Marriage and Family

Chapter Two

"Mom, don't you think that it's time you went back to dad?" Claire asked as they sat down to eat the dinner that her mother had cooked for them.

"Why?" Sam laughed. "Getting tired of me?"

"No, you know that's not it. I've loved having you here with me and you've been such a great help." Claire assured her mother. She was extremely grateful to her mother for coming to Michigan all the way from Houston to help her.

Her mother had literally dropped everything that she was doing to come help her while Nikolas was in Tokyo. But now Nikolas was coming home tomorrow night, and her mother had yet to say whether or not she was going back to Houston.

She was aware that her mother and father were having problems. It was apparent when she saw them together at Rachel's high school graduation. There was a tension surrounding her parents that she hadn't felt since she was five.

Although she was young, she still remembered from the last time her parents were having marital problems. And she could tell by their body language and the way they spoke to each other that they were again having problems. It broke her heart to see them so unhappy with each other again.

When she was five, she stayed out of it because she wasn't completely sure what was going on. All she really knew was that her mother and father weren't entirely happy with each other.

But now, almost twenty-five years later, she couldn't stay out of it. She knew that her parents loved each other deeply and she wasn't going to stand around and passively let them throw decades of their lives away by divorcing.

While her mother had been staying with her, Claire constantly asked her about her relationship with her dad and always trying to figure out what was really going on. She knew that taking care of her grandfather was a major strain on their relationship and that her father took his death really hard. But there had to be something else causing problems for them too.

"I just…" Claire thought about the best way to say it before continuing. "I just thought that maybe you missed dad. I mean I haven't seen you talk to him much in the past three months. Don't you miss him?"

Don't you miss him? That's such a loaded question. Of course Sam missed Martin. She missed him every moment of every day. But she wasn't ready to talk to him, not about anything important. And she definitely wasn't ready to go home yet. There was too much tension there.

She knew that her daughter was fishing around for information and only wanted to help. It was those two reasons that kept Sam from getting angry. She couldn't get angry with her daughter for simply caring enough to want to help.

But she still wasn't sure how to answer that question. While she missed Martin, she was also angry with him and hurt because of everything that had happened to them lately.

But how was she going to explain that to Claire? How was she supposed to put her daughter in the middle of this? She couldn't do that to Claire. Claire had enough to worry about without adding her parents' marriage to that list. After all, her little girl was going to have children of her own in less than two months.

God that made her feel old. Samantha Spade was going to be a grandmother. It was an exciting feeling, but she also felt sad that her little girl was all grown up now. Pretty soon, she wasn't going to need her mother around as much, and her role in Claire's world would be as the doting grandmother.

"Claire, please don't worry about your father and I." Sam pleaded.

"I can't help it." Claire shook her head. "You guys are too stubborn for your own good sometimes."

"We are not." Sam half-heartedly denied.

"Yes you are." Claire took a drink of water before asking the two questions that she had been working up the courage to ask during her mother's entire stay there with her. "Are you and daddy on another break like you did when I was five? Are you two thinking about getting divorced again?"

Sam was slightly shocked that Claire knew about the break. Of course Claire knew about it though, she was there. But what really shocked her was the fact that Claire seemed to know that, at the time of that break, they were thinking about divorcing.

She had always fooled herself into believing that Claire had no real clue about what was really going on. It was a shock to find out all these years later that she was wrong in assuming that they had done a good job of hiding the truth from their daughter.

She still wasn't sure how to answer that question though. Honestly, she didn't know what they were going to do. Divorce seemed like a coward's way out.

After all, they had made it this far, reaching twenty-seven years of marriage and already starting on their twenty-eighth year. Would they make it to their twenty-eighth anniversary? And would Martin actually remember their anniversary next year?

"Claire, I really don't know what to tell you. I didn't realize you knew…"

"Mom, I may have been young but I wasn't blind or deaf. I could tell that you two weren't happy. When I got older, it wasn't hard to put the pieces together." Claire explained.

