Love and Marriage

Chapter Seventy-Six

Sam sat on the couch in their living room. To kill some time, she had turned on the stereo and pressed button on the remote for random play since she had a large cd collection and didn't feel like choosing music right now. She had sent Martin up to tuck Claire in and tell her a bedtime story tonight in an attempt to let him spend some more quality time with his daughter.

She knew that after Claire was asleep he would come looking for her and that was a good thing because they needed to talk. Her fingers nervously tapped the fabric of the couch in the same quick tempo as the song playing as she waited for him.

"Well Claire's asleep now." Martin told her as he entered the room and sat down next to her on the couch. He scooted close to her and looked at the stereo. "Why are you listening to this?"

"I don't know. I put it on random shuffle." Sam explained.

The current song playing ended and a slower, more mellow song started to play. Martin looked over at her, suddenly having a brilliant idea. Well, he considered it brilliant. He got up and extended his hand to her. "Would you care to dance with me?"

She smiled and couldn't help but laugh. "You wanna dance?"

"Only if you do." He told her. "It's hard to slow dance by yourself."

She laughed again. "Do you know that from personal experience?"

He chuckled and grinned. "Perhaps."

"You know, we haven't danced together in…God only knows how long it's been." She pointed out.

"C'mon! It'll be fun." He tried to coerce her.

"I don't doubt that." She told him.

"Then what are you waiting for?" He asked with a huge smile on his face.

That was a good question for him to ask her, and not just about the dance. What was she waiting for? She had so many good things in her life right now. So why was she still dragging her feet and being stubborn about this whole break idea? What was she waiting for?

"I'm not really sure anymore." She finally replied as she grabbed his hand and they moved to a clear patch of carpet in the room that was big enough for them to dance without bumping into furniture or a wall. One of his arms immediately wrapped around her waist, pulling her up against him tightly. His other arm was resting on her back. As they swayed to the music, her arm wrapped around his neck and she buried her head in his shoulder.

"I actually wanted to talk to you about something tonight." He told her after about half of the song had passed.

"So did I." She looked over at him.

"I think I know what you want to talk about."

She was confused. How did he know what she wanted to talk about? She wanted to talk about this baby. Did he already somehow know about it? Or were they talking about two different things again? "You know what I want to talk about?"

"I think so." He nodded. He figured that she wanted to talk about this break and how it was obviously affecting Claire.

"What do I want to talk about?" Sam asked, hoping that he didn't really know what she wanted to talk about.

"Well, I could be wrong, but I know that I want to talk about this break and how it's impacting all of us." He told her.

She sighed in relief. That was another close call. For a moment there she thought that he had somehow found out about the baby. But he just wanted to talk about their break.

"Is that what you wanted to talk about?" He asked.

"Not really." She shook her head. "But why don't we talk about this first? Then we can move on to what I want to talk to you about."

"Ok." He was curious about what she wanted to talk to him about. He had assumed that she would want to talk about their break.

"So what exactly about our break do you want to talk about?" She asked, eager to hear what he had to say about this.

"I…well, the last thing I want to do is pressure you. But I've been thinking about this a lot. I think that we should call off this whole break idea." He waited for her to erupt at him, knowing that it was a possibility. She could get mad at him for suggesting this, although he hoped she didn't.

"You want to call it off?" She was surprised by his boldness and his suggestion, although she shouldn't have been. In all honesty, she knew this was coming ever since she invited him down here. She knew that he would try and lobby for their break to end.

Up until today, she didn't think that she would give it much thought. She thought that she would simply say no, listing her reasons. Then she would sit down with him and try to set up a compromise and a schedule for how much longer the break would end.

Though now, as they continued slow dancing in their living room, she realized that she needed to re-consider ending their break. Seeing him again and watching him with Claire was enough to make her cry. Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones playing tricks on her, but she never wanted to let him go.

Also, she was noticing that Claire was having a lot of trouble adjusting to this separation. While her daughter tried to put on a happy face and hide her true feelings, Sam could see through the mask. After all, Claire's mask was the same one that Sam had been using for her entire life.

"Yeah." He nodded. "I know that you seemed like you wanted this break to last longer than just two weeks, but I'm not sure I can go back to New York. I'm not sure I can go back and live in that empty house and live that empty life. I've tried for two weeks. I've honestly tried. Jack said it would get easier, but it hasn't. If anything it's gotten worse."

He didn't mean to be laying all of this on her right now. Guilting her into letting him move down here by telling her how much he hated living without her and Claire wasn't his plan. But it was spilling out anyway. "I can't sleep at night. I just lie on my side and look at the place where you should be sleeping. I…"

"Martin…" She closed her eyes and put her head down, not wanting to hear any more about how miserable he was in New York. How was she supposed to send him back there if she knew this stuff? She'd have to be a horrible person with no heart or soul to send him back to New York like this.

"I'm sorry." He could see that she was having trouble listening to him. "I didn't mean to upset you. I just…."

"You don't have to apologize." She cut him off. "You're not the one here who should be sorry."

"Sam…" He was going to argue with her and tell her that it was ok, but she cut him off again by placing two fingers on his lips to silence him.

"Let me talk for a moment, ok?" She paused for a moment before continuing. "When I first suggested this break I thought it would be exactly what we needed. I thought that we could get some perspective on our relationship, work on our problems, and figure out exactly what we want out our lives. But I think I should have considered your feelings more than I did because I never realized how hard it would be for you. I didn't realize how hard it would be for all of us."

She gave him a small smile and gently stroked his cheek with the back of her hand. "And I don't think this plan was very well thought out. I mean, Claire's having bad dreams, she's constantly worried about you, and you're miserable. Not to mention that I miss everything about you."

"So what are you saying?" He finally asked as they stopped swaying to the music.

"I don't know." She told him honestly. "I'm conflicted. I don't want to send you back to New York, but…"

"But you don't want me to stay?" He guessed.

"It's not that." She assured him. "I just…I'm scared."

"Of what?" He asked. If he knew what she was afraid of, then maybe he could figure out a way to calm her fears. Maybe he could find a way to help her.

"I'm scared of you staying here." She admitted.

"Why are you scared of that?" That made no sense to him. He had no idea why she would be scared of him staying. He hadn't done anything to make her scared of him, right?

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about." She could see that he was curious about what she was scared of and knew that this was the right time to tell him about the baby. This was her golden opportunity. "There's something I haven't told you. Something's happened since I moved down here that I think you need to know about."

"Samantha, what haven't you told me?" He asked. From the tone of her voice he couldn't tell if this 'something' was a good something or a bad something. That made him anxious. He could only hope that it was something good.