Love and Marriage

Chapter Nineteen

Martin was propped up in his hospital bed, trying not to be completely bored. Danny and the rest of the team had stopped by after Sam left and the nurses kept coming in to check on him, but for the most part he was alone and bored. About an hour and a half ago he picked up the playing cards that Sam brought him and started playing solitaire. She loved to play solitaire and do crossword puzzles but he had no idea why she loved it so much—until now. While he was playing game after game of solitaire, he let his mind wander around the many thoughts that were floating around him head. He found it very easy to focus and think while playing the card game and wondered if that's why Sam did it.

He started out thinking about the shooting. It was his fault he got shot; he realized that and took complete responsibility for it. He was so consumed with his thoughts about Sam and how, or if, they would be able to fix their marriage that he was caught off-guard by the man they were chasing. He never even noticed that the guy was holding a gun. It was a good thing that Danny was right behind him and caught the man because he would have been in trouble if he had gotten away.

Getting shot again made him think back to the shootout he was in with Danny. Even though it was years ago, he still had nightmares about it occasionally. He'd wake up in a cold sweat, reliving those moments following the shooting when he was on the pavement with Danny towering over him and trying to stop the bleeding from his wounds. His life could have ended that night; it almost had. But for some reason he lived on, marrying Sam and starting a family—a family that he had hoped would include more children by now. But apparently that wasn't meant to be.

Was their marriage meant to be? He sure hoped so. When he had proposed to her, he was certain that she was the one and only woman in the world that could make him happy for the rest of his life. While he still loved her more than ever, he couldn't help but wonder how they let everything get so bad. They loved each other, right? So how did they go from not being able to keep their hands off of each other to barely being able to stand being in the same room together?

And now what was happening? All of a sudden Sam was being nice to him and confessing her love to him. Of course he wasn't sure that she knew he heard her when she said that to him. She doesn't know that he knows what she knows. Oh boy, that was confusing. They needed to talk about what was happening but he doubted that they would get any time to really talk to each other until he got out of the hospital.

After shuffling the cards, he started dealing to play another game of solitaire to pass the time.

Claire held on to her mommy's hand as they walked out of the elevator at the hospital. "Which room is daddy in?"

"Room 314." Sam replied. "It's farther down the hallway on the left side."

"Do you think he'll like my drawing?" She asked, looking up at her mommy.

"He'll love it." Sam smiled.

"When is he coming home?"

"Probably sometime tomorrow." Sam replied, recalling the conversation that she had with his doctor. They arrived at Martin's room but Sam held her daughter back for a moment and kneeled down to her level. "Now daddy's going to be hooked up to a couple of machines but I don't want you to be scared of that. He's only connected to the machines so that they can make sure that nothing's wrong and their completely harmless. Ok?"

"Ok." Claire nodded, eager to go inside. "Can we go in now? Please?"

She laughed at Claire's enthusiasm and stood up again. Then she held open the door. "Lead the way."

Claire didn't have to be told twice. She burst through the door and ran straight to her daddy's bed. "Daddy!"

Martin put the cards down and smiled. "Hey princess. How are you?"

"Fine." Claire nodded. "Are you ok? Mommy said you got hurt."

Martin looked over at Sam, who was slowly and quietly making her way over to Claire's side. "Mommy was right. I did get hurt, but I'm much better now."

A smile formed on Claire's face. "I'm glad."

Sam stood behind Claire and helped her take off her backpack. "Why don't you show him the picture you drew for him?"

Her face lit up even more as she remembered that. "Oh yeah!" She opened her backpack and pulled out a piece of paper. "This is for you." She handed it over with pride.

Martin took the drawing and took a look at it. It was a drawing of their house and in the front were three people. There was a fourth thing in the picture but he couldn't figure out what it was. "This is wonderful sweetie, thank you."

"You're welcome." Claire replied. She then pointed to the picture. "There's you, there's mommy, that's me and there's our dog."

Martin laughed. "Claire, we don't have a dog."

"I tried to tell her that too." Sam interjected. "But apparently she really wants one badly."

"I do!" Claire nodded enthusiastically. "Can we get a dog? Please, please, please, please please?"

"I don't know." Martin and Sam said at the same time. They shared a smile at the fact that they said the same thing at the same time.

Dejected, Claire's smile faded. She really wanted a dog. But if she couldn't have a dog there was one other thing that would be just as great. The smile returned to her face a moment later. "Then can I have a baby brother or sister?"

The smile that was on Sam's face immediately faded and she stared at the floor. Although she knew that Claire didn't bring up the subject of more children to hurt her, the pain of the miscarriage and the issues that surrounded Martin and her about having more children was once again brought into her mind. She wasn't sure what to say to her daughter. What could she say? I'm sorry honey but mommy doesn't want to have any more children because she's afraid to?

Martin's gaze traveled to Sam as soon as Claire asked for a sibling and he watched her closely. She was obviously thinking about the miscarriage. It was written all over her face. After thinking about a response for a moment he finally came up with something diplomatic to say. "Claire I'm not sure that right now is the right time to be talking about getting either a dog or a new sibling. Maybe we could talk about it another time?"

"I guess so." She sighed. All of her friends had either older or younger brothers and sisters, but she didn't. She felt left out, but maybe there was something she could do change her parents' minds and make them have another baby.

Sam looked up at Martin, grateful for delaying the talk that they were going to have to have with Claire about not getting a baby brother or sister and mouthed a 'thank you' to him.

He saw her mouth 'thank you' to him and simply smiled back. This really wasn't the right time or place to talk about giving Claire a sibling; that wasn't a lie. But now he couldn't help wondering if he could find an ally in Claire. Maybe if they pooled their collective skills they could change Sam's mind about having another baby. It was definitely something to think about.

"So has the doctor told you if he's going to release you tomorrow?" Sam asked, changing the subject.

"Yeah. He'll release me tomorrow morning." Martin replied.

"What time?" Morning wasn't specific enough for her.

"Probably around ten. Why?" He asked.

She looked at him like he was stupid. "So that I can pick you up and take you home."

"Oh." He hadn't expected her to do that. Now that he thought about it, his expectations concerning her and what she would do for him were incredibly low. Maybe that was something that he would have to talk about with Leslie. Leslie. He had completely forgotten about his therapy session today.

"We also have that appointment tomorrow afternoon." Sam reminded him. She used the word appointment and hoped he figured out that it meant their joint therapy session because she didn't want Claire to know that her parents were in therapy. Then she'd have to explain to her what therapy was and why her parents needed it. It would be better for everyone involved if Claire stayed ignorant to her parent's problems.

It took him a moment but he finally figured out that the 'appointment' was their therapy session. "I forgot about my appointment today though."

"I took care of that and explained that you wouldn't be there." Sam told him. She knew that he had an appointment and, since he was in the hospital, she took it upon herself to call Leslie and explain what was going on.

"You did?" He was pleasantly surprised. "Thank you."

"No problem." Sam smiled.

Martin then turned his attention back to his daughter. "So did you have a good time staying with Sarah last night?"

"Yeah!" Claire exclaimed, ready to go into great detail about everything they did.