Love and Marriage

Chapter Forty-Six

The next morning, the bright rays of sunlight that cascaded into the bedroom woke up Sam. As she opened her eyes and noticed her surroundings, she realized that she had fallen asleep sometime during the night in the chair by the window. She had been sitting there last night waiting for Martin to come home, alternating between bouts of anger and uncontrollable crying. There would be moments where she was worried that there had been some kind of terrible accident and he was hurt. Then there would be moments where she was angry at him for being with Bethany. But the worst moments were the ones where she realized that she didn't think she could stay here anymore and that she had to take that job in Houston. When she looked at their perfectly made bed and the rest of their bedroom and saw that there were no signs of Martin ever coming home, she became angry again.

It was still early for a Saturday and she knew that Claire and Sarah were most likely still asleep since she didn't hear any noise coming from the living room. So she decided to go ahead and take a shower before waking them up and making breakfast. Looking into the mirror, she was glad that Claire hadn't seen her yet. Her face was red and puffy from crying so much and her eyes were completely bloodshot. She looked horrible and felt even worse. Hopefully a shower would help her at least feel human again.

As the water in the shower fell onto her body she tried once again to not over-react about the fact that Martin was out all night with Bethany. After all, Leslie had told them that if they ever felt jealous they needed to repeat one phrase in their mind over and over again until they felt better. So she closed her eyes and thought, he loves me. He wouldn't cheat on me. I have nothing to worry about and shouldn't jump to any conclusions. Opening her eyes again, she realized that thinking those things wasn't helping her any. She'd already repeated that mantra in her head too many times to count last night and it still wasn't helping.

Martin was with Bethany last night, and while she didn't have any real proof that they slept together yet, he was gone the entire night without so much as a phone call. That spoke volumes to her and only helped confirm her assumptions about why he wanted her to leave. He obviously wanted Bethany now and just wanted to get her out of the way so that he could start a new family with Bethany, who would most likely have no objections to having a million kids with him. Bethany would have less emotional baggage than her. Well if he wanted Bethany then he could have her—but he wasn't dragging Claire into that. There was no way she'd let Claire stay here and have to put up with Bethany.

After getting dressed but not really feeling any better, she put her hair up into a messy ponytail as she went downstairs to wake up the girls. They both looked so peaceful while they slept and she hated having to wake them up, but decided that it was time. "Wake up sleepyheads." She greeted in a sweet and calming voice. "It's time to get up."

Claire was the first to get up and she sat up in her sleeping bag. "Do we have to get up?"

"I'm afraid so, unless you don't want breakfast. But I was going to make French toast and bacon…" She knew that dangling her favorite breakfast in front of her daughter would get her up.

Sure enough, Claire jumped out of her sleeping bag. "Oh I want breakfast!"

"What about you Sarah? Do you want breakfast?" Sam asked, turning her attention over to her. "Does French toast and bacon sound good?"

Sarah shook her head and yawned, stretching out in hopes of waking up. "Yes please."

"You girls go get dressed and ready for the day. I'll get started on breakfast." Sam smiled, moving into the kitchen. As she got out the ingredients for breakfast, she looked at the clock again. It was almost nine 'o' clock in the morning and Martin still wasn't home. Was he trying to send her a message? Because if he was, she was receiving it loud and clear.

The phone rang and for a moment she had a little hope that it was Martin with a very good excuse for why he didn't come home. But her hopes were dashed when she answered the phone and heard Danny's voice.

"Hey Sam. How are you?" Danny asked.

"Been better, been worse." She answered honestly. "What's up?"

"I just called to let you know that Kyle's gonna be fine. It was just a stomach virus." Danny explained.

"What?" She asked, surprised by this news. "When was he sick? What happened?"

"Didn't Martin tell you?" Danny asked. He had just assumed that Martin had told her about Kyle getting sick. Maybe he shouldn't have assumed that though since communication wasn't the greatest.

"No." Sam whispered. "He didn't come home last night."

"What do you mean he didn't come home last night?" Danny questioned. "When I left him he was…"

"When did you see him?" Sam asked.