"I should have known you'd be able to do that. You always were extremely perceptive." Sam smiled.

"So are you two having problems?" Claire asked again, hoping for an honest answer from her mother. "Because I know that when I talk to dad he sounds miserable."

"He sounds miserable?" Sam asked, surprised by this. She thought that he might be happy without her around. He always sounded like he was doing ok the few times she talked to him.

"Yes." Claire nodded. "He really misses you."

"Good." Sam replied with a snort. "Maybe this time will be good for him."

"Why do you say that?" Claire asked. "Why would it be good for him to miss you? I don't understand."

Sam sighed, trying to weigh in her mind whether or not to tell Claire everything. On one hand, she didn't want to worry her daughter. But, she did want to talk about this with someone. "It would make him stop taking me for granted."

"Has he been taking you for granted?" Claire asked, curious about her parent's problems.

"Yes." Sam nodded.

"How?"

"Well, to start with, he forgot our anniversary." Sam recalled their anniversary, five months ago.

"Hey, I'm home." Martin called as he entered the house and sat his keys on the table by the door. "Sam? You here?"

"In the kitchen." Sam called out, trying to not sound mad. She had cooked his favorite dinner, lit some candles and had soft music playing in the background, thinking they could celebrate their anniversary with a nice, quiet dinner. But after an hour of waiting for him to come home, she had turned off the music, blown out the candles and started eating.

He moved into the kitchen and saw her putting food into plastic containers. "Hey."

"Hey." She replied, not looking at him and instead focusing on putting the remnants of dinner into tuber ware so that they could eat tonight's dinner tomorrow night. "Have you eaten? Because I made your favorite if you're hungry."

"That's ok. I'm not hungry. I went out with Richard and Robert. We had dinner and a few beers." Martin explained, leaning against the kitchen counter.

"Do you have anything else to say to me?" She tried to use a voice that wasn't defensive.

He thought about it for a moment before realizing what she wanted to hear. "I'm sorry I didn't call you and tell you I wasn't going to be here for dinner."

She took the containers and placed them into the refrigerator before she looked over at him. She searched his face intently, hoping to see any sign that he hadn't forgotten what day it was. She didn't want to think that he would forget their anniversary.

It wasn't a special one like twenty-five or thirty. It was just their twenty-seventh anniversary, but in a way that was still special. It meant that their love had survived for twenty-seven years. But in his face she saw nothing to give her any hope that he knew what day it was.

"It's ok." She shrugged, taking the dishes and putting them in the dishwasher. "I'm really tired. I think I'm going to go to bed."

"You sure?" He asked, watching her leave the kitchen. She seemed like she was mad about something and wondered if she was really mad at him for missing dinner. After all, she had made his favorite dinner. He couldn't help but feel bad about missing that. At least she was saving the leftovers though. It would be an easy meal for tomorrow night.

"Yeah." She said, heading upstairs to their room. When she got up there, she took out a small gift wrapped in bright paper from her pocket. She had gotten him a new watch to replace the one he was wearing because it was always slowing down and stopping. After changing into her pajamas, she placed it in the bedside table. She would wait and give it to Martin when he remembered their anniversary, no matter how long it took him.

"Happy anniversary Martin." She whispered as she climbed into the empty bed. Turning on her side so that she wasn't facing the door, she started to cry.

"He actually forgot it?" Claire asked, feeling really bad for her mother. Her wedding anniversary with Nikolas was two weeks ago, and even though Nikolas wasn't even on the same continent as she was, he had still called and sent her flowers. He even promised to take her out to a special dinner when he got back.

She could only imagine how horrible that must have made her mother feel. Her parents had been married for many years. She would have thought that her father would have remembered.

"Yeah." Sam nodded. "He truly forgot it and didn't remember until two days later." She then thought about what happened when he finally remembered.

"Morning Sam." Martin smiled at her when he entered the kitchen.

