giving her mother a hug and kiss.

"I want one too." Martin spoke up, taking Claire from Sam and giving his daughter a hug and kiss. Then he placed her back on the ground.

"Bye Mommy! Bye Daddy!" Claire waved.

"Bye Claire!" Martin waved back.

"Be good for Danny and Michelle!" Sam ordered as Danny took Claire's overnight bag and led her out the door.

"I will!" Claire yelled back, skipping and jumping all the way to Danny's car.

Sam closed the door and leaned against it. "Looks like we're alone now." She wasn't sure that Leslie's idea of giving them alone time was a good one. It had been four days since their joint therapy session and four days since they had carried on a conversation about anything not Claire related. Leslie was definitely right about Claire being a safety net for them. But now that their safety net was gone, what did that leave them with?

"Yeah, it looks like it." Martin replied, nervously shoving his hands in his pants pockets. Having alone time with Sam used to be less awkward. After Claire was born, they would give her to Danny or the Tolands so that they could spend some time alone together and they'd spend most of that alone time sequestered in their bedroom. Those were good times.

"Now what?" Sam asked quietly.

He looked at the clock that was nearby. It was almost seven. "How about dinner?"

"Ok." She agreed, going into the kitchen. Opening the refrigerator, she glanced at the different things she could make for dinner. But she really didn't feel like cooking anything and didn't have much of an appetite. "Would it be ok if I just made a frozen pizza?"

"That's fine." Martin nodded in agreement. He wasn't very hungry; dinner was just something for them to do to pass the time and hopefully stimulate some kind of civil conversation between them.

Sam pulled out the frozen pizza and placed it in the oven. After setting the temperature for the oven, she looked over at Martin and saw that he was grabbing himself a beer.

"Want one?" He asked, gesturing towards the beer. He thought that maybe a beer would help calm his nerves.

"Sure. Thanks." She took the beer from him and swallowed a huge gulp of the alcoholic beverage. She was wound up tightly and maybe this would help her relax.

"So…" He tried to think of a topic to bring up that wasn't related to Claire and wouldn't immediately cause them to start fighting but came up empty. So he took another big drink of his beer.

"So…" She echoed his statement, also trying to find a topic that they could talk about without fighting. Taking a huge sip of beer, she reminisced on how much easier this used to be. "The pizza will be ready in about fifteen minutes."

"That's good." He spoke up. "I'm starving." He realized that it wasn't good to lie about being hungry, but he did it anyway just to keep the conversation going. Although something told him that Leslie wouldn't care if they were able to have a civil conversation about frozen pizza. They were supposed to be solving some of their problems.

Neither of them could think of something to say so they stood there in the kitchen, nursing their beers and staring at random objects around the room.