"We went out for awhile after work." Danny explained. "But I had to leave to take Kyle to the ER because he was throwing up a lot and Michelle was freaking out."

"I'm glad that it's just a stomach virus." Sam commented.

"So are we." Danny agreed, debating whether or not to tell Sam about the fact that Bethany was hanging all over Martin at the bar and was supposed to be taking martin home. He couldn't help but wonder what had happened and why Martin hadn't come home. Inwardly he cursed himself for ever agreeing to leave him in the custody of Bethany. He should have known better than that. Now who knows what Martin has gotten himself into.

"Did you happen to see Bethany at the bar when you were there?" Sam finally asked.

"Why would you ask me that?" He questioned.

"Just answer the question please." She commanded, trying not to yell at him.

"Well, actually yes. She was there and she was hanging all over Martin just like she always does." Danny replied. "I had to leave to take care of Kyle and she volunteered to bring Martin back home."

"And you let her?" Sam exclaimed angrily. "You left my husband with a woman that we both know is after him? "

"I'm sorry Sam." Danny apologized. He knew it was a bad idea to leave Martin with Bethany, but he never thought that Martin would stay out the entire night with her.

The anger within her had subsided and she sighed. Danny was not the right person to be directing her anger at. "No, it's not your fault Danny. Martin's made his own decisions."

"You know, you shouldn't just assume that he's spent the night with her." Danny pointed out.

"Then where else has he been all night?" She asked, hoping Danny would have an idea.

"I don't know. Just don't assume anything, ok? Because before I had to leave I think I had him convinced that he shouldn't give up on your marriage."

"You shouldn't have done that Danny." She sighed. "Because I'm beginning to think that maybe Martin was right to suggest we give up. This whole thing hurts too much and is too exhausting."

"No Sam, you can't give up now." Danny encouraged. "You love him, right?"

"Yes." She replied. "It'd be a whole hell of a lot easier if I didn't, but I do."

"And he loves you. Why can't you two just…"

"Look I appreciate the fact that you want to be a good friend and are trying to help us. But the fact remains that I don't think we can fix this anymore." She explained. "So I'm really glad that Kyle will be ok and I'll talk to you later. Ok? Bye." She hung up the phone before he could get in another word and continued to fry the bacon.

Claire and Sarah both ran down the stairs and bounced into the kitchen. "Mommy, where's daddy?"

"He's…at work." Sam lied. Although she tried to never lie to her daughter, in this case lying was a lot better than telling the truth.

"Is he going to be home soon?" Claire asked as she sat down at the kitchen table next to Sarah.

"I'm sure he will be." Sam smiled. She picked up the plates and placed them in front of the girls.

"You're not eating with us?" Claire asked, looking up at her mommy.

"No sweetie, I'm not." She shook her head. "I'm not really that hungry." The truth was that she felt like she could throw up at any time. She reasoned that it had to be nerves. After all, she had no idea where Martin was or what he'd been doing.

She heard the front door opening and the familiar click of his shoes. When he appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, a part of her wanted to run over and give him a big hug and just be grateful that he wasn't hurt. But there was a bigger part of her that just wanted to yell at him and find out exactly what he had done last night—and with whom.

"Hey." He greeted, first looking at Sam and trying to analyze the situation. She looked very mad at him, and he couldn't blame her for that. After all, he was mad at himself too. He then focused on his daughter and Sarah, who were both eating breakfast.

"Daddy!" Claire exclaimed, the sound coming out muffled since she was talking with her mouth full.

"How are you?" He asked, walking over to the table and giving his daughter a kiss on the head. "Did you two have fun last night?"

"Yeah. We watched 'Beauty and the Beast'." Claire explained.

"Sounds like I really missed out on a good time." He smiled. "I'm gonna go take a shower and change clothes. Then I wanna hear all about it."

"Ok." Claire smiled, going back to the conversation she was having with Sarah before he came home.

He looked over at Sam and held her gaze for a moment before heading upstairs.

Sam waited a few moments before deciding that she needed answers. "I'll be right back, ok girls?"

"Ok." They said in unison.

Sam climbed the stairs slowly, dreading the conversation that was going to happen when she reached the bedroom.