"Morning." She replied without looking up at him. She instead focused on the newspaper in front of her. It had been two days since their anniversary and he still hadn't made any attempt to show her that he remembered that he had forgotten.

"I…uh, I want to take you out to dinner tonight." He told her nervously as he sat down at the table with her.

"Really?" She asked, not looking up from the paper. "Why?"

He sighed and looked down at his hands, which were lying in his lap. "I think we both know why. I forgot our anniversary."

She had been wondering how long it would take him to realize that. When she woke up this morning she had all but given up hope that he would remember. Closing her eyes, she replied, "yeah you did."

"I want to make it up to you though." He gave her a grin that in the past would have made her heart melt. But she didn't look at him for fear that the grin would have the same impact on her now.

"And you think that taking me out to dinner will make up for missing it?"

"I don't think it will make up for it, but I think it's a start though, right?" He sighed heavily. When he woke up this morning he realized what day it was and then was horrified to realize that he had forgotten their anniversary. Suddenly Sam's cold attitude towards him for the past two days made sense and he immediately started to think of ways to make it up to her.

"Whatever." She shrugged, not wanting to deal with this right now. It hurt to find out that your husband apparently didn't think your wedding day was special enough to remember.

"Don't be this way please." He pleaded, knowing that she was going to remain mad at him.

"Don't be what way?" She asked. "Don't be mad? Don't be hurt? Don't be frustrated?"

"Why didn't you just say something to me about it? Why didn't you remind me when I came in that night?" He asked.

She finally looked up from the paper and looked him in the eyes. "I wanted to see how long it would take you to figure it out for yourself. I didn't say anything to you that night because I still had hope that you would remember."

She folded up the paper and placed it on the table. "It's not like if you forgot my birthday. That would be totally different and I could forgive that because you weren't there when I was born. But you were there when we got married. I thought it was something special that should forever be remembered. I guess you didn't."

"That's not fair." He protested. "I think that day was extremely special but I also think you're blowing this way out of proportion."

"Maybe I am." She relented, throwing her hands up in the air. "But the fact still remains that you forgot."

"I'm sorry Sam. I completely forgot and I'll admit it. It slipped my mind. With everything that's happened lately I…"

"That's no excuse." She told him as she picked up her coffee cup and dumped out the contents in the sink. "Martin, I know that you're having a hard time dealing with your father's death. I know that and I am trying to be supportive of that. But don't use him as an excuse for forgetting our anniversary. Didn't our lives revolve around him enough when he was alive? Does he really have to dictate our lives now that he's dead?"

"Well I'm sorry if my grieving has been hard for you!" Martin exclaimed, getting angry. "But I can't be like you. I can't only grieve him for five minutes before going back to a normal life."

"That's not fair!" Sam yelled. "I grieved for more than five minutes."

"Oh. Sorry." Martin corrected himself. "It was more like ten minutes."

"I'm so tired of having this discussion with you." Sam sighed. "Just forget about dinner. I don't want to be around you right now."

"That's fine!" He exclaimed as she walked out of the kitchen. "Maybe I don't want to be around you right now either."

"That's terrible!" Claire exclaimed. "I can't believe daddy did that! First he forgets your anniversary and then he yells at you and accuses you of not caring that Grandpa Victor is dead? How can he do that after everything you did for Grandpa Victor?"

"I couldn't believe it either." Sam replied. "After everything that's happened, he still…I don't know. Your father and I…we seem to go through cycles where we just can't make it work."

"So is that one of the main reasons why you and daddy aren't on good speaking terms right now? Because he forgot your anniversary?"

"No." Sam shook her head. "Believe it or not, the whole anniversary debacle is just icing on top of the cake. We have bigger problems that that."

"Are you thinking about divorcing dad?" Claire asked in a small voice, almost afraid of the answer.

"No." Sam shook her head. "Well…I guess I shouldn't lie to you. I have thought about it, but I don't think I'd be able to actually go through with it. I think we just need some time alone."

"I hope so." Claire replied, focusing her attention on her plate of food.