Love and Marriage
Chapter Twenty-Five
The next two days were mildly tense for Sam and Martin as they tried to avoid topics that were prone to making them argue. Even though their talk about children the other night wasn't a full-blown fight, they were still hesitant around each other. Neither wanted to be the one to break their tentative cease-fire.
Sam was in the kitchen, chopping up lettuce and other vegetables for their dinner salad but her mind was not on what she was doing. She kept thinking back to what Martin had said about having children. He was right. Having children with the person you love was supposed to bond you together and be manifestation of your love for each other. She knew that he was right because all she had to do was look at Claire. Claire was the perfect example. Every time she looked at their daughter she could see the love that Martin and her shared.
She didn't have any objections to his beliefs about children; however, she did have an objection to his statement that he loved her more than she loved him. It wasn't a contest and she liked to think that they loved each other equally. Apparently though, he didn't realize just how much he means to her.
She genuinely felt bad that he thought the reason she didn't want more kids was because she didn't love him. That was never the reason and she wasn't sure how he jumped to that conclusion. It wasn't very logical, but then again, she'd jumped to some illogical conclusions lately. So she wasn't a very good candidate to judge him for that.
She could chalk it up to the fact that he's a man and they say stupid things sometimes, but that wasn't the case with him. He was truly insecure about his place in her heart and, while she felt bad about that, she wasn't sure that she had the energy right now to convince him of the stronghold he had over her emotions. His insecurity was just something that he would have to work out with Leslie.
Although the more she thought about his arguments, the angrier she got. She shouldn't have to prove that she loves him by having another child, and they shouldn't base their decision to have another child on Claire's opinions. This was definitely one of the times when he frustrated her. But she didn't want to fight with him; she refused to fight with him if she could help it. They'd just have to have a calm conversation with no yelling or screaming.
Something told her that the time was approaching for them to sit down and have a serious discussion about children. Call it women's intuition or psychic powers, but she knew that it was going to happen soon. She would have to explain to him exactly why she was so reluctant to have children. But how was she going to explain it so that he understood and backed off?
She was so deep in conversation that she didn't notice where her hands were. So when she moved the knife down to chop off a big part of lettuce the knife made contact with her skin, slicing open the inside of her left hand. "Son of a…" She yelled, somehow managing to stop before completing her curse. Within seconds she had dropped the knife and grabbed a nearby towel to wrap around her hand.
Martin had heard her yelling and made his way into the kitchen to see what was going on. He wasn't moving very fast yet because his leg hadn't fully healed yet, but he was moving at a decent pace. "What's wrong?"
She held the towel closer to her hand in an attempt to apply pressure and stop the bleeding. Turning around she tried to smile and show that nothing was wrong. "Nothing."
He knew that she was lying. For one thing, her smile was more like a grimace and secondly, she was holding a towel up to her hand. "Did you cut yourself?" He slowly made his way over to her.
"Maybe just a little." She admitted.
He looked at the kitchen counter and then back at her. A grin formed on his face. "I don't think you should be trusted with knives anymore."
She knew that he was joking and rolled her eyes. "Yeah yeah yeah."
"Here, let me take a look at it." He took her injured hand in his and unwrapped the towel to inspect her cut. The towel was already bloody and he saw that the cut was about an inch long. "It looks pretty deep."
"Yeah." She agreed. "And it hurts like hell."
"I'm not surprised." He nodded. "I don't think you'll need stitches though, assuming we can get the bleeding to stop." He wrapped the towel back around her hand and sandwiched her hands between his as an extra attempt to apply more pressure and get the cut to stop bleeding.
She looked up at him, staring straight into his eyes. "Shouldn't you be resting? You shouldn't be on your leg this much."
"I've been resting all day." He informed her. "Getting up and trying to move around a little is good for my leg. Besides, I heard you yell and I had to make sure you were alright."
"Thanks." She said softly. They were standing very close to each other and she was pinned against the counter. She couldn't move even if she wanted to—and she didn't want to move. Being this close to him and not fighting was rare and she was determined to enjoy it, even if her hand was in a lot of pain. "I appreciate it."
"No problem." He replied. "So you were chopping things?"
"Yeah." She nodded. "I guess I was just distracted and didn't look before I chopped."
"That's dangerous." He advised.
"Well I know that now." She grinned.
He couldn't help but be curious. "What had you so distracted?"
She didn't know whether or not to be honest with him or lie, but eventually chose honesty. "I was thinking about our conversation the other night."
"Oh." He broke their eye contact, instead focusing on the counter behind her. After their talk that night he stayed up for hours, trying to figure out a way to turn back time and change what he said and how he said it. When he was going over what he had said to her, he was surprised that she hadn't started yelling at him and getting really mad. He would have if the roles had been reversed.
He'd been out of line to accuse her of not loving him enough to have more children. While he was sometimes insecure about how much she really did love him, it wasn't right for him to pawn off his own personal issue onto her. He also shouldn't have included Claire into the equation by making it seem like they were ganging up on her.
At the time he thought that he was doing the right thing by being honest with her, but in reality he was just venting his frustrations out at her. She was right that he shouldn't have been so defensive or angry. If he'd stopped and thought about what he was doing he probably would've worded his position differently. "I think I owe you an apology for that."
He did; she knew that he did, and she was glad that he was acknowledging that.
"I shouldn't have said some of those things to you." He looked deep into her eyes, hoping that she would see the sincerity in his eyes. "I'm sorry."
She could tell that he was being sincere and appreciated the apology. "I accept your apology."
He gave her a small smile, which she returned with her own small smile.
"We're gonna need to talk about this some more, preferably when I'm not bleeding." Her hand was already starting to hurt less. "We have a lot of things to discuss about this subject."
"I know." He nodded, trying to figure out if it would be a good idea to kiss her or not. It wasn't exactly the best time for a kiss since she was bleeding and he couldn't help but wonder how she would react to it. But they were standing so close to each other and he eventually caved in, leaning in slowly to place a kiss on her lips.
It was a soft kiss, gentle yet full of love and passion at the same time. It was the kind of kiss that they used to share at least a dozen times a day before they started having problems. It was the kiss that she missed the most. Not wanting it to end, she wrapped her uninjured hand around his neck and pulled in even closer to her so that there was absolutely no space between them.
"Eww!" A voice exclaimed from the doorway.
They both quickly jumped apart from each other and looked at Claire, who was standing in the doorway of the kitchen with her hands covering her eyes.
"Are you guys done yet?" Claire asked, still not opening her eyes.
"Yes." Martin replied, giving Sam a wry smile.
Claire dropped her hands from her eyes. "Good."
"Dinner will be ready soon. Why don't you go wash your hands so that they're nice and clean?" Sam suggested.
"Ok." Claire replied, skipping out of the kitchen.
Once she was gone, they stood there looking at each other and wondering what to do now. The kiss was amazing. They hadn't shared one like that in a very long time. Even the kisses they had shared during their drunken night together weren't like that. Those kisses were demanding and possessive. This was gentle and passionate.
"I um…" He fumbled around, looking for words. Finally he just took hold of her hand and peeled back the towel. "It stopped bleeding."
"Good." She nodded.
"Why don't you go take care of that and I'll finish up dinner?" He suggested.
"You sure you don't mind?" She asked.
"Not at all." He assured her. "Now go."
"Ok." She replied. But as she stood in the doorway of the kitchen she turned around to watch him for a moment. She couldn't help but wonder what would have happened between them if Claire hadn't walked in when she had, but deep inside she knew what would have happened—and this time there would have been no alcohol involved. With a cheesy grin on her face she left to go treat her injury.