Marriage and Family

Chapter Twelve

"What was the argument about?" Leslie asked.

"What else could it possibly be about but his father?" Sam laughed darkly.

"Our plane leaves in five hours and we were lucky enough to get a flight without a layover. We should be back in Houston later tonight." Sam told Martin as she walked around the hotel room and finished packing the rest of their stuff. Claire and Nikolas took Rachel and Sean out to lunch to give Sam some time alone with Martin in hopes of getting him to talk.

She looked over to where he was sitting in the chair. He was holding a newspaper, but she couldn't be sure if he was really reading it or just staring at it. "It's a nice day. Want to go for a walk around Central Park?"

Her question was met with silence. Sighing, she walked over to him and yanked the newspaper out of his hands. But even that didn't get him to talk. All it did was make him glare at her. "Martin, will you please talk to me? You haven't said anything in almost four days and that's not healthy."

He considered her words for a moment but still didn't talk.

"I want to know what you're thinking." She told him. "I want to know what's going on in that head of yours."

He laughed. "I would advise you to rethink that. You don't really want to know what I'm thinking."

While she was ecstatic that he was talking again, she couldn't help but be confused over what he was talking about. "Why wouldn't I want to know what you're thinking?"

"Because you won't like it." He told her.

"I don't care about that. Please just tell me anyway?" She asked, kneeling down next to his chair and placing a hand on his knee. "I know that you're having problems dealing with your father's death. Maybe, if you let me, I can help you."

"You can't help me with this." He shrugged off her attempt to help, standing up and walking over to the window.

"Why don't you let me be the judge of that?" She asked, getting up and following him to the window. "What are you thinking about?"

"Ok." He relented. "If you're really that interested in knowing what I'm thinking, then I'll tell you." He turned to face her. "I'm thinking about how my father's death is all your fault."

"My fault?" She wasn't sure how to react to that. He was blaming her for his father's death? How could he think that? "Excuse me, but how is it my fault?"

"You kept insisting that we go out to dinner." He pointed out. "If we hadn't gone out we would have been there when he had his heart attack and we could have gotten him to the hospital in time."

"But the doctor's said that it was a massive heart attack and they weren't even sure that getting him to the hospital right when it happened would have saved him." Sam reminded him.

"It would have saved him!" Martin yelled. "I could have saved him!"

"I don't think so…" She tried to put her arms around him but he pulled away from her.

"Well I do!" Martin told her as he walked away from her. "If it hadn't been for your selfish need to go out for dinner my father would still be alive right now."

"My selfish need?" She asked in disbelief. "Excuse me but how is wanting to spend a few hours of alone time with my husband selfish?"

She knew that he was just grieving, but that still didn't give him the right to blame this on her. It wasn't like she knew Victor would have a heart attack and chose that night to go so that he would die. No, she wasn't going to take the blame for this. "You have some nerve to blame me for this."

"You probably wanted him to die." Martin continued. "Didn't you?"

"I didn't want your father to die." Sam sighed.

"Yeah you did. Why can't you just admit it?" Martin questioned.

"Because it's not true." Sam told him.

"I find that hard to believe." Martin laughed. "He told me about how you would always make him feel like an afterthought and how you would tell him that you wished he would just die already because you were tired of having him around."

"I never said anything like that." Sam protested. Although sometimes in anger she would think that, she never once told Victor that. He must have told Martin that to cause problems between them.

"Just drop the act. I know that you hated him." Martin told her.

"I didn't…I just…" She didn't know what else to say to him anymore. "Why are believing him over me anyway?"

"Because it makes sense that you hate him." Martin pointed out. "I was even tempted to order an autopsy to make sure that there weren't any traces of poison or anything in his bloodstream."

"You would have had a autopsy done to make sure that I didn't poison his food or something?" She asked, getting more and more angry with him by the minute. "Are you trying to say that you think I could have killed him? That I'm capable of murder?"

"I'm just saying that I had thought about it to make sure." Martin told her. "The way my father talked about you…"

"Look, I'm sorry that your father is gone and that you're hurting. But that gives you no right to take this out on me." She told him, feeling the tears start to form in her eyes. "I have done nothing but support you this whole entire time and if you can't see that, then we have a big problem here."

She looked over at him to see if her words were having any kind of impact on him but he was still looking at her with a scowl.

"I guess we have a big problem then." He told her.

"I guess so." She replied softly, wiping away a few tears that had fallen down her cheeks.

"I never should have listened to you and left him alone." Martin shook his head. "I shouldn't have allowed you to convince me it would be a good idea."

"It's not like I planned this to happen. I didn't know that he would have a heart attack." She defended herself.

"Maybe not, but you were probably praying for it to happen. Right?"

Sam shook her head. "You should know me better than that. I would never pray for someone to die."

"You wanted him out of the house though, right?" Martin questioned. "You wanted him out of your life."

"I…" She didn't want to lie, but there were times when finding a way to get Victor out of her life was the only thought that kept her sane.

"Admit it!" He pressed on. "There's a part of you that is overjoyed that he's dead and gone. You're happy about his death, aren't you?"

"I'm not happy about his death." Sam protested. "But don't expect me to mourn him the way you do. Don't expect me to cry into my pillow at night lamenting the loss of Victor Fitzgerald. He wasn't my father and he wasn't my friend either."

She could see that continuing this conversation any longer would only make things even worse—if that was possible. She had to get out of the room before she either completely fell apart or did something that she would regret later. She went over to the desk and picking up her purse.

"I need to get out of here for a while." Without another word she left the hotel room to go walk around, still unable to believe that he just blamed her for his father's death.

"Oh my." Leslie sighed. "Was he really serious about blaming you?"

"Yeah. He was serious about it." Sam nodded. "We didn't talk to each other in more than short fragments for almost a month after that fight."

"Why did you let it go on that long?" Leslie questioned.

"Well I know that I let it continue because I was afraid of what he'd say next." Sam admitted. "He had already basically blamed me for his father's death. What was next? The only thing that could have hurt me more was if he said that he was leaving, and I didn't want to give him a chance to say that."

"You thought he would leave you?" Leslie asked.

"Yeah." Sam nodded.

"And what about now? Do you still think Martin will leave you?"

"I'd like to think he wouldn't." Sam shrugged.

"But there's still a part of you that thinks it's a possibility?" Leslie guessed.

"Isn't it always a possibility?" Sam chuckled.

"Yes, I suppose it is." Leslie agreed. "But has he shown any signs that he may be thinking about it?"

"I don't know." Sam shrugged. "I've been staying with Claire for the past three months and we haven't talked to each other much. I don't know what he's thinking about."

"Maybe you should find out." Leslie suggested. "I realize you're afraid of finding out that he wants to leave, but not knowing is worse."

"You're probably right." Sam admitted. Before that phone call to Martin where he had told her that he missed her and loved her, she wasn't sure she was going to have a marriage to come home to.

It was odd how one short phone call could install so much hope in her heart, but it did. Maybe she was reading too much into it, but to her it meant that maybe they weren't a hopeless case after all. Maybe there was a way to rebuild again.