Love and Marriage

Chapter Sixty-Three

The doorbell went off just as soon as Sam plopped down into the couch that evening. After all the hard work of directing the moving men, moving boxes around, and then starting to unpack those boxes, she was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to relax for a while. But there was someone at the door. She had no idea who it could be because she didn't know anyone around here. After debating about whether or not to answer it, she decided to answer the door. What she found was surprising. There was a man, a woman carrying a dish, and then a little girl that looked to be around Claire's age. "Hello?"

"Hi." The woman carrying a dish smiled. "We're your next door neighbors." She pointed to the house on the right of Samantha's. "We're the Sutter's. My name is Julia, this is my husband Kevin, and this is our little girl, Megan."

"Well hello." Sam greeted. "My name's Samantha and my daughter's somewhere in the house." She turned around and yelled for Claire to come to the door.

"We saw you moving in today and decided to stop over and introduce ourselves." Julia explained. "I also brought you over this casserole. I figured that you probably haven't had the time to cook dinner since you're busy unpacking and everything." She handed the dish to Samantha.

Sam hesitantly took the dish. She wasn't used to complete strangers being so nice to her. It was almost unsettling, but her FBI instincts told her that these people weren't a threat. Living in New York for so long had made her slightly paranoid. These were simply nice people. "Thank you very much. You just saved us from having to order pizza again." Julia and Kevin laughed at her joke.

Claire ran up to where her mother was and looked at the people on the doorstep. "Mommy? Who are they?"

"These are the Sutter's." Sam told her daughter, pointing to them. "They are our neighbors."

"Oh." Claire replied. "Hi."

"This is my daughter, Claire." Sam smiled, pointing to Claire.

"It's very nice to meet you Claire." Julia smiled.

"You too." Claire gave her a small smile as she remembered the manners that her mommy had been trying to teach her.

"I'm Julia, this is Kevin, and this is Megan." Julia introduced her family to Claire. "I think you and Megan look to be the same age."

"How old are you?" Claire asked Megan.

"Almost six." Megan answered softly. "And you?"

"Same." Claire nodded. "Do you want to go play dolls?"

Megan looked up at her mother for permission, causing Julia to look at Samantha for permission.

Sam simply smiled at Julia. It looked like Claire already made a new friend and she wasn't going to stand in the way of her daughter's social life. "She's welcome to stay if it's ok with you. In fact, why don't all of you come in for a minute or two? That way we can continue this conversation and not have to keep talking on the doorstep."

"Are you sure?" Kevin asked, watching as Claire and Megan were already running into the house and up to Claire's room.

"Of course." Sam nodded, ushering them inside. "I just hope you don't mind the boxes that are strewn across the house."

"Boxes don't faze us." Kevin joked.

Sam closed the door after them and showed them to the living room, excusing herself to the kitchen so that she could put the casserole into the oven. "It was very nice of you to bring over a casserole. I really appreciate it. I really wasn't looking forward to having pizza again."

"It's no problem. Really." Julia assured her. "We understand that it can difficult to move, especially with a little one. We just moved here ourselves about a year ago from Wisconsin."

Sam sat down in a chair next to the couch, where they were sitting. "Oh really?" Sam was surprised by that statement.

"Yeah. It took us a little while to get used to living here but now we love it." Kevin answered.

"Claire and I just moved here from New York but I'm originally from Kenosha. What part did you live in?" She was surprised to have so much in common with these people. They were from Wisconsin, they were relatively new to the area, and they had a daughter about the same age as Claire.

"Milwaukee." Julia replied. After a few moments, she spoke again. She had noticed a wedding band on Samantha's finger but she had yet to mention a husband. "So is it just you and your daughter living here?"

Kevin gently nudged his wife with his elbow. "Honey, maybe she doesn't want to talk about that."

"I'm sorry." Julia apologized. "I'm just a naturally noisy person. I can't help it. I hope I haven't offended you."

"No," Sam assured her, "it's ok. My husband is still in New York for now. We're kinda taking a short break, but he'll be here as soon as he gets a work transfer."

"What kind of work does he do?" Julia asked, getting nudged by Kevin again. "Sorry."

Sam smiled, for some reason she was feeling compelled to answer this woman's questions. "He's in the FBI. Actually, we both are."

"Oh wow." Julia hadn't expected for her new neighbors to be FBI agents. "So what part of the FBI are you with?"

"I'm with the Missing Person's unit." Sam explained.

"I bet that's an interesting job." Kevin interjected his opinion into the conversation.

"It definitely has its moments." Sam nodded, not wishing to go into any further detail about it. "Do the both of you work?"

"Oh Kevin is the one who works. I stay at home with Megan." Julia replied.

"I work at a firm called Creative Consumer Research." Kevin explained.

"And he's the best market researcher at the top market research firm in all of Texas." Julia added.

"I think she's exaggerating slightly." Kevin laughed.

"It's my right as your wife to exaggerate." Julia shrugged. She looked at the time and saw that they had been taking up too much of Samantha's time. "I guess we should let you get back to unpacking. We just wanted to drop by and say 'welcome to the neighborhood.'"

"Welcome to the neighborhood." Kevin smiled.

"Thanks." Sam smiled back, calling for Claire to come downstairs with Megan.

A few moments later, Claire and Megan came bouncing down the stairs with huge smiles on their faces. They were laughing and joking around like they had known each other their entire lives.

"Looks like Megan and Claire are fast friends." Kevin pointed out.

"Yeah." Sam agreed, happy that Claire was already making a friend. The Sutter's were already heading out the door and, after saying their goodbyes, Sam and Claire were left in the foyer. "So did you and Megan get along well?"

"Yeah!" Claire smiled enthusiastically. "She's not Sarah, but she's cool. Can I go over to her house tomorrow?"

Sam laughed. "We'll see. We still have a lot of boxes to unpack and I might need your help."

"Ok." Claire replied.

"They brought over a casserole. I stuck it in the oven and it should be warm in a few minutes…" She was going to say something else when the phone rang.

Claire ran over to the phone in the living room, expecting it to be her daddy. "Hello?"

"Hey there!" Martin's greeted when he heard his daughter pick up the phone. "How are you?"

"Fine daddy." Claire smiled brightly. "I just made a new friend."

"Already?" Martin asked, surprised. Although they had told her that she would be able to make new friends, he hadn't expected for her to actually do that on the second day in Houston.

"Yeah. She lives next door. Her name's Megan." Claire explained, telling him about how much fun they had playing dolls in her room. "You were right daddy. I can make new friends."

"I'm so glad." Martin told her. "Is your mom busy?"

Claire looked over at her mommy and saw that she was in the kitchen checking on the casserole. "She's fixing dinner."

He didn't really want to interrupt that and decided not to bother her. "Well then I'll just say goodnight to you."

"Goodnight." Claire told him.

"Goodnight. Love you."

"Love you too." Claire answered.

"I'll talk to you tomorrow." He told her before they hung up.

Sam walked back into the living room and saw that Claire had hung up the phone. "That was your father, right?"

"Yeah." Claire nodded.

"Did he not want to talk to me?" She asked, disappointed.

"He asked if you were busy and I told him you were busy with dinner." Claire explained.

Sam sighed. She couldn't really get mad at Claire for not handing her the phone since Claire obviously thought that she was doing her a favor. "Well the next time your father calls and I look busy, hand me the phone anyway, ok?"

"Ok." Claire nodded.

"Let's go eat." Sam led Claire into the dining room, trying to shake off the disappointment she felt about not getting to talk to Martin. Even though she had talked to him for a few minutes this morning, she missed him. She wondered if he missed her